1859.] The Cardinal's Charge against Keats. dresses, the grand military and musical accompaniments, drums, trumpets, and guns, and the supreme, uplifted figure of the Pontiff over all, which Cardinal Wiseman delights to paint? Yet fond as he thus is of noise and show, he finds the bright' poetry of Keats icy cold,' with 'no moral glow' in it, no virtuous affection,'' no sight of that real Sun, the "intellectual Light" of Dante, without whom nature is dull' to 'observe the most dainty landscape.' His 'affections' are 'cheerless;' and it is no wonder that 'Endymion, the enamoured of the cold moon,' should be their type. It is to be regretted perhaps that Keats, under the combined impulse of a sense of his lofty aims as a youth and of his admiration for some fair object of his affections whose beauty may have been thought to have a look of coldness, took Endymion for the hero of his first considerable effort in poetry; and it is not to be denied that the poem, with all its genius, is as sensuous of its kind and as full of external glitter as the Cardinal's 765 favourite descriptions are in their own way. But Dante's 'intellectual sun' had a side to it, the heat of which was more calculated to wither up the best affections, human and divine, than all the coldest earthly materialities conceivable. Modern emissaries of his creed take care never to mention it. Keats was sorry afterwards that he wrote Endymion; but it is only one of his poems, and a most false impression is left upon the minds of his critic's believers by constituting it the representative of all which his poetry contains. Even Endymion is not without strong evidences of an affectionate and warm-hearted nature to those who are not unwilling to find them; and there is a passage in it which, offensive as it was to the then ruling powers (those of the Regent), and severely visited as it was by the literary portion of their servants, hurt perhaps other readers not so desirous, till they came to it, of finding fault. It is at the beginning of Book the Third, where the poet speaks of personages Who lord it o'er their fellow-men and who, without one redemption Of sanctuary splendour, are still dight But what does the Cardinal say to religious opinions were. 'I am smo- This is the poem, however, in which, I fear, is to be found the secret of Cardinal Wiseman's apparently unaccountable charge of the absence of all moral glow' and 'virtuous emotion' from the pages of his brother enthusiast for natural beauty; for the subject of the poem is the change of one dynasty of creed for another; and this subject, which of itself is not of a nature to bespeak the goodwill of any old and declining church, was calculated to excite the special hatred of one in which incurability and infallibility, whatever it may pretend to the contrary, are secretly felt to be identical. The only church which can live is that which can reform; and nothing whatsoever which needs reform can ultimately live in that. Saturn and Hyperion, the reigning gods in Keats's poem, had grown Now comes the pain of truth, to whom 'tis pain. Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs, may Amen. So be it. So Catholicism pass away, as the poet undoubtedly wished, leaving to reign in its stead a religion with all the good in it of its predecessor, and none of its evil. This consummation all Dr. Wise. man's uses or misuses of English poets will not hinder; and the more cunningly he makes his efforts, the more they will betray themselves, and the sooner the consummation will be hastened. He is a man of great natural abilities, considerable scholarship, and no little taste, when his critical palate is not tempted A FEW WORDS ON THERE is a country in Europe, equal to the greatest in extent of dominion, far exceeding any other in wealth, and in the power that wealth bestows, the declared principle of whose foreign policy is, to let other nations alone. No country apprehends, or affects to apprehend from it any aggressive designs. Power, from of old, is wont to encroach upon the weak, and to quarrel for ascendency with those who are as strong as itself. Not so this nation. It will hold its own, it will not submit to encroachment, but if other nations do not meddle with it, it will not meddle with them. Any attempt it makes to exert influence over them, even by persuasion, is rather in the service of others, than of itself: to mediate in the quarrels which break out between foreign States, to arrest to excess. But disingenuous statements, and gorgeous and luxuriating descriptions, whether of art or nature, are not calculated to remove certain impressions respecting scarlet ladies from the severe English mind; and it would have done no harm to the credit given him, and I dare say justly given him, for consideration towards others when speaking in his own person, if he had spared his fellowreaders of the English poets the necessity of charging him with false accusations of their common benefactors. LEIGH HUNT. NON-INTERVENTION. obstinate civil wars, to reconcile belligerents, to intercede for mild treatment of the vanquished, or, finally, to procure the abandonment of some national crime and scandal to humanity, such as the slave-trade. Not only does this nation desire no benefit to itself at the expense of others, it desires none in which all others do not as freely participate. It makes no treaties stipulating for separate commercial advantages. If the aggressions of barbarians force it to a successful war, and its victorious arms put it in a position to command liberty of trade, whatever it demands for itself it demands for all mankind. The cost of the war is its own; the fruits it shares in fraternal equality with the whole human race. Its own ports and commerce are free as the air and the sky all its neighbours have : 1859.] Ideas of English Foreign Policy on the Continent. full liberty to resort to it, paying either no duties, or, if any, generally a mere equivalent for what is paid by its own citizens; nor does it concern itself though they, on their part, keep all to themselves, and persist in the most jealous and narrow-minded exclusion of its merchants and goods. A nation adopting this policy is a novelty in the world; so much so, it would appear, that many are unable to believe it when they see it. By one of the practical paradoxes which often meet us in human affairs, it is this nation which finds itself, in respect of its foreign policy, held up to obloquy as the type of egoism and selfishness; as a nation which thinks of nothing but of outwitting and out-generalling its neighbours. An enemy, or a selffancied rival who had been distanced in the race, might be conceived to give vent to such an accusation in a moment of ill-temper. But that it should be accepted by lookers-on, and should pass into a popular doctrine, is enough to surprise even those who have best sounded the depths of human prejudice. Such, however, is the estimate of the foreign policy of England most widely current on the Continent. Let us not flatter ourselves that it is merely the dishonest pretence of enemies, or of those who have their own purposes to serve by exciting odium against us, a class including all the Protectionist writers, and the mouthpieces of all the despots and of the Papacy. The more blameless and laudable our policy might be, the more certainly we might count on its being misrepresented and railed at by these worthies. Unfortunately the belief is not confined to those whom they can influence, but is held with all the tenacity of a prejudice, by innumerable persons free from interested bias. So strong a hold has it on their minds, that when an Englishman attempts to remove it, all their habitual politeness does not enable them to disguise their utter unbelief in his disclaimer. They are firmly persuaded that no word is said, nor act done, by English statesmen in reference to foreign affairs, which has not for its 767 motive principle some peculiarly English interest. Any profession of the contrary appears to them too ludicrously transparent an attempt to impose upon them. Those most friendly friendly to us think they make a great concession in admitting that the fault may possibly be less with the English people, than with the English Government and aristocracy. We do not even receive credit from them for following our own interest with a straightforward recognition of honesty as the best policy. They believe that we have always other objects than those we avow; and the most far-fetched and unplausible suggestion of a selfish purpose appears to them better entitled to credence than anything so utterly incredible as our disinterestedness. Thus, to give one instance among many, when we taxed ourselves twenty millions (a prodigious sum in their estimation) to get rid of negro slavery, and, for the same object, perilled, as everybody thought, destroyed, as many thought -the very existence of our West Indian colonies, it was, and still is, believed, that our fine professions were but to delude the world, and that by this self-sacrificing behaviour we were endeavouring to gain some hidden object, which could neither be conceived nor described, in the way of pulling down other nations. The fox who had lost his tail had an intelligible interest in persuading his neighbours to rid themselves of theirs: but we, it is thought by our neighbours, cut off our own magnificent brush, the largest and finest of all, in hopes of reaping some inexplicable advantage from inducing others to do the same. It is foolish attempting to despise all this-persuading ourselves that it is not our fault, and that those who disbelieve us would not believe though one should rise from the dead. Nations, like individuals, ought to suspect some fault in themselves when they find they are generally worse thought of than they think they deserve; and they may well know that they are somehow in fault when almost everybody but themselves thinks them crafty and hypocritical. It is not solely because England has been more suc cessful than other nations in gaining what they are all aiming at, that they think she must be following after it with a more ceaseless and a more undivided chase. This indeed is a powerful predisposing cause, inclining and preparing them for the belief. It is a natural supposition that those who win the prize have striven for it; that superior success must be the fruit of more unremit ting endeavour; and where there is an obvious abstinence from the ordinary arts employed for distancing competitors, and they are distanced nevertheless, people are fond of believing that the means employed must have been arts still more subtle and profound. This preconception makes them look out in all quarters for indications to prop up the selfish explanation of our conduct. If our ordinary course of action does not favour this interpretation, they watch for exceptions to our ordinary course, and regard these as the real index to the purposes within. They moreover accept literally all the habitual expressions by which we represent ourselves as worse than we are; expressions often heard from English statesmen, next to never from those of any other country-partly because Englishmen, beyond all the rest of the human race, are so shy of professing virtues that they will even profess vices instead; and partly because almost all English statesmen, while careless to a degree which no foreigner can credit, respecting the impression they produce on foreigners, commit the obtuse blunder of supposing that low objects are the only ones to which the minds of their nonaristocratic fellow-countrymen are amenable, and that it is always expedient, if not necessary, to place those objects in the foremost rank. All, therefore, who either speak or act in the name of England, are bound by the strongest obligations, both of prudence and of duty, to avoid giving either of these handles for misconstruction: to put a severe restraint upon the mania of professing to act from meaner motives than those by which we are really actuated, and to beware of perversely or capriciously singling out some particular instance in which to act on a worse principle than that by which we are ordinarily guided. Both these salutary cautions our practical statesmen are, at the present time, flagrantly disregarding. We are now in one of those critical moments, which do not occur once in a generation, when the whole turn of European events, and the course of European history for a long time to come, may depend on the conduct and on the estimation of England. At such a moment, it is difficult to say whether by their sins of speech or of action our statesmen are most effectually playing into the hands of our enemies, and giving most colour of justice to injurious misconception of our character and policy as a people. To take the sins of speech first: What is the sort of language held in every oration which, during the present European crisis, any English minister, or almost any considerable public man, addresses to Parliament or to his constituents? The eternal repetition of this shabby refrain-We did not interfere, because no English interest was involved;' We ought not to interfere where no English interest is concerned.' England is thus exhibited as a country whose most distinguished men are not ashamed to profess, as politicians, a rule of action which no one, not utterly base, could endure to be accused of as the maxim by which he guides his private life; not to move a finger for others unless he sees his private advantage in it. There is much to be said for the doctrine that a nation should be willing to assist its neighbours in throwing off oppression and gaining free institutions. Much also may be said by those who maintain that one nation is incompetent to judge and act for another, and that each should be left to help itself, and seek advantage or submit to disadvantage as it can and will. But of all attitudes which a nation can take up on the subject of intervention, the meanest and worst is to profess that it interferes only when it can serve its own objects by it. Every other nation is entitled to say, 'It seems, then, that noninterference is not a matter of principle with you. When you abstain from interference, it is not because you think it wrong. You have no 1859.] Misrepresentation of the National Feeling. objection to interfere, only it must not be for the sake of those you interfere with; they must not suppose that you have any regard for their good. The good of others is not one of the things you care for; but you are willing to meddle, if by meddling you can gain anything for yourselves. Such is the obvious interpretation of the language used. There is scarcely any necessity to say, writing to Englishmen, that this is not what our rulers and politicians really mean. Their language is not a correct exponent of their thoughts. They mean a part only of what they seem to say. They do mean to disclaim interference for the sake of doing good to foreign nations. They are quite sincere and in earnest in repudiating this. But the other half of what their words express, a willingness to meddle if by doing so they can promote any interest of England, they do not mean. The thought they have in their minds, is not the interest of England, but her security. What they would say, is, that they are ready to act when England's safety is threatened, or any of her interests hostilely or unfairly endangered. This is no more than what all nations, sufficiently powerful for their own protection, do, and no one questions their right to do. It is the common right of selfdefence. But if we mean this, why, in Heaven's name, do we take every possible opportunity of saying, instead of this, something exceedingly different? Not self-defence, but aggrandizement, is the sense which foreign listeners put upon our words. Not simply to protect what we have, and that merely against unfair arts, not against fair rivality; but to add to it more and more without limit, is the purpose for which foreigners think we claim the liberty of intermeddling with them and their affairs. If our actions make it impossible for the most prejudiced observer to believe that we aim at or would accept any sort of mercantile monopolies, this has no effect on their minds but to make them think that we have chosen a more cunning way to the same end. It is a generally accredited opinion among Continental politicians, especially those who think themselves 769 particularly knowing, that the very existence of England depends upon the incessant acquisition of new markets for our manufactures; that the chase after these is an affair of life and death to us; and that we are at all times ready to trample on every obligation of public or international morality, when the alternative would be, pausing for a moment in that race. It would be superfluous to point out what profound ignorance and misconception of all the laws of national wealth, and all the facts of England's commercial condition, this opinion presupposes: but such ignorance and misconception are unhappily very general on the Continent; they are but slowly, if perceptibly, giving way before the advance of reason; and for generations, perhaps, to come, we shall be judged under their influence. Is it requiring too much from our practical politicians to wish that they would sometimes bear these things in mind? Does it answer any good purpose to express ourselves as if we did not scruple to profess that which we not merely scruple to do, but the bare idea of doing which never crosses our minds? Why should we abnegate the character we might with truth lay claim to, of being incomparably the most conscientious of all nations in our national acts ? Of all countries which are sufficiently powerful to be capable of being dangerous to their neighbours, we are perhaps the only one whom mere scruples of conscience would suffice to deter from it. We are the only people among whom, by no class whatever of society, is the interest or glory of the nation considered to be any sufficient excuse for an unjust act; the only one which regards with jealousy and suspicion, and a proneness to hostile criticism, precisely those acts of its Government which in other countries are sure to be hailed with applause, those by which territory has been acquired, or political influence extended. Being in reality better than other nations, in at least the negative part of international morality, let us cease, by the language we use, to give ourselves out as worse. But if we ought to be careful of |