Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer Part 4

The race has suffered through its long martyrdom with the horrors of war. One tyrant after another, to aid his accursed ambition or revenge his spite upon a brother monarch, has cursed the unhappy earth and humanity with the terrors of long-continued devastation and bloodshed.

With burning pen has Sh.e.l.ley depicted war in its most hideous aspects, and by most beautiful comparisons has he shown us the sublimity of peace. He points out, that

"War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, The lawyer's jest, the hired a.s.sa.s.sin's trade."

He repudiates the notion that man, if left free, would wantonly heap ruin, vice, or s.h.i.+very, or curse his species with the withering blight of war; and he shows us how

"Kings, priests, and statesmen blast the human flower, Even in its tender bud; their influence darts Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins Of desolate society. The child, Ere he can lisp his mother's sacred name, Swells with the unnatural pride of crime, and lifts His baby sword even in a hero's mood.

This infant arm becomes the bloodiest scourge Of devastated earth: whilst specious names, Learnt in soft childhood's unsuspecting hour, Serve as the sophisms with which manhood dims Bright reason's ray, and sanctifies the sword Upraised to shed a brother's innocent blood."

In other places he seems to prophetically point out what this generation appears to comprehend--the judiciousness of arbitration--which in the future will be the true panacea for this frightful affliction of humanity.

To the current Irish questions Sh.e.l.ley devoted much of his time, and took up his residence in Dublin, to aid the independence of Ireland, which might, under proper treatment, have been made one of the brightest spots in the British Dominions; but the inhabitants of which, owing to centuries of English misrule and oppression, had, in certain parts, fallen into a condition not much superior to that of those of Central Africa. When we contemplate what Ireland was before the Norman and Saxon had set their feet there, the most prejudiced antagonist of the Celtic race cannot but be astonished at the picture presented to us after their usurpation. When Saxondom was in a state of barbarism, this branch of the Celts was civilized. Aldfred, king of the Northumbrian Saxons, has given us the experiences of a Saxon in Ireland over a thousand years ago. In a poem of his own composing, he tells us that he found "n.o.ble, prosperous sages," "learning, wisdom, welcome, and protection," "kings, queens, and royal bards, in every species of poetry well skilled. Happiness, comfort, and pleasure," the people "famed for justice, hospitality, lasting vigor, fame," and "long blooming beauty, hereditary vigor"--and the monarch concludes his really curious account by saying:

"I found in the fair, surfaced Leinster, From Dublin to Slewmargy, Long-living men, health, prosperity, Bravery, hardihood and traffic.

I found from Ara to Gle, In the rich country of Ossory, Sweet fruit, strict jurisdiction, Men of truth, chess-playing.

I found in the great fortress of Meath, Valor, hospitality, and truth, Bravery, purity, and mirth-- The protection of all Ireland.

I found the aged of strict morals, The historians recording truth-- Each good, each benefit that I have sung, In Ireland I have seen."

Such is the statement of King Aldfred, and the Venerable Bede informs us that in Ireland, Saxons and other foreigners were "hospitably received, entertained and educated, furnished with books," etc., all gratuitously.

Up to the middle of the sixteenth century, I find, after careful study in the Leabhar-Gabhala, the Annals of the Four Masters, of Clonmacnoise, of Loch Ce, and other historical records, the same continued apparent prosperity, but after the English took possession of the larger portion of the country, only the records of anarchy, despotism, and misery. Before the Reformation, or so long as the English settlers remained within the pale, Ireland had been as happy as Ultramontanism would allow, but from the accession of Elizabeth and the consequent attempted enforcement of a new theology, against the wishes of the people, a fearful succession of despotism is revealed.

To force Protestantism on the Irish, Catholicism was put down by the most stringent laws--the torture chamber never empty, the scaffold rarely free from executions, the seaports closed, and manufactures forbidden to be exported; "black laws" of a most iniquitous character, exceeding in ingenuity the devices of Tilly or Torquemada, placed on the statute book. The punishment for being a recusant Catholic, or Papist, was death, and it is a known fact that one Protestant commander, Sir William Cole, of Fermanagh, made his soldiers ma.s.sacre in a short period "seven thousand of the vulgar sort," as Borlase informs us. Elsewhere the English behaved in the same manner, and on the authority of Bishop Moran it is a.s.serted that the Puritans of the North shot down Catholics as wild beasts, and made it their business "to imbrue their swords in the hearts' blood of the male children."

Mr. and Mrs. S.C. Hall, in their valuable work on Ireland, state that the possessors of the whole province of Ulster were driven out under pain of mortal punishment from their homes and lands, without roof over their heads, to be pent up in the most barren portion of Connaught, where to pa.s.s a certain boundary line was instant death without trial, and where it was commonly said, "There is not wood enough to hang a man, water enough to drown him, nor earth enough to bury him." One hundred thousand Catholics were sold as slaves to the West Indian and North American planters by the public authority of the Cromwellian government. Such was the way these Christians showed their love for their fellow Christians, and can it be wondered that ever since than there has been one continual succession of uprisings in that most unhappy country? As the sinew of Ireland's people in this country were driven by necessity, fleeing from the terrors of starvation and insufficient existence at home, so were the best of the race in the two previous centuries necessitated to fly to the European continent, where we find them enrolled, for instance, in the service of the King of France, and having revenge on their oppressors on the field of Fontenoy. Elsewhere in every country of Europe do we discover them or their descendants in the front ranks, and at the helm of affairs--in Spain, O'Donnell and Prim; in France, Mac Mahon and Lally Tollendal; in Austria, O'Taafe and Maguire.

When Sh.e.l.ley arrived in Dublin in 1812, he soon found himself joined to the body of the Repeal party, which was endeavoring to obtain back the parliament which had been stolen from them by British gold, less than a quarter of a century before, and to have the Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation Bill made law. He published two remarkable, political pamphlets, in those days the only mode by which a statesman could appeal to the people, in which it may be noticed how well he could write in a popular style, to effectually serve a purpose. They also prove his enthusiasm for the liberty of discussion, and how, although he was always willing to treat on politics alone, he was preoccupied with metaphysical questions which continually crop out.

In the first, which he called _An Address to the Irish People_, and wrote during the first week of his residence in Ireland, he commences by eulogizing the Irish, explains to them that all religions are good which make men good, and shows that, being neither Protestant nor Catholic, he can offer the olive branch to each. He then points out the weak spots in each other's conduct in the past, the necessity of toleration, and the crime of persecution--how different this was to what Christ taught!

He endeavors to prove that arms should not be used--that the French Revolution, although undertaken with the best intentions, ended badly because force was employed. He recommends sobriety, regularity and thought; for the Irish not to appeal to bloodshed, but to agitate determinedly for Catholic emanc.i.p.ation and repeal, which should be ensured through the use of moral persuasion. And concluding with an appeal to Catholic and Protestant to bear with each other, using mildness and benevolence, and to mutually organize a society which

"Shall serve as a bond to its members for the purpose of virtue, happiness, liberty and wisdom by the means of intellectual opposition to grievances,"

he winds up by saying:

"Adieu, my friends! May every sun that s.h.i.+nes on your green island see the annihilation of an abuse, and the birth of an embryon of melioration! Your own hearts--may they become the shrines of purity and freedom, and never may smoke to the Mammon of Unrighteousness ascend from the polluted altar of their devotion."

In a postscript to this pamphlet, he urges

"A plan of amendment and regeneration in the moral and political state of society, on a comprehensive and systematic philanthropy which shall be sure though slow in its projects; and as it is without the rapidity and danger of revolution, so will it be devoid of the time-servingness of temporizing reform;"

and quotes Lafayette:

"A name endeared by its peerless bearer to every lover of the human race, 'For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it to be free; it is sufficient that she wills it.'"

His other Dublin pamphlet, _A Proposal for an a.s.sociation of Philanthropists_, consists of remarks of the same character as the former, but he gives a summary of the French Revolution, which he endeavors to clear from the slurs which had been cast thereon. The information has come down to us through one of Sh.e.l.ley's biographers, that he spoke at several meetings in Dublin. At the one in which he made his first appearance in public he aroused a large a.s.sembly to enthusiasm by his fervid eloquence, and yet, notwithstanding all his efforts, his toleration unfortunately became the great stumbling-block in his attempts on behalf of Ireland, for we learn that at another meeting of patriots:

"So much ill-will against the Protestants was shown, that Sh.e.l.ley was provoked to remark that the Protestants were fellow-Christians and fellow-subjects, and were therefore ent.i.tled to equal rights and equal toleration with the Papists. Of course, he was forthwith interrupted by savage yells. A fierce uproar ensued, and the denouncer of bigotry was compelled to be silent. At the same meeting, and afterward, he was even threatened with personal violence, and the police suggested to him the propriety of quitting the country."

By many it has been said that Sh.e.l.ley was unsuccessful in his self-imposed task, but he was simply before his time, and no wonder, when we remember the condition of Ireland at the time of his visit.

We know to-day that much of what he demanded has been conceded to Ireland by liberal English governments. An alien Church has been disestablished; public education, Catholic emanc.i.p.ation, and a good deal more, has been given. In the late repeal movement, the young Ireland party, the Fenian organization, and the present Home Rule agitation, we find, as Sh.e.l.ley wished, Catholic and Protestant working arm in arm, their colors being an admixture of orange and green--a healthy sign.

Those who dislike this n.o.ble people--for the name is legion of those who are fond of shouting "No Irish need apply"--I would recommend to think calmly over Irish history, to remember the frightful outrages put upon this generous, warm-hearted, and impulsive race for centuries, and read up Froude, Mitch.e.l.l, Goldwin-Smith, McGee, Moran, and other Irish historians.

We know what the Irish are capable of, and that in Ireland, as here, after a generation or two of education, the old theological belief becomes by a gradual process less and less strong.

On September 6th, 1819, a red letter day was added to the English calendar, through the slaughter by cavalry of a number of unarmed men, who were agitating, peaceably, for the rights of labor. This is known to posterity as the "Peterloo Ma.s.sacre," and happened in Manchester, on the site of the present superb Free Trade Hall, erected by the Free Traders to commemorate the ultimate triumph of their cause over the capitalists, who, in the manufacturing districts, were, until a few years back, always aided by the military in putting down strikes or demands for increase of wages.

At the time of this outrage Sh.e.l.ley was in Italy; in consequence of it his attention was concentrated more than previously on the labor question, and he immediately composed half a dozen in spiriting poems, full of the fire of genius; in one of which he calls, with a voice of thunder, to the

I.

"Men of England! wherefore plough For the lords who lay ye low?

Wherefore weave, with toil and care, The rich robes your tyrants wear?

II.

Wherefore feed and clothe and save, From the cradle to the grave, Those ungrateful drones who would Drain your sweat--nay, drink your blood?

III.

Wherefore, bees of England, forge Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, That these stingless drones may spoil The forced produce of your toil?

IV.

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm, Shelter, food, love's gentle balm?

Or what is't ye buy so dear With your pain, and with your fear?

V.

The seed ye sow, another reaps; The wealth ye find another keeps; The robes ye weave, another wears; The arms ye forge, another bears.

VI.

Sow seed--but let no tyrant reap; Find wealth--let no impostor heap; Weave robes--let not the idle wear; Forge arms--in your defence to bear.

VII.

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells; In halls ye deck, another dwells.

Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see The steel ye tempered, glance on ye!

VIII.

With plough and spade, and hoe and loom, Trace your grave, and build your tomb, And weave your winding sheet, till fair England be your sepulchre!"

By far the finest composition brought out by this occasion was the "Masque of Anarchy," a magnificent poem of ninety-one verses. "Anarchy"