The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-29 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

LIFE OF 111AXIIIIILIAN ROBESPIERRE.
One Vol. By G. H. Lewes.
Already known favourably to the realing public as
the author of " Ranthorpe" and of the charming little
trilogy of "Rose, Blanche, and Violet"—those three
carnations (or incarnations of love) on one stalk—Mr.
Lewes has here made a bolder effort in literature.
Ile has, according to the preface, in which he ac-
knowledges the encouragement received from his
friend M. Louis Blanc, endeavoured to convey to the
imagination of Englishmen a correct notion of the
character of Maximilian Robespierre. To those
who are acquainted with the various French
contributions towards the history of the Re-
volution the attempt must appear altogether super-
fluous. It is a long while since the
ghastly recollection of this "political fanatic"
has been rendered familiar through the picturesque
verbosity of Carlyle, through the lucid but rather
refrigerating perio:ls of Thiers, through the distort-
ing lens of the diseased and corrupted intellect of
Michelet, through the rapid articulations of Mignet,
and the prolonged paraphrase of Thibaudeau, and the
serene enthusiasm which envelopes like a golden
atmosphere the eloquent narrative of Lamartine.
The present biographer has added little to what was
already known respecting the Republican of Ter-
rorism, beyond one or two curious letters never
before published, written by the Barrister of Arras
in his youth, or by his sister immediately anterior to
his execution. The work is flawed by its over-
ambitious style, the inequalities of which are
at times absolutely painful. The author, in
striving to be effective, is only spasmodic, and
too frequently mistakes grandiloquence for dignity.
Occasionally, too, he pollutes the purity of his native
tongue by such unnecessary coinages as verbiose,
and fluctuates perpetually between the past and the
present tenses. His book, in regard to composition,
bears an unwholesome resemblance, in fact, to a
memoir we had the calamity to wade through some
months since, by an anonymous idolater of Mirabeau.
Apart from style, however, the life of Robespierre has
little to commend it as affording a correct or a vivid
idea of that remarkable and wicked demagogue. The
impression left on closing the volume would be feeble
beyond description, but that the features of the
terrible Revolutionist had been already carved
out so boldly, clearly, and ineffaceably by such
hands as those of Carlyle, of Thiers, and of
Lamartine. Neither is the estimate of his character,
of his merits and demerits, of his abilities and atroci-
ties, by any means either satisfactory or conclusive. If
the Feeder depended upon Mr. Lewes for acquiring a
correct, or even a positive notion of what should be
thought of Robespierre, he would find himself left in a
grievous state of indecision. Sometimes, indeed, the
biographer seems to be consciously bewildered as to
his decision on any contested point or phase in the
character of the Republican. lie asserts in one sen-
tence what he bluntly denies in the next—see, in
testimony of this his arguments as to the culpa-
bility of Robespierre in causing, or provoking, or
permitting, or not opposing (Mr. Lewes is uncertain
which ought to be the epithet) the wholesale massa-
cres by the guillotine just before the outbreak of
the tremendous and ever- blessed conspiracy of the
Thermidorians. That Robespierre was either a good,
or a great, or a pure, or a noble, or a hold, or a wise,
or a generous, or an eloquent, or a just man is false,
-whatever some of his recent panegyrists may say to
the contrary. To declare that he possessed any one
of those qualities would be to utter a lie against
history. It would be as insolent an outrage upon
common sense as to deny that M. Fruition is a blas-
phemer. And yet, though Robespierre was not a
good man, his private life was not tarnished by one
physical vice ; though he was not a great man, he
outstripped and survived all his illustrious competi-
tors; though he was not a pure man he was
entirely devoid of the depravities of licen-
tiousness, and was unpurchaseable in an age
of venality ; though he was not a man of noble
temperament he never condescended to any act of
personal turpitude ; though not a bold man he met
the horrors of a diabolical and ignominious death
with an unwinking eye and a shrug of the shoulders ;
though he was not a wise man he was a laborious
student of poetry, rhetoric., and philosophy ; though
he was not a generous tr an he was revered by his
familiars and beloved by Eleonora Duplay ; though
he was not an eloquent man he delivered speeches
from the tribune of the Con vention which are master-
pieces of oratory; though lie was rot a just man he
was renowned (and deservedly renowned as far as
freedom from the charge of bribery is concerned)
throughout the whole of that country, over which
he at last exercised a diabolical :dictatorship, as
the incorruptible ! What is undeniable in regard to
Robespierre is this. He was a very wonderful although
a very despicable person. Without being the unnatu-
ral monster which the caricaturists of his memory
have depicted him, his name is yet blackened with
the most sinister crimes, and will remain infamous
until the earth has perished from the face of creation.
Notwithstanding this, he has two claims upon our
admiration, for crime sometimes extorts admiration
by its very sublimity. With a mind naturally nar-
row and a body constitutionally timorous, he soared
to the altitude of greatness, even to a level with his
immortal contemporaries—he dared to do what the
boldest would have shrunk from in dismay. One cause
for our admiration, therefore, in Robespierre was
the force of his will. The other was the depth and
earnestness of his sincerity. Ills will made a man of
mediocre ability the chief of a great nation, and
transformed a coward into the organizer of Terrorism.
His sincerity rendered him what Mr. Lewes happily
terms a " political fanatic." The principal subject
for our abhorrence of that mean, bilious, suspicious,
egotist is the callousness of his nature—that nature
-which ever showed itself to be pitiless. Youth, ge-
nius, beauty, friendship, the venerable locks of age,
and the silken curls of childhood—all fell before his
inexorable cruelty and strewed his path, not with
blossoms, like those scattered before the chariot-
wheels of the ancient conquerors, but with blood and
ashes. Louis XVI. and his Queen, Vergniaud and
his glorious comrades the Girondists, Dantan, whom
he had sworn to defend, and Camille Desmoulins,
who had honoured him with the eulogiums of his gay
and witty imagination, the virtuous Princess, and the
execrable Hebert, old and young, innocent and
guilty, all were abandoned by him indiscriminately
and without one pang of remorse to the bloody axe
of the guillotine. True that the massacres of Sep-
tember were attributable to Denton and his accom-
plices—but Robespierre raised not a- finger to prevent
them. True that his signature is not to every death-
warrant or accusation issued during the Reign of
Terror—but not one life did he save, while every
death may be justly laid to his charge as the origina-
tor of the system of destruction. To rummage
among the dusty records connected with the ca-
reer of this man is little better than dig-
ging amongst ordure and decomposition. It en-
tails upon the biographer the contamination of con-
tact, and causes the result of his exertions to reek
with blood, and to be impregnated with the stench of
rottenness. His pen is used like a lancet to probe
the ulcerated wound of the Revolution. We recoil
from his labours while honouring his perseverance.
Such are the sensations with which we close this
painful compilation, the very binding of which is ap-
propriate, being of the gory hue of vermillion.

PARLOUR LIBRARY OF INSTRUCTION.
Another serial has just been commenced by the en-
terprizing publishers of this periodical succession of
volumes—volumes as extraordinary in merit as they
are unequalled in cheapness. Taking a hint from the
eminent establishment of Mr. Colburn, Messrs. Simms
and Ill'lnf:yre are now issuing a translation from the
already renowned" Autobiography of Chateaubriand"
—that legney of genius to posterity. The Parlour
Library of Instruction is worthy of being circulated
into every comer of the United Kingdom.

lIISTOIRE DE LOUIS NAPOLEON BO-

NAPART_E. Par Amedee Henne qla •
n'
A more pitiable instance of spleen, or a more
shallow attempt at ridicule and misrepresentation
than this biographical book of 131 pages, we never
quirt must henceforth be pronounced
perused. Heppe
the antithesis, or rather the antipodes, to Plutarch—
just as Fitzbail
is generally mentioned as the anti-
podes to Shaksptlre—the first and the last of poets,
the alpha and omega of biographers. The work
was evidently int( coded to be a withering cannonade
against the French.. President—it turns out to be, on
the contrary, the I nost silly, little, amusing discharge
of popguns imaginable. We leave the bubble to
sparkle its brief hour upon the billows of Lethe. Its
own innate fragility and attenuation NI ill lead to its
abrupt disappearal )ce.

FI NE ARTS.
THE DESTRUCTION OF IDOLATRY IN

ENGLAND. By George Patten, A.R.A.
Yesterday we hail the gratification of attending a
private exhibition o f this remarkable painting, at the
residence of the ,distinguished artist, Mr. George
Patten. The picture is of colossal proportions—so
large, indeed, w lien contrasted with the apartment,
that from a dine rent reason, but with equal earnest-
nesii—we " marve lied" (as the Wasp of Twickenham
did when he saw e. :fly embedded in amber) "how the
devil it got there." The epoch selected by Mr. Patten
is 625 years after the crucifixion, when Christianity
was introduced ink these islands. The reign is that
of Edwin the Saxon . The incident is the destruction
of the idols by Coii , the high priest of the idolatrous
religion, who, wit) the fervour of a recent convert,
is suddenly trans Fe rined from a worshipper into an
Iconoclast. In the delineation of this grand
and thrilling occi menu, the painter has enhanced his
reputation by a work of indisputable power, and of a
truly national cl utracter. The figure of Coifi mounted
on the war-horse e of his Sovereign, while his silver
beard

" and hoary hair,
Streams, / Aka ti meteor, on tile troubled air I. ".