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They come!
My ear drinks in the measured tread,
It steals upon me from afar;
They come ! hut not o’er heaps of dead,
Their tread is not the tramp of war.
They come!
But no red carnage tracks their heel,
No blood-stained banners do they wave;
They carry not the murderous steel,
Nor dig at each new step a grave.
They come!
Their numbers wave like ears of com
Before the wind; their ranks increase ;
But theirs are numbers that adorn
The armies of “The Prince of Peace."
Rev. Dr. Aspinal, of Liverpool.
On the 15th of April 1850 we
went abroad for change of air and scene, after the heavy pressure of
desolating bereavement,—first visiting Brussels and Antwerp, and then
remaining for some weeks in Paris, where my father enjoyed meeting
scientific and literary friends, M. de la Rive, the Abb6 Moigno, editor of
Les Mondes, M. Babinet, the Chevalier Neukomm, and others; he was much with
Lord Brougham, who was in Paris that spring, and came to see us almost every
day. Even when he had not time to come in, his quaint friendly visage was
sure to appear at a small opening of the antechamber door, from whence he
poured forth original and striking conversation. But the man to whom my
father’s heart clung most, and who excited his warmest admiration and
sympathy, was Dominique Francois Jean Arago, five years his junior, whose
acquaintance he had first made when in the prime of manhood, at the French
Institute in 1814, and of whose early and chequered career Brewster had
given some notes in his home letters. Since then life had been to the French
astronomer full of changes and vicissitudes. He had acted as Minister of War
and Marine during the short Provisional Government of 1848. He had borne the
white flag at the murderous barricades, where the muskets and cannons of the
infuriated insurgents were pointed against the brave peace-maker, although
he wonderfully escaped further injury than a shock to the nerves of the
eyes, which eventually produced blindness; and he had shed the bitterest
tears of bereavement over the graves of an idolised wife and son. His
appearance was striking. He was tall, though somewhat bent, with hair
grizzled and matted, deeply-sunken eyes, a lofty brow, furrowed more with
sorrow, care, and labour than with age, and features once handsome, then
only grand and massive, expressive at once of expansive intellect and of the
deepest depression. He came to see us one day, when rumours were so rife of
the certainty of emeutes, and the probability of another revolution, that
many of our countrymen had provided passports for instant flight; and even
Lord -, the highest diplomatic authority, had assured my father that there
was no danger “before Saturday.” Arago’s cheerful laugh and “BahI bah! Paris
est assez tranquille,” had a wonderful effect in banishing uneasiness. He
went on to give his opinion as to the state of the people, the false reports
and exaggerations so currently circulated and believed, and the
improbability of further danger and bloodshed, at least for a time, which
subsequent events fully verified. There was something in his voice and look
that gave one confidence.
Some days after we went to the Observatoire—a large and magnificent building
erected by Louis Quatorze, of which M. Arago was director, and in which he
had his home of many years, and much sorrow. There he dwelt, amidst the
instruments and books, which were, alas ! his chief consolation for the
troubles of life. There he lived, with the external heavens brought close to
him by means of the magnificent telescopes of the Observatoire—those starry,
beautiful heavens, which yet he could not see. We were shown into his
library, a large and lofty chamber, decorated with prints and photographs of
contemporary savans of all nations. When the philosopher came in, it was
easy to see the traces of a new and deep depression. That morning his
attached friend and scientific companion, M. Gay-Lussac, the celebrated
chemist, had breathed his last at his dwelling in the Jardin des Plantes,
and it was touching to trace the tender feeling and deep sense of
bereavement, so rare in a man no longer young, and of such absorbing thought
and occupation. He spoke a few words, also very despondingly, of his own
health, and seemed to anticipate that the close of his life was near at
hand. His cheerfulness, however, partially returned, as his old friend
directed the conversation, in a medley of French and English, to their
favourite theories, demonstrations, and discussions. It was indeed a
touching and an interesting sight to watch the communing of those two
remarkable men, so different, yet so full of sympathies, which they never
again were to interchange in life.
Before saying farewell to Arago, we went all through the spacious halls and
beautiful machinery of the Observatoire, emerging upon the top, from whence
we saw the most beautiful view that could be imagined of that strangely
fascinating city, with its spires and faubourgs, Seine and bridges,
stretched out calmly and silently, as if there existed not within it so many
appalling elements of woe, crime, and anarchy. When we were seated in the
carriage, one of the savans, of loyalist tendencies, who had been doing the
honours of the Observatoire, presented us with a small tumbler, royally
ciphered, which had been rescued from the sack of the Tuileries, when we
became aware of having attracted the attention of the French footman and
coachman on the box, who were listening with an unmistakable earnestness of
attention and ferocity of look. The philosopher, with somewhat unphilosophic
haste, changed the subject, and we all immediately found the weather to be a
topic of engrossing interest. We drove away from the Observatoire with a
melancholy feeling that we should never again see its distinguished chef,
which indeed was the case. On our next visit we found that Arago was a
prisoner from a severe attack of illness, and shortly afterwards we took our
final departure from Paris.
Little more than two years after this, Arago lay down to die, and in
connection with that event, a conversation was recorded in scientific annals
which gives at least the consolation of knowing that Arago was possessed of
a praying mother and a faithful friend. An old friend of my father’s, M. de
la Kive, a Swiss philosopher, whom it was a great happiness to meet in Paris
at this time, had been led by the loss of his wife to seek and to find
consolation in revealed religion. Being again in Paris at the time of
Arago’s last illness, M. de la Kive sought to render his illustrious friend
a partaker of the same happiness, although fully understanding the
difficulties of a mind which would only admit what it could perfectly
comprehend. He thus described the interview:—“We conversed upon the marvels
of creation, and the name of God was introduced. This led Arago to complain
of the difficulties which his reason experienced in understanding God.
‘But,’ said I, ‘it is still more difficult not to comprehend God.’ He did
not deny it. ‘Only,’ added he, ‘in this case I abstain, for it is impossible
for me to understand the God of you philosophers.’ ‘It is not with them that
we are dealing,’ replied I, ‘although I believe that true philosophy
necessarily conducts us to belief in God : it is of the God of the Christian
that I wish to speak.’ ‘Ah,’ he exclaimed, ‘He was the God of my mother,
before whom she always experienced so much comfort in kneeling.’
‘Doubtless,’ I answered. He said no more; his heart had spoken; this time he
had understood.”
On the 2d of October 1853 Arago breathed his last, at the age of
sixty-seven. His last words were— Travaillez, travaillez hien; and a new
edition of three volumes of scientific notices, it was, touchingly said, “a
oto praparee par Arago mourant.” The Emperor decreed a public- funeral for
this man, so widely celebrated and so deeply beloved. In spite of a heavy
rain, the procession was followed to the Cemetery of Pere la Chaise or
awaited by crowds in silent and tearful sorrow. As many, as twelve thousand
persons thus “assisted” at the great mourning, proving that the name of
Arago had preserved all its prestige and its immense popularity.
My father was deeply interested in all M. Arago’s works, and reviewed
several of them in the North British. In a notice of Arago’s Life he thus
wrote:—“We have had the good fortune, as we now feel it, of breaking a lance
with Arago, both as a principal and a second, in some of the tournaments of
science. A nobler and more generous opponent we never encountered. When
after a campaign of twenty-five years it became necessary that we should
meet, he prepared the way by a letter of lofty sentiment and warm affection.
Other twenty years have elapsed, in which we have found ourselves in open
combat with him on questions of exciting interest and national feeling ; but
he has ever shown to us the warmest friendship, not only in words which he
has addressed to the world, but in acts of substantial and much valued
kindness. It is therefore with the deepest sorrow that we mourn the double
loss of a friend and of a sage, and that we now express over his tomb our
admiration of his genius, our sympathy with his patriotism, our gratitude
for his kindness, and our affection for his character.”
An evening spent with M. Guizot at this time interested my father
exceedingly. It was strangely solemnising to enter from the guarded yet
threatening streets, the scene of the coup d’etat only a year later, into
the quiet salon of the fallen statesman. He showed us the portrait of his
father, who had perished on a scaffold of the first Revolution, and for whom
Guizot’s mother had worn mourning to her last days. In that happy
intelligent home circle, however, it was difficult to retain long the
remembrance of outside turbulence.
Amidst much sight-seeing in Paris and its neighbourhood, nothing occupied
his attention more than the remarkable electro-chemical telegraph, exhibited
to us by its inventor, Mr. Alexander Bain, upon which M. Leverrier and Dr.
Lardner were experimenting at that time before committees of the Institute
and the National Assembly. Brewster afterwards wrote:—“When we saw in Paris
the whole operation of perforating the message and recording it in blue
lines at the other end of the wire, it seemed more like magic than any
result of mechanism which we have ever seen. The dry steel point, when
tracing its spiral path, actually seems to be depositing blue ink upon the
paper. But it is not merely ingenuity that is the characteristic of Mr.
Bain’s telegraph. It is unlimited in its , quickness, and unerring in its
accuracy ; and it has another advantage, of requiring a battery of much less
power than other forms of the telegraph.” Mr. Bain received a large sum for
his inventions from the Electric Telegraph Company, and he went afterwards
to America, where his form of telegraph is, I believe, still extensively
used, and under some conditions of the atmosphere it works better than the
ordinary kind. The fact of Mr. Bain being a Scotchman did not decrease the
admiration with which the beautiful experiments were watched. Although the
first steps in the invention of the telegraph were taken in France by M. Le
Monnier, and in England by Sir W. Watson about the year 1747, yet the idea
of its practical application to the transmission of messages was undoubtedly
first suggested by an anonymous correspondent of the Scots Magazine, dated
Renfrew, Feb. 1, 1753, signed C. M., and entitled “An Expeditious Method of
conveying Intelligence.’5 After a good deal of correspondence on the
subject, Sir David Brewster gave up all hope of discovering the name of the
inventor, and it was not till 1859 that he had the great pleasure of solving
the mystery, in the following manner: he “received from Mr. Loudon of
Port-Glasgow a letter, dated 31st Oct. 1859, stating that while reading the
article in the North British Review his attention was arrested by the letter
of C. M., and having mentioned the fact to Mr. Forman, a friend then living
with him, he told him that he could solve the mystery regarding these
initials. Mr. Forman recollects distinctly of having read a letter, dated
1750, and addressed by his grandfather, a farmer near Stirling, to Miss
Margaret Wins-gate, residing at Craigengilt, near Denny (to whom he was
subsequently married), referring to a gentleman in Renfrew of the name of
Charles Morrison, who transmitted messages along wires by means of
electricity, and who was a native of Greenock, and bred a surgeon. Mr.
Forman also states that he was connected with the tobacco trade in
Glasgow—that he was regarded by the people in Renfrew as a sort of wizard,
and that he was obliged, or found it convenient, to leave Renfrew and settle
in Virginia, where he died. Mr. Forman also recollects of reading a letter
in the handwriting of Charles Morrison, addressed to Mr. Forman, his
grandfather, and dated 25th Sept. 1752, giving an account of his
experiments, and stating that he had sent an account of them to Sir Hans
Sloane, the President of the Royal Society of London, who had encouraged him
to perfect his experiments, and to whom he had promised to publish an
account of what he had done. In this letter Mr. Morrison stated that as he
was likely to be ridiculed by many of his. acquaintances, he would publish
his paper in the Scots Magazine only with his initials."
After a week or two in London, where we made the acquaintance of Frederica
Bremer, whose kindly, homely simplicity my father much admired, we came
northward, paying a visit en route to Mr. and Mrs. Fox Talbot in their
lovely summer residence on the banks of Windermere, where the two
philosophers had much pleasant intercourse over photography and other
scientific pursuits, rendered doubly interesting by the beauty of the
scenery.
The twentieth meeting of the British Association took place for the second
time in Edinburgh, July 23d of this year, and Sir David Brewster was the
President. His opening address was carefully prepared, as all his public
appearances were, and was published separately. True to his persistent
energy of aim, whatever others might do, he never forgot the original
objects of this Association, which he again brought forward prominently. He
spoke as follows:—“It has always been one of the leading objects of the
British Association, and it is now the only one of them which has not been
wholly accomplished, 'to obtain a more general attention to the objects of
science, and a removal of any disadvantages of a public kind which impede
its progress.’ Although this object is not very definitely expressed, yet
Mr. Harcourt, in moving its adoption, included under it the revision of the
law of patents, and the direct national encouragement of science, —two
subjects to which I shall briefly direct your attention. In 1831, when the
Association commenced its labours, the patent-laws were a blot on the
legislation of Great Britain; and though some of their more obnoxious
provisions have since that time been modified or removed, they are a blot
still, less deep in its dye, but equally a stain upon the character of the
nation. The protection which is given by statute to every other property in
literature and the fine arts, is not accorded to property in scientific
inventions and discoveries. A man of genius completes an invention, and,
after incurring great expense, and spending years of anxiety and labour, he
is ready to give the benefit of it to the public. Perhaps it is an invention
to save life—the lifeboat; to shorten space and lengthen time—the railway;
to guide the commerce of the world through the trackless ocean—the mariner’s
compass; to extend the industry, increase the power, and fill the coffers of
the State—the steam-engine; to civilise our species, to raise it from the
depths of ignorance and crime to knowledge and to virtue —the
printing-press. But, whatever it may be, a grateful country has granted to
the inventor the sole benefit of its use for fourteen years. That which the
statute freely gives, however, law and custom as freely take away, or render
void. Fees, varying from £200 to £500, are demanded from the inventor; and
the gift, thus so highly estimated by the giver, bears the great seal of
England. The inventor must now describe his invention with legal precision.
If he errs in the slightest point—if his description is not sufficiently
intelligible— if the smallest portion of his invention has been used
before—or if he has incautiously allowed his secret to be made known to two
individuals, or even to one—his patent will be invaded by remorseless
pirates, who are ever on the watch for insecure inventions, and he will be
driven into a court of law, where an adverse decision will be the ruin of
his family and his fortunes. Impoverished by official exactions, or ruined
by legal costs, the hapless inventor, if he escapes the asylum or the
workhouse, is obliged to seek, in some foreign land, the just reward of his
industry and genius. Should a patent escape unscathed from the fiery ordeal
through which it has to pass, it often happens that the patentee has not
been remunerated during the fourteen years of his term. In this case, the
State is willing to extend his right for five or seven years more ; but he
can obtain this extension only by the expensive and uncertain process of an
Act of Parliament—a boon which is seldom asked, and which, through rival
influence, has often been withheld. Such was the patent-law twenty years
ago; but since that time it has received some important ameliorations; and
though the British Association did not interfere as a body, yet some of its
members applied energetically on the subject to some of the more influential
individuals in Lord Grey’s Government, and the result of this was, two Acts
of Parliament, passed in 1835 and 1839, entitled, *Acts for Amending the Law
touching Letters Patent for Inventions .....
“The other object contemplated by the British Association—the organisation
of Science as a national institution—is one of a higher order, and not
limited to individual or even to English interests. It concerns the
civilised world :—not confined to time, it concerns eternity. While the
tongue of the Almighty, as Kepler expresses it, is speaking to us in His
Word, His finger is writing to us in His works; and to acquire a knowledge
of these works is an essential portion of the great duty of man. Truth
secular cannot be separated from truth divine ; and if a priesthood has in
all ages been ordained to teach and exemplify the one, and to maintain, in
ages of darkness and corruption, the vestal fire upon the sacred altar,
shall not an intellectual priesthood be organised to develop the glorious
truths which time and space embosom—to cast the glance of reason into the
dark interior of our globe, teeming with what was once life—to make the dull
eye of man sensitive to the planet which twinkles from afar, as well as to
the luminary which shines from above—and to incorporate with our inner life
those wonders of the external world which appeal with equal power to the
affections and to the reason of immortal natures If the God of Love is
most appropriately worshipped in the Christian Temple, the God of Nature may
be equally honoured in the Temple of Science. Even from its lofty minarets
the philosopher may summon the faithful to prayer ; and the priest and the
sage may exchange altars without the compromise of faith or of knowledge.”
The subject of the patent-laws had long occupied the attention of Brewster,
and Lord Brougham was the champion of this long-contested battle. In 1835
Lord Brougham’s first bill to give relief to the sorely oppressed inventors
of England was passed by a considerable majority in the House of Lords, but
only by a small majority in the House of Commons. Much was still needed, and
after long efforts the amalgamated bill of Lord Brougham and Lord Granville
was passed in 1852. So many alterations were made in Committee that the Act
was still regarded only as a mere instalment of reform.
In 1865 Sir David Brewster wrote upon this subject:—“The injustice of the
patent-law has been so fully admitted, that various Acts of Parliament have
been passed in favour of the patentee, adding slightly to the protection of
his right, and reducing the expense of its attainment; but no addition has
been made to the shortness of its tenure, and net increase of security
against direct piracy, or partial infringement. Whatever difficulty the
statesman may experience in giving security to the rights of inventors, he
can have none in giving them the same tenure as copyrights, and conferring
them as gratuitously, or at no greater cost than is necessary to cover the
expenses of the Patent Office. Between the national claims of authors and
inventors there can be no comparison. Value as you may, and value highly,
the treasures of ancient and of modern thought, what are they when weighed
against the inventions of art and science, predominating over our household
arrangements, animating our cities with the sounds of industry, and covering
with mechanical life the earth and the ocean ? The eloquence of the orator,
the lesson of the historian, the lay of the poet, are, as it were, but the
fragrance of the plant whose food feeds us, and by whose leaves we are
healed; or as the auroral tint which gives a temporary glory to a rising or
a setting sun. But grant to the favoured genius of copyright its highest
claims, and appreciate loyally its most fascinating stores, their value is
shared, and largely shared, with that of the type, the paper, and the press,
by which these stores have been multiplied and preserved. The relative value
of books and inventions may be presented under another phase. Withdraw from
circulation the secular productions of the press that are hoarded in all the
libraries of the world, and society will hardly suffer from the change.
Withdraw the gifts with which art and science have enriched us— the
substantial realities through which we live, and move, and enjoy our
being—and society collapses into barbarism.”
In 1851 the Duke of Argyll was elected Chancellor of the University of St.
Andrews, and his installation took place in the large Hall of the University
Library,—a ceremony which many crowded to witness. The Duke and Duchess of
Argyll, and Lady Emma Campbell, visited my father on this occasion at St.
Leonard’s College.
This was a busy year to him, as to many of his compeers. His duties as a
juror of the Great Exhibition kept him in London for some months. During
this time the Kohinoor diamond was an object of great interest to him. The
various phenomena to be observed in precious stones, their .fluids, their
imbedded crystals, and their “pressure cavities” had long been traced and
experimented upon by him. He had invented an instrument for testing and
examining precious stones, which he called a Lithoscope, from two Greek
words signifying a stone, and to see—one constructed by Dollond having been
exhibited at the British Association at York in 1832. Ladies brought their
jewels to him to be admired and examined, and were startled to find them
branded as simple glass. As long ago as the old Kinrara days a splendid set
of amethysts shown to him by Jane Duchess of Gordon, of witty memory, were
ruthlessly denounced as “shams.”
The diamond and its strange history—brilliant production as it is of dim and
dark vegetable life—had been a special object of research to him. In
comparatively early life Brewster was the first person to investigate the
remarkable optical structure of the diamond; and an early scientific friend
of his, Sir George Mackenzie of Coul, was the first person in this country
who burned diamonds, making a free use of his mother’s jewels, and by means
of diamond powder converting iron into steel. Sir David was therefore quite
in his element while examining the famous gem which drew so many admirers
around it in the Crystal Palace. At first it had caused disappointment, as
owing to its position and the manner in which it was cut, it emitted little
brilliancy, but when, at his suggestion, fifteen or sixteen gas lights were
placed behind, it threw out a radiance of coloured light which delighted all
who saw it. In 1852, having been consulted along with others by Prince
Albert as to the best manner of having it recut, he was kindly given every
facility of examining it at Buckingham Palace, which he did with the
microscope and by the aid of polarised light. This further minute
investigation only confirmed the conclusion he had previously arrived at,
that this diamond, large and beautiful as it was, was not the Mountain of
Light, nor any portion cut from the original body, although given to the
English under that name from the Lahore Treasury, where it had been placed
after the death of Runjeet Sing.
He wrote as follows :—
“London, May 31, 1851.
“ . . . I was occupied all yesterday in examining the diamonds in the
British Museum. The Duke of Northumberland had told me in the forenoon that
it was a general belief in India that the Kohinoor diamond in the Queen’s
possession is not the real one which belonged to the Great Mogul, and which
was weighed and examined by Tavernier in 1665, and I went to the library of
the Athenaeum to see Tavemier’s drawing and description of it. From both it
is obvious that the Queen’s diamond is not the Kohinoor—The Mountain of
Light. I send a sketch of Tavernier’s drawing of it, which is like a
mountain, resembling, as he says, half an egg, or one cut in two, whereas
the Queen’s diamond has no such form, and could not be obtained from the
above by any process of cutting. Besides, the above weighed 280 carats, and
the Queen’s only 184 carats. The real Kohinoor of the Great Mogul, when in a
rough state, weighed 787tj carats, and was reduced by a Venetian diamond
cutter, the Sieur Hortensio Borgis, to 280, which so enraged Shah Jehan that
he refused to pay him for his labours, and made him pay as a fine 10,000
rupees.”
In all my father’s writings one thing is prominent, and that is the care he
ever took to draw a religious moral from his subject-matter; thus he
concludes an article on the Diamond in these words:—“A moral as well as a
secular lesson is read to us by the diamond. Like every organism of this
world, it bears the impress of decay. The stoutest metal and the toughest
gem exist by forces which time weakens and the elements destroy; and in that
great catastrophe when the i earth and the works which are therein shall be
burned up,’ the jewels so highly prized will pass into its primeval cinder,
while the silver and the gold will only change their form and reappear
perchance brighter and purer in the new earth which is to arise. Let us
covet, then, the virgin gold and the pure silver of truth and justice, and
estimate at their real value the glittering qualities and the dazzling
possessions which bear so high a value in this world, but which have none in
the next.”
My father’s horror of war and its appalling train of consequences, which he
considered as a scene of legalised slaughter, was a very marked feature of
his mind. He considered it alike a breach of the commandment of Sinai and of
the spirit of the New Testament, and to the last never softened the
statement which he so frequently made through life, that “he could not
understand how any Christian could be a soldier.” That he had two sons in
the army was a real grief to him, to which he alludes in an address from
which I shall presently quote. Nothing excited his indignation more than any
encouragement in the pulpit or from clerical lips of the miserable glories
of martial fame. His attention had been much directed to the subject of
international peace, by means of international arbitration. It was in
accordance, therefore, with all his views and feelings, that when requested
to act as President of the great Peace Congress, held in the Exhibition
year, he should put aside his dislike to such a prominent position, and lend
his energies to perform it thoroughly. He thus wrote :—
“London, July 22, 1851.
“I have just come from. Exeter Hall, where I have been presiding as
President of the Congress of Peace, which meets for three days, the 22d,
23d, and 24th. On Friday last a deputation from the Congress, consisting of
Mr. Cobden and other two gentlemen, called upon me to ask me to be the
President of the Congress at its meetings in London. I, of course, refused
on account of my incompetency as a speaker; but having learned that it was
not a speech that I had to make, but an address, which was read by the
Presidents of the three last meetings at Paris, Brussels, and Frankfort, I
agreed, as I had just sent off the last page of my article to Edinburgh. My
engagements were so numerous that I could scarcely find time to write my
address. I, however, set myself heartily to the task, and I, this day,
delivered it with much courage, to a splendid audience of nearly 4000
persons, by whom it was well received. There were several splendid speeches
delivered to-day at the Hall by Mr. Angell James, Rev. Mr. Brock, Don Cubii
Soler, a Spaniard ; Mr. Athanasius Coquerel, of Paris, a clergyman ; M.
Yischers of Brussels ; Dr. Beckwith, an American, and Dr. John Burnet, a
Scotchman. The British members of the Congress give a soiree to the foreign
members on Friday evening, in Willis’s Rooms.
“To-morrow is the last day of our jury labours, so far as the great medals
are concerned, so that I can only be an hour in the chair of the Peace
Congress, where there are to be some eloquent speakers. A large body of
French workmen of the superior class are to be there, to testify their
hatred of war. They are, of course, visitors to the Exhibition.”
This address, prepared under difficulties, possesses a peculiar interest,
from the fact of his singular appreciation of it, which was very uncommon
with regard to his own writings. Lady Brewster tells me that when, in after
years, she spoke to him of any of his compositions, he used to say,—“Oh,
they are nothing, hut the Peace address is worth reading.” I give some
extracts from it:—
“Most of you, like myself, know war only in poetry and romance. We have wept
over the epics and the ballads which celebrate its tragedies. We have
followed the warrior in his career of glory without tracing the line of
blood along which he has marched. We have worshipped the demigod in the
Temple of Fame, in ignorance of the cruelties and crimes by which he climbed
its steep. It is only from the soldier himself, and in the language of the
eye that has seen its agonies, and of the ear that has heard its shrieks,
that we can obtain a correct idea of the miseries of war. Though far from
our happy shores, many of us may have seen it in its ravages and in its
results, in the green mound which marks the recent battle-field, in the
shattered forest, in the razed and desolate village, and, perchance, in the
widows and orphans which it made ! And yet this is but the memory of war—the
faint shadow of its dread realities—the reflection but of its blood, and the
echoes but of its thunders. I shudder when imagination carries me to the
sanguinary field, to the death-struggles between men who are husbands and
fathers, to the horrors of the siege and the sack, to the deeds of rapine,
violence, and murder, in which neither age nor sex is spared. In acts like
these the soldier is converted into a fiend, and his humanity even
disappears under the ferocious mask of the demon or the brute. To men who
reason, and who feel while they reason, nothing in the history of their
species appears more inexplicable than that war, the child of barbarism,
should exist in an age enlightened and civilised, when the arts of peace
have attained the highest perfection, and when science has brought into
personal communion nations the most distant, and races the most unfriendly.
But it is more inexplicable still that war should exist where Christianity
has for nearly 2000 years been shedding its gentle light, and that it should
be defended by arguments drawn from the Scriptures themselves. When the
pillar of fire conducted the Israelites to their promised home, their Divine
Leader no more justified war than he justified murder by giving skill to the
artist who forges the stiletto, or nerve to the arm that wields it. If the
sure word of prophecy has told us that the time must come when men shall
learn the art of war no more, it is doubtless our duty, and it shall be our
work, to hasten its fulfilment, and upon the anvil of Christian truth, and
with the brawny arm of indignant reason, to beat the sword into the
ploughshare, and the spear into the pruning-hook. I am ashamed, in a
Christian community, to defend on Christian principles the cause of
universal peace. He who proclaimed peace on earth and goodwill to man, who
commands us to love .our enemies, and to do good to them who despitefully
use us and persecute us ; He who counsels us to hold up the left cheek when
the right is smitten, will never acknowledge as disciples, or admit into His
immortal family, the sovereign or the minister who shall send the fiery
cross over tranquil Europe, and summon the bloodhounds of war to settle the
disputes and gratify the animosities of nations. The cause of peace has
made, and is making, rapid progress. The most distinguished men of all
nations are lending it their aid. The illustrious Humboldt, the chief of the
republic of letters, whom I am proud to call my friend, has addressed to the
Congress of Frankfort a letter of sympathy and adhesion. He tells us that
our institution is a step in the life of nations, and that, under the
protection of a superior power, it will at length find its consummation. He
recalls to us the noble expression of a statesman long departed, ‘that the
idea of humanity is becoming more and more prominent, and is everywhere
proclaiming its animating power.’”
After an eloquent description of the crystal “Temple of Peace,” which was
drawing crowds of different sea-severed nationalities, he goes on:—
“Amid these proud efforts of living genius, these brilliant fabrics, these
wondrous mechanisms, we meet the sage, and the artist of every clime and of
every faith, studying the productions of each other’s country, admiring each
other’s genius, and learning the lessons of love and charity which a
community of race and of destiny cannot fail to teach. The grand truth,
indeed, which this lesson involves, is recorded in bronze on the prize medal
by which the genius of the exhibitors is to be rewarded. Round the head of
Prince Albert, to whose talent and moral courage we owe the Exposition of
1851, and addressed to us in his name, is the noble sentiment, ‘Associata in
locis concordi Pace ligavi’—‘What space has separated I have united in
harmonious peace.’ This is to be our motto, and to realise it is to be our
work. It will, indeed, be the noblest result of the Prince’s labours, if
they shall effect among nations what they have already done among
individuals, the removal of jealousies that are temporary, and the
establishment of friendships that are enduring. Nations are composed of
individuals, and that kindness and humanity which adorn the single heart,
cannot be real if they disappear in the united sentiment of nations.”
The President concluded the proceedings of the Congress by one of those
practical hints which he always strove to introduce :—
“Were our youth better instructed than they are in the popular departments
of physical and natural science, subjects with which no deeds of heroism or
personal adventure are associated; and were every school to have a museum
containing objects of natural history, and specimens of the fine and the
useful arts, the amusements of the school would assume a different
character, and the scholars would go into active life better fitted for
those peaceful professions to which ere long they must be confined. But
there is still another class whose active interest in the cause of peace I
would fain secure. If there are mothers in this assembly, as I can testify
that there are fathers, whose sons have been sent in the service of their
country to the regions of pestilence or of war, I need not solicit their
assistance in propagating the doctrines of peace. They will proffer it in
tears—in tears shed in the recollection of those anxious days in which they
have followed in their hazardous career the objects of their deepest
love,—now sinking under a burning sun, now prostrate under tropical disease,
now exposed to the sword of the enemy.”
This was the fourth meeting of the Peace Congress, which had been originated
by Mr. Elihu Burritt. Letters of adhesion, sympathy, and approval were read
from Count Pierre Dionysie Dumelli, President of the Chamber of Deputies of
Turin, from M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Member of the National Institute,
representative of the people, and formerly ambassador to England; M. Carnot,
representative of the people, and son of the celebrated Carnot who organised
Napoleon’s armies; M. Victor de Tracy, formerly Minister of Marine in the
administration of M. Odillon Bar rot ; Dr. Bodenstedt; General Subervie, one
of the oldest generals in France ; Archbishop Whately, M. Victor Hugo, and
the Archbishop of Paris. Thomas Carlyle also, a friend and correspondent of
the President for many years, in this matter heartily sympathised with him.
These were his characteristic words :—
“I fear I shall not be able to attend any of your meetings ; but certainly I
can at once avow—if indeed such an avowal on the part of any sound-minded
man be not a superfluous one—that I altogether approve your object, heartily
wish it entire success, and even hold myself bound to do, by all
opportunities that are open to me, whatever I can towards forwarding the
same. How otherwise? ‘If it be possible, as much as in you lies, study to
live at peace with all men this, sure enough, is the perpetual law for every
man, both in his individual and his social capacity; nor in any capacity or
character whatsoever is he permitted to neglect this law, but must follow
it, and do what he can to see it followed. Clearly, beyond question,
whatsoever be our theories about human nature and its capabilities and
outcomes, the less war and cutting of throats we have among us, it will be
the better for us all! ”
During this summer, Sir David, notwithstanding his busy labours as a jurist,
found time as usual for much society, and thus wrote :—
“I dined with Mr. Cowan, M.P., on the 16th, and with Sir Robert Inglis and a
nice party on the 17th, and went in the evening to Lord Rosse’s second
soiree, bristling with foreigners. On the 19th, on coming home from the
Exhibition to dress, I was surprised by an invitation to the Queen’s ball,
to which I of course went. It was a splendid sight, and I met there with
crowds of friends. The Queen danced a great deal, and there was something in
her whole manner (so happy and cheerful and frank), and in that of the
Prince, which made the most favourable impression on everybody. The
apartments in the Palace were all. thrown open, and the party was very
numerous. There were refreshments—tea, coffee, ices, etc., in one room, and
a standing supper in the dining-room. We got home about three in the
morning, after waiting about an hour in the lobby, where some ladies were
sleeping on their seats, and others stretched on the stone steps waiting for
their carriages. We were at this time with the Herschels, and had much
amusement from the scene around us. The whole display surpassed in beauty
and grandeur anything I had seen.
“On the 20th I dined with Sir John Herschel, and on the 21st I had three
parties to encounter,—one being a very agreeable dinner at the Bishop of
Durham’s, where Mrs. Opie was, upwards of eighty, but full of life, whose
acquaintance I made. . . .
“One of the most interesting acquaintances I have made since I came here, I
made yesterday. It was that of Miss Bronte, the authoress of Jane Eyre and
Shirley, a little, pleasing-looking woman of about forty, modest and
agreeable. I went through the Exhibition with her yesterday.”
Later in the year we saw together many interesting literary
personages—numberless celebrities at the Countess of Lovelace’s (Ada Byron),
and elsewhere;—a pleasant breakfast at the venerable Rogers’, where were Sir
Charles Lyell and Dean Milman,—the poet himself being the object of the
deepest interest, as with the admiration and reverence for Scripture which
distinguished him, he repeated, in tones tremulous with age and feeling,
what he called the “Child’s Psalm,” “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want.” This love of the Bible in Rogers my father recollected with interest,
and alluded to on another occasion :—“Since writing the above I have
received a note from Lady B—, a great friend of Mr. Rogers. She says,—‘I
went to dear Mr. Rogers’ for an hour on Tuesday evening last, and read to
him a chapter of Isaiah, the 40th, and the 15th of 1 Corinthians, which
pleased the dear old man, and delighted myself.’”
One of the sights which my father most keenly enjoyed was a walk by gaslight
through the fairy Palace with Mrs. Davenport, and Sir Charles Fox as our
cicerone. It was an unusual privilege, and we were carefully watched by
policemen gliding around with feline footsteps, being shod in india-rubber.
The crystal roof flashed back the light till it appeared like the firmament,
bright with huge planets. The sculpture gleamed or frowned in the bright
light and thick shadows in which we alternately moved, till it seemed
instinct with life and movement, reminding us of a simple experiment which
my father often exhibited at home, moving a candle slowly round and round
the face and head of a statue in an otherwise dark room, by the light and
shadow of which the speaking expression of a life-like face is obtained.
Nothing could be more interesting and improving than going the round of the
various departments of that wonderful Exhibition with him. His love and gift
for popularising knowledge never shone to greater advantage. He particularly
enjoyed little popular scientific seances with groups of intelligent ladies,
a pleasant custom remembered by many, and playfully alluded to in the
following letter :—
“My dear Mrs. Davenport,—I thank you very much for the privilege you have
obtained for me of becoming acquainted with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
“It will give me great pleasure to meet you on Saturday at three o’clock at
the Crystal Fountain, which will not be so crowded on that day as it has
been during the week.
“I shall endeavour to get up a course of lectures for you on the
Paranapthadipine and all the other products of peat; but you must understand
that if you come to the first lecture you must attend the whole course, and
thus give me the pleasure of seeing you every day, for I mean to lecture
till the close of the Exhibition. You will be glad to hear that Mr.
Babbage’s book has reached a second edition, which he is now busy
preparing.—I am, my dear Mrs. Davenport, ever most truly yours, D. Brewster.
“1 Dorset Street,
Manchester Square.”
After the closing of the Great Exhibition, October 15th, we paid interesting
visits en route homewards to Arbury Park, the beautiful residence of C. N.
Newdegate, Esq., M.P., and to Capesthorne, the residence of Mrs. Davenport,
who arranged an excursion to the Conway and Britannia Tubular Bridges,
staying a night at Chester, and returning the next evening to Capesthorne.
This was my father’s first visit to the Tubular Bridges, and possessed a
peculiar interest to him from his cordial friendship with Mr. Fairbairn, and
the keenness with which he had entered into the controversy as to his share
of merit in the invention and construction of those marvellous monuments of
engineering science. Misled by printed documents, he had, in an article in
the North British, on the railway system, ascribed the entire credit of
these works to Mr. Robert Stephenson. When put into possession of the whole
facts of the case, Brewster with characteristic energy defended his friend
bravely in a later article solely on the subject, written after this visit,
advocating what is now universally admitted,—that while Mr. Stephenson had
the undoubted priority of proposing a Tubular bridge to span the mighty
waters, the Tubular bridge actually doing so owes its existence and its
success to “the genius, practical knowledge, and patient experimental
inquiries of the eminent engineer, Mr. William Fairbairn of Manchester,” who
acted as engineer of the bridge, in conjunction with Mr. Stephenson, the
sole engineer of the railway works.
Brewster’s public appearances of this busy year were closed by an address
delivered to the members of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution on the
11th of November. I extract from it some of his geological views as brought
to bear on higher science :—
“It is impossible that the human race could have existed while the world was
in a state of preparation. Man could not have lived amid the storms,
earthquakes, and eruptions of a world in the act of formation. The home of
the child of civilisation was not ready for his reception. The stones that
were to build and roof it had not quitted their native beds. The coal that
was to light and heat it was either green in the forest, or blackening in
the storehouse of the deep. The iron that was to defend him from external
violence lay buried in the ground ; and the rich materials of civilisation—the
gold, the silver, and the iron—even if they were ready, had not been cast
within his reach from the hollow of the Creator’s hand. But if man could
have existed amid catastrophes so tremendous, and privations so severe, his
presence was not required ; for his intellectual powers could have had no
suitable employment. Creation was the field on which his industry was to be
exercised, and his genius unfolded ; and that divine reason which was to
analyse and combine, would have sunk into sloth before the elements of
matter were let loose from their prison-house, and Nature had cast them in
her mould. But though there was no specific time in this vast chronology
which we could fix as appropriate for the appearance of man, yet we now
perceive that he entered with dignity at its close. When the sea was
gathered into one place, and the dry land appeared, a secure footing was
provided for our race. When the waters above the firmament were separated
from the waters below it; and when the light which ruled the day, and the
light which ruled the night, were displayed in the azure sky, man could look
upward into the infinite in space, as he looked downward into the infinite
in time. When the living creature after his kind appeared in the fields, and
the seed-bearing herb covered the earth, human genius was enabled to
estimate the power, and wisdom, and bounty of its Author; and human labour
received and accepted its commission, when it was declared from on high,
that seed-time and harvest should never cease upon the earth. . . . Thus
ennobled in its character, the natural theology of animal remains appeals
forcibly to the mind, even when we regard them only as insulated structures
dislodged from the interior of the earth ; but when we view them in
reference to the physical history of the globe, and consider them as the
individual beings of that series of creations which the Almighty has
successively extinguished, and successively renewed, they acquire an
importance above that of all other objects of secular inquiry. The celestial
creations, imposing though they be in magnitude, do not equal them in
interest. It is only with Life and its associations ;— with Life that has
been, and with Life that is to be, that human sympathies are indissolubly
enchained. It is beside the grave alone, or when bending over its victims,
that man thinks wisely, and feels righteously. When ranging therefore among
the cemeteries of primeval death, the extinction and the renewal of life are
continually pressed upon his notice. Among the prostrate relics of a once
breathing world, he reads the lesson of his own mortality ; and in the new
forms of being which have marked the commencement of each succeeding cycle,
he recognises the life-giving hand by which the elements of his own
mouldered frame are to be purified and recombined.” |
