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Published in 1828.
IN dismissing this
edition of the Scottish Chiefs from the press, after so many of
its predecessors, its author will not deny herself the genuine pleasure
of expressing her grateful sense of the candour with which so
adventurous a work from a female pen has been generally received. That
among these liberal approvers, are the people of her hero’s nation,—the
country in which she first drew the ailments of her intellectual life,—cannot
but afford a peculiar gratification to her heart: and she expresses her
delight on this occasion, with the feelings of a child rejoicing in the
approbation of indulgent parents ! —for England, the land of her
birth, has not been less kind in its reception.
While thus fondly
recording the favourable sentiments of her own country, she has the
satisfaction of adding similar sufrages from foreign lands; while,
indeed, the immediate result from such an approval in one of those
lands, was quite unexpected by her; giving her the honour of sharing the
distinction of a literary banishment along with the great name of Madame
de Staël. The Scottish Chiefs was translated into the languages
of the Continent. She received from Vienna, Berlin, Wirtemberg,
Petersburgh, and Moscow, and even far distant India, letters of generous
criticism from persons of the highest names in rank and literature. But
when the work was ready for publication in France, it was denounced by
the order of Napoleon, as dangerous to the state, and commanded to be
withheld or destroyed.
The widow of the brave
and unfortunate General Moreau was the first that mentioned this
prohibition to the writer. There are many interesting events connected
in the author’s mind with that communication. It was made to her in
the morning of a most remarkable day: for a very few hours after Madame
Moreau had been talking with her, and the young and lovely widow’s
full heart had drawn a sad parallel between her own lost hero and those
commemorated by her friend, the author saw her on the platform of the
balcony of the Pulteney Hotel; to witness, along with the Imperial
Family of Russia then resident there, the public entry into London of
Louis XVIII. on his restoration as King of France. The writer of this
recollection, though she had not the honour of being on the same
balcony, was so situated as to be able to observe all that passed there.
The Grand Duchess Catharine of Russia, and the Princess Charlotte of
England, stood together, after having embraced each other on
their meeting, amidst the welcoming shouts of the throng of people in
the street. Both were simply but elegantly dressed; both were in the,
bloom of youth, and full of joyous gaiety. Near them stood another
Russian princess, also in the summer of her life, and equally animated.
On the opposite side of the balcony, sat our true British Princess,
Elizabeth, looking all kind-hearted gladsomeness, for the happy pageant
about to pass. The Duke of Oldenberg, a pretty child, the son of the
young Grand Duchess, was on her Royal Highness’s knee. Madame Moreau,
in her deep widow’s weeds, stood not far from her, leaning against the
balustrade. When the procession came forward, and the open carriage
which contained Louis, stopped an instant under the balcony, to receive
the gratulations of the Imperial and Royal party above, all waved their
handkerchiefs; the Grand Duchess, and the Princess Charlotte, kissing
their hands to the gratefully bowing head of the Duchess d’Angoulême;
whose pale cheek, and emaciated form, bore too evident marks of her
trying destiny up to that hour. She smiled—all smiled, excepting the
recently desolated widow of Morean; and she indeed leaned over the
railing towards the carriage, and waved her white handkerchief too; but
the writer of this saw the heavy tears rolling down her cheeks in
actual showers, and fall upon the top of the balustrade in large drops,
leaving it wet with them.
But a sadder memorial
hangs over that scene. In the course of a very few years afterwards, not
one of those young and blooming persons, royal and noble, who stood there, the
hope and admiration of many loyal and attached hearts, were existing on
this earth! The Grand Duchess Catharine died at Wirtemberg, then its
queen; the other Russian princess followed the same early call at St.
Petersburgh.* Madame Moreau closed her widowed sorrows at Paris; and our
own Princess Charlotte—all England knows how it lost her. Even the boy
Duke of Oldenberg is no more! And the sole remaining one, who looked in
that extraordinary moment from that balcony, filled with youth and
beauty, and tenderly beating hearts, is our Princess Elizabeth, the
most senior of them all; who, after becoming the Landgravine of Hesse
Homberg, has herself returned a widow to her country, which is indeed
happy to receive back the honoured mourner. But the awful events ended
not there; the royal object of that great day’s pageant, is himself
gone to another world; and the Duchess d’Angoulême, again driven from
the throne of her ancestors, has once more become a hopeless exile! Thus
then it is proved, that death and sorrow know no respect of persons.+
Madame Moreau’s
information had gone farther to
me than communicating the interdiction of this work by the Emperor
Napoleon. She told me of its immediate publication in Paris on the
recall of the Bourbons; and soon after receiving a copy from France, I
found the translator’s account of the prohibition in his preface.
It seems hardly credible that the same victor, who
when he came forward (with pretensions at least,) to redeem Poland to
independence, quoted the words of her hero Sobieski, by way of a noble
excitement, should, not many years afterwards, put an interdict on the
very same sentiments, when expressed by the "Scottish Chiefs,"
in his own empire of France. But the difference in his language may be
read in his relative circumstances. He wished, as a pretended umpire and
benefactor, to impose his lasting sceptre,
on the one people; and to hold in unreflecting subjection the other. We
know that with conquerors, who usually fight for power rather than
justice, the use of certain sentiments springs more from expediency than
principle. Real principle is proved in the result ;—a true patriot
establishes the liberty of his country, without infringing on the rights
of others; a pretender first founds a despotic empire over his own
countrymen, and then leads them to put similar chains on their
neighbours.
To draw the line between such characters, to place
high chivalric loyalty, and the spirit of patriotic freedom, on just
principles, whether in the breast of prince or peasant; the writer of
this tale has studied the page of many a history; has studied the lesson
in many a noble heart. With humility as to the execution of her task,
but with due confidence in its matter and object, she proceeded, from Thaddeus
of Warsaw to The
Scottish Chiefs. And
so would do henceforward, on whatever ground she might take her stand to
labour in the cause.
Sir Philip Sidney, a true hero of her own country,
early gave her this text, " Let
who may make the laws of a people, allow me to write their ballads and I‘ll guide them at my will
!" What
ballads were to the sixteenth century, romances are to ours; the
constant companions of young people’s leisure hours; biassing them to
virtue, or misleading them to vice. And; to inspire the most
susceptible period of man’s existence, his youth, with the principles
which are to be his future staff; and their effects, his "exceeding
great reward," is the motive of my pen. Hence, in proportion to the
great view of the aim, must be the satisfaction derived, when the
approbation of the wise and of the good, has pronounced the attempt not
unworthy its intention.
* She was the beloved wife
of
the author’s brother, Sir R. K. Porter.
+ Since this Postscript was
written, the Landgravine, our ever-honoured Princess Elizabeth, has been
laid in a foreign grave.
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