Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847

"Much depends," said Cambronero, "on his Majesty's health. If unhappily he departs this life without regaining consciousness, we must recover the surreptitiously obtained document at point of sword. No other course will then be open to us. But if, by God's gracious mercy, the king's senses return, not a moment must be lost in obtaining from his hand a revocation of the act. He must be told every thing; he must be shown how his confidence has been abused, and what base advantage has been taken of a momentary weakness. He must hear the witnesses whom Heaven has raised up for your Majesty."

"Ha!" cried the lady, with an impatient and energetic gesture, "you are right, Cambronero; we must act! All that can be done, Christina will do. They shall not triumph by weakness of hers! Don Fernando still lives, can yet retract. He shall hear how they have laboured to bring shame upon his name; shall learn the perfidy of those who have environed him with their snares! I go to tell him."

The Queen left the room. "To me it seems, Señores," said Cambronero, a quiet smile playing on his shrewd features, "that things have happened for the best, and that the result of all this is not doubtful, provided only the king be not already dead. The Apostolicals have been active. Their creatures have worked their way even into the cabinet and the camarilla. The guards, the captains-general, and many officers of state are long since gained over. In all cases, on King Ferdinand's death, a war is inevitable. The succession to the throne is a Gordian knot, to be cut only by the sword. The Infante will never yield his claim, or admit as valid the abrogation of the ancient Salic law.5 And doubtless the crown would be his, were not the people and the spirit of the times opposed to him. He is retrograde; the Spain of to-day is and must be progressive. The nation is uneasy; it hates despotic government and the inquisition; it ferments from north to south, from Portugal to the Mediterranean; but that fermentation would lack a rallying point without the decree which commands all to cling to Christina and her children, and repel the Infante. The partisans of Carlos have striven to obtain by craft what they could not hope to conquer by the strong hand, and they have succeeded in making a dying monarch revoke in a moment of delirium or imbecility that all-important act. The revocation is in the hands of the Infante; the Salic law is once more the law of the land, and Christina's children are in their turn disinherited. And if it is impossible to restore the king to consciousness, I fear–"

"What?" cried the Marquis of Santa Cruz.

"That we are on the eve of a great revolution."

"Hush!" said the Duke of San Lorenzo, looking anxiously around him. "These are dangerous words, my friend." And his eye fell upon the handsome countenance of Martinez de la Rosa, who smiled thoughtfully.

"Call it reform, Cambronero," he said; "wise progress of the times, moderate, cautious, adapted to the circumstances; not rash, reckless, sweeping revolution."

The lawyer cast a keen glance at the former minister of the Cortes.

"Reform!" he cried. "Ay, certainly; but what reform? Does Señor de la Rosa mean such reform as he helped to bring about? I bid him beware: these are no times for trifling. Here we stand, but a few paces from the death-bed of a powerful prince. He fettered this revolution or reform; but, Señores, it was only for a while and in appearance. Like the mole, it has laboured and advanced, surely and unseen. Happy for our king if he expires before the vanity of his efforts, and the inutility of the bloodshed and misery they have occasioned, are demonstrated; before he learns that a principle never dies, though all the artillery of the world be brought to bear upon it. History judges the dead; nations judge the living. Let us so act that we may stand with honour before both tribunals."

"The subject leads us too far," said the poet and minister, rising from his chair and glancing at Federico, who, struck and delighted by Cambronero's words, gazed at him with expanded brow and flashing eyes. "Let us beware of kindling fanaticism: coolness and prudence are becoming to men, and, God knows, we need both."

He took Cambronero's arm, and led him to the other end of the spacious apartment. The noblemen followed, and the conversation was resumed in a lower tone. So enthralling had been the interest with which Federico had listened to the words of these influential Liberals, that for an instant he had neglected Rosaura, who stood nearly concealed behind the swelling cushions and high gilt back of the throne-like chair. Her beautiful face wore an anxious, inquiring expression, which seemed to reproach him with forgetting her; but as he drew near, she smiled, and rays of love and hope broke from beneath her long dark lashes. And under the magic influence of those beaming eyes, Federico's doubts and fears vanished like frost before mid-day sun, and were replaced by a transport of blissful emotion.

"Rosaura!" he exclaimed, "what unspeakable joy is this! Strange, indeed, have been the events of the night! The wonders of Arabian tales are realised. A moment ago, I awaited death in a dungeon; and behold I am in a king's chamber, and at your feet, Rosaura. Explain these things, adored mistress of my heart! How do we thus meet? How came you hither?"

"With our friend, Geronimo Regato," replied the lady.

"The traitor!" indignantly exclaimed Federico. "No thanks to him if I escape with life."

"Judge not so hastily," cried Rosaura: "you know not all you owe Regato. From him I first heard your name. He was my confidant; he knew my aversion to the detested man, who considered me already his own. My father, of an old family, although not of the highest nobility, was President of the Burgos Tribunal, and by commercial transactions in the time of the Constitution, he acquired great wealth. My hated suitor is also sprung from the people. My father was his friend, and at one time had to thank his influence for escape from persecution. Out of gratitude he promised him my hand, and, dying a year ago, left him my guardian. In that capacity he administered my estates, and had me in his power. But, thanks to the Virgin, I am at last free from his odious control."

She gazed tenderly at Federico, and held out her hand, which he covered with kisses. But she hastily withdrew it, on becoming aware that their proceedings were observed by the group of politicians.

"Is this the time and place?" she said, with a smile of sweet confusion and arch reproach. "And yet, Federico, best beloved, why should I feign indifference, or conceal that my heart is wholly yours?"

"Angel!" cried the enraptured student, trembling with ecstasy.

"Hush!" whispered Rosaura. "Cambronero looks and laughs at us. Hear me, Federico. The decisive moment approaches; but I fear it not—I love and hope. It was Geronimo, disguised as a Gallego, who brought you to my abode; Geronimo, hates him whom we hate; he knew me as a child, was my father's friend, and loves us both. He spoke to me of you long before I saw you; he told me the hour of your walks in the Prado. At the first glance I recognised you."

"And where is that singular man?" Federico inquired.

"I know not, but doubtless at no great distance. This night, a few hours ago, I lay sleepless on my pillow, anxious for your fate, when a carriage stopped at the door. It was surrounded with guards and torch-bearers, and I was told that my presence was instantly required at the palace. My alarm at so untimely a summons was dissipated by the arrival of Geronimo. 'Fear nothing,' he said: 'the hour of happiness is at hand. He whom you hate is vanquished. Federico is his conqueror.'"

"I his conqueror!" cried the student. And then, recalling all that had occurred. "Strange destiny!" he continued. "Yes, I now see that the secret intrigues of a dangerous and powerful man have been revealed by my means. But who is he? I in vain conjecture."

"You do not know him?" cried Rosaura, greatly astonished—"not know–?" She suddenly paused, for at that moment the door burst open, and the Queen entered the room, in extreme haste and violent agitation.

"His Majesty is recovered," she exclaimed, her voice shrill and quivering with contending emotions; "his swoon is over, God's grace be thanked. I have spoken, my noble friends, and not in vain. The King will himself hear the witnesses. These young people must come with me. Call Geronimo Regato. Remain here, Cambronero, and all of you; I must see you again, I need your counsel—desert me not!"

"When your majesty next honours us with your presence," said Cambronero, bowing low, and raising his voice, "it will be as Queen Regent of Spain."

Regato entered the room, and Federico rubbed his eyes in fresh astonishment. It was the same man in the dark mantle who had followed him from his dungeon to the Queen's audience chamber, and whom he had taken for an executioner. Gradually the mysteries of the night unravelled themselves. He understood that if Regato had accused him, it had been to avert suspicion from himself, and that he might work more effectually for both, by revealing to the Queen or to Cambronero what he had learned from Federico, and by placing before them the list of the conspirators. Musing upon this, and each moment more convinced of Geronimo's wisdom and good faith, he followed the Queen, who, with rapid step, led him and Rosaura through a suite of splendid apartments. Stopping before a door, she turned to the student.

"Speak fearlessly," she said: "suppress no word of truth, and reckon on my favour and protection."

Federico bowed. The door turned noiselessly on its hinges, and the Queen paused a moment as in anger and surprise, whilst a dark glow flushed her excited and passionate countenance. From the door a view was commanded of the whole apartment, which was dimly lighted, and occupied by several persons, standing in a half circle, round a bed placed near a marble chimneypiece. Upon this bed, propped by cushions into a half sitting posture, lay Ferdinand VII., his suffering features and livid complexion looking ghastly and spectral in the faint light, and contrasted with the snow-white linen of his pillow. A black-robed priest knelt at his feet, and mumbled the prayer for the dying; Castillo the physician held his arm, and reckoned the slow throbs of the feeble pulse. At the bed-side sat a lady, her hands folded on the velvet counterpane, her large dark eyes glancing uneasily, almost fiercely, around the room—her countenance by no means that of a sorrowing and resigned mourner.

"The document!" groaned the sick man, with painful effort; "the document, where is it? To your hands I intrusted it; from you I claim it back. Produce it instantly."

"My gracious sovereign," replied the person addressed—and at the sound of that sinister voice, Federico felt Rosaura's hand tremble in his—"my gracious sovereign, that paper, that weighty and important document, signed after wise and long deliberation, cannot thus lightly be revoked by a momentary impulse."

"Where is it?" interrupted the King angrily.

"In the safest keeping."

"In the hands of the Infante," cried the Queen, entering the room, and approaching the bed.

"Traitor!" exclaimed Ferdinand, making a violent but fruitless effort to raise himself. "Is it thus you repay my confidence?"

"Hear me, gracious sir," cried Tadeo; but his tongue faltered, and he turned deadly pale, for just then he perceived Rosaura, Federico, and Regato standing at the door.

"Hear these," said the Queen, placing her arm affectionately round her suffering husband, and bowing her head over him, whilst tears, real or feigned, of sympathy or passion, fell fast from her eyes. "They have betrayed you, Sire; they have abused your confidence; they have conspired against me, against you, against your innocent children. Approach, Don Federico; speak freely and fearlessly. You are under the safeguard of your King, who demands of you the entire truth."

"Enough!" said Ferdinand; "I have read the young man's deposition. Look at it, sir," he added, to Tadeo, pointing to the paper, "and deny it if you can."

Tadeo obeyed; as he read, his hand visibly shook, and at last he dropped the paper, and sank upon his knee.

"I cannot deny it," he said, in a troubled voice, "but let your majesty hear my justification. I implore permission to explain my conduct."

The little lady who sat beside the King's bed sprang to her feet, her countenance flaming with wrath, and rushed upon the kneeling man. Unbridled rage flashed from her eyes, and distorted each feature of her face.

"Traitor!" she cried, "where is the document? what have you done with it? You stole it, to deliver to men as vile and base as yourself! Traitor, produce it!"

"Madam!" exclaimed the astonished object of this furious apostrophe.

His remonstrance was cut short, for, quick as lightning, the ungovernable Infanta raised her hand, and let it fall upon his face with such vigour and good will, that the minister, unprepared for so unwomanly an assault, staggered backwards, and narrowly avoided a fall.

"Carlotta!" cried the Queen, seizing her sister's arm, and restraining her from further violence.

"The villain! the traitor!" shrieked the Infanta, in tones that resounded through the palace.

"Away with him from my sight!" cried Ferdinand, his voice growing fainter as he spoke. "The Queen, whom I appoint Regent during my illness, will decide upon his fate. I myself strip him of all offices and honours. Away with him, and for ever! You are no longer my minister, Tadeo Calomarde. Oh, God! what a bitter deception! He too! He too! By all the saints, he shall rue it. His treachery is my death-stroke!"

The King sank back like a corpse upon his cushions; but presently recovered himself, and with all speed, before the assembled ministers, the extorted decree was annulled, the Pragmatic Sanction again declared in full force, and the Queen nominated Regent. Whilst this took place, Federico, unheeded in the bustle of such important business, remained like one entranced. It was Calomarde, then, the man whose ruthless hand had been so pitilessly stretched forth over the suffering land—it was the all-powerful minister, the curse of Spain, the butcher of the noble Torrijos and his unhappy companions, whom he, the insignificant student, had cast down from his high state! The giant had succumbed before the pigmy; the virtual ruler of the kingdom had fallen by the agency of one whom, a day previously, he might with impunity have annihilated. Events so extraordinary and of such rapid occurrence, were hard to comprehend; and Federico had scarcely convinced himself of their reality, when he received, a few hours afterwards, a summons to the Queen's presence.

The morning sun shone into the royal apartment, revealing the traces of a sleepless night and recent agitation upon the handsome features of the newly-made Regent. She received the student with a smile, and placed Rosaura's hand in his.

"Fear nothing from Calomarde," she said. "He has fled his well-merited punishment. Those sent for his arrest, sought him in vain. You are under my protection, Rosaura—and you also, Don Federico. You have established a lasting claim upon my gratitude, and my friendship shall never fail you."

It does not appear how long these fair promises were borne in mind by a queen whose word, since that time, has been far oftener pledged than redeemed. Perhaps she thought she had acquitted herself of all obligations when, three months later, she honoured with her presence the nuptials of Federico and Rosaura, and with her own hand twined a costly wreath of brilliants through the sable ringlets of the beautiful bride. And perhaps the young couple neither needed nor desired further marks of her favour; for they withdrew from Madrid to reside in happy retirement upon Rosaura's estates. Geronimo Regato went with them; and for a while was their welcome guest. But his old habits were too confirmed to be eradicated, even by the influence of those he loved best. The atmosphere of a court, the excitement of political intrigue, were essential to his existence, and he soon returned to the capital. There, under a very different name from that by which he has here been designated, he played an important part in the stirring epoch that succeeded the death of Ferdinand the Well-beloved.

THE VISIBLE AND TANGIBLE

A METAPHYSICAL FRAGMENT

Those who have made their way through the German systems of idealism, from Kant to Hegel—destined in a future age to form one of the most curious chapters in the history, or romance, of philosophy—have probably, for the most part, come to the conclusion of their task, with the profound impression of the futility of the study of metaphysics, which, full of labour, is yet fruitless as idleness. L'art de s'égarer avec methode—such it has been wittily defined, and such our Teutonic neighbours have been resolved to demonstrate it. Yet, this is not altogether the impression, we think, which such a course of study ought to produce: a better lesson may be drawn from it. There is, after all, a right as well as a wrong method of philosophising. The one leads, it may be, but to a few modest results, of no very brilliant or original character, yet of sterling value and importance. The other may conduct to startling paradox, to applauded subtleties, to bold and novel speculations, but baseless, transient, treacherous. It evidently requires something more than intellectual keenness; it requires the virtue of forbearance, and a temperate spirit, to adhere to sober rectitude of thought, and eschew the temptations that a daring and self-willed philosophy displays. Such is the lesson which these "follies of the wise" ought to inculcate. They should lead us to intrench ourselves more securely than ever within the sound rules for the investigation of truth.

Philosophise men will—men must. Even the darkest paths, and the most labyrinthine of metaphysics, must be perpetually trodden. In vain is it proclaimed that they lead back only to the point of ignorance from which they started; in vain is it demonstrated that certain problems are indemonstrable. If the same race of men lived for ever upon the earth, such inextricable problems might at length be set at rest. But each new generation finds them as fresh and attractive as if they had never been touched, never probed and tortured by fruitless examination; to each generation they appear in all the unabated charms of mystery; to each generation must their solution at least be shown to be unattainable. In vain you write over the portal Lasciate ogni speranza! there is always a band of youth newly arrived before the gates, who will rush in.

It is futile, therefore, to think of discarding metaphysics; if a good system is not adopted, its contrary will speedily prevail. "A good physician," says Paul Richter, "saves us—from a bad one—if from nothing else." And a rational method of philosophising has, at all events, the same negative merit. Good sense, cries one, is sufficient for all the purposes of life, and even for all the useful walks of literature. The remark might be pertinent enough if you could secure a man in the quiet, uninterrupted possession of his plain good sense. But he who has not studied philosophy in his youth, will probably plunge into it, without study, in his old age. There is no guarantee against the infection of speculative thought. Some question suddenly interests the man of hitherto quiescent temper—invades his tranquillity—prompts him to penetrate below the surface of the matter—to analyse its intricacies—to sound its depths. Meanwhile, untutored, undisciplined for such labours, he speedily involves himself in inextricable difficulties—grasps at some plausibility that had been a thousand times before seized on and relinquished—tilts valiantly at his men of straw—thrice slays the dead—and in short, strong-limbed as he is, and with all his full-grown thews and sinews, plays upon this new arena all the vagaries of a child. It may be said of philosophy, as it has been said of love,—it is, or it has been, or it will one day be, your master.

We have seen reverend doctors of divinity present no very dignified spectacle when they have suddenly bethought them of paying their somewhat late devotions to philosophy. Accustomed to receive, as their due, a profound respect from others, they assume with easy confidence the cloak of the philosopher; and while they are thinking only how to arrange its folds with classic grace, they are unconsciously winding round their sturdy limbs what will sadly entangle their feet, and bring them, with shame and sore contusions, to the ground. Some will parade an ancient theory of morals, and introduce to us with all the pride of fresh discovery what now looks "as pale and hollow as a ghost." Others explain the beautiful; and with a charming audacity, a courage that is quite exhilarating, propound some theoretic fancy which has the same relation to philosophy that Quarle's Emblems bear to that pictorial art they especially delight to descant upon. But the greater number of these belated wanderers in the paths of philosophy, enter through the portals of religion. How could it be otherwise? Religion and philosophy touch at so many points—have so many problems in common—that the first moment the good man bethinks him he will be profound, sees him plunged in all the darkest enigmas of speculative thought, there to lose himself in we know not what heretical delusions.

Therefore, there is no one thing on which we are more disposed to congratulate Scotland than on her chairs of philosophy. Occupied by her most distinguished men, and teaching a sound system of psychology, they early train her youth to the severest and most useful discipline of thought. They have given its tone and its strength to the intellect of Scotland. They teach it to face all difficulties manfully, and to turn with equal manliness from vain and presumptuous speculations, which, under a boastful show of profundity, conceal invariably an arrant dogmatism. We turn with hearty satisfaction from the tissue of false subtleties which the German professor lays before his youth, to the careful and modest analysis of mental phenomena by which a professor in our northern universities at once enlightens and fortifies the mind. Scotland, may well be proud of the position she has now long held in the philosophical world. Her oscillations of error she, too, has no doubt exhibited—a necessary condition this of vitality and progress—but nowhere has a body of philosophers so systematically adhered to the sound canons of reasoning and research, and that upon a subject where there is the greatest facility and temptation to depart from them.

M. Cousin, and others who take that discursive light-tripping philosopher for their guide, have represented the Scotch as a sort of half Germans, and have both praised them, and praised them coldly, on this very account, that they have travelled half-way, and only half-way, towards the region of "high a priori" speculation. With M. Cousin's permission, the Scotch come of quite another house. His praise we should beg leave to decline: he may carry it to Alexandria, if he will. The method of philosophising pursued in Germany is fundamentally different from that which happily obtains in Scotland. No two schools of philosophy could resemble each other less. For ourselves, we regard the whole history of modern German speculation—the most remarkable instance, in our judgment, of great mental powers ill applied which the world has ever witnessed—as one continuous comment upon this text, the necessity of adhering to careful, honest observation of mental phenomena, however homely may be the results of such observation, and the astounding conclusions to which a train of thought rigidly pursued may conduct us, if, at its very point of departure, it has broken loose from this the first obligation of philosophy. The whole career of German speculation manifests a disregard of some of those fundamental principles of human belief, which, according to M. Cousin himself, it is the peculiar merit of the Scotch to have seized and held with tenacity.

These observations we will illustrate by a glance at the theories propounded on the great subject of perception—on the nature of our knowledge of the external world, this visible and tangible creation.

To a plain unsophisticated man, a stranger to the subtleties of metaphysical thought, it appears quite inconceivable, when he is told that the existence of the visible and palpable scene before him should be converted into a problem of apparently invincible difficulty. Yet so it is. The metaphysician first carries off in triumph what are called its secondary qualities, as colour and heat, proving them to be no qualities of matter, but of mind, or the sensitive being. He next assails what had been pronounced to be its primary or essential qualities; the dark tangible mass that he had left behind is not suffered to retain its inert existence; extension, the power to fill space or resist pressure, what are these, he asks, but our own sensations or remembered sensations of touch, which have got associated, embodied together, agglomerated round some occult cause? What, after all, he exclaims, do we know of matter but as a something which possesses certain influences over us?—a something which is utterly unrepresented to us by the senses. And now this word "substance," which formerly expressed a thing so well known, and every moment handled and looked at, is transformed to an invisible, intangible, imperceptible substratum—an unknown upholder of certain qualities, or, in more exact language, an unseen power clothing itself in our attributes—an existence far more resembling what is popularly understood by spirit than by matter. At length, even this unseen substratum is drawn within the world of thought, and becomes itself mere thought. There is no matter, there is no space, save what the mind creates for, and out of itself. Our man of simple apprehension, much bewildered, not at all convinced, breaks from the chain of sophistry, opens wide his eyes, and declares after all that "seeing is believing."