«Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Том 60, № 371, сентябрь 1846»

В 1829 году испанское вооружение с четырьмя тысячами солдат под командованием генерала Баррадоса появилось у Тампико, отправленное для возвращения страны под испанскую корону. Этот пример активности со стороны Старой Испании был настолько неожиданным, что Республика пребывала в общем смятении. Но Санта-Анна принял меры с равными умом и храбростью. Собрав наспех около семисот человек, пересекая залив на открытых лодках и уклоняясь от испанских военных судов, он высадился в нескольких милях от испанской экспедиции. Баррадос, не готовый к такому дерзкому противнику, отправился в какую-то опрометчивую вылазку, взяв с собой три четверти своих сил; оставшаяся тысяча составляла гарнизон Тампико. Санта-Анна, не теряя времени, на следующее утро штурмовал город и после четырехчасовой борьбы взял весь гарнизон в плен. Но его победа поставила его в неминуемую опасность. Баррадос быстро вернулся; мексиканский генерал, обремененный пленными, оказался перед лицом тройного превосходства в силах, имея реку в тылу. Смерть или капитуляция казались единственными альтернативами. В этой чрезвычайной ситуации он ловко предложил перемирие, внушив испанскому генералу мысль, что он находится во главе подавляющих сил — впечатление, которое было тем легче создать, учитывая кажущуюся смелость его появления так близко к армии испанских ветеранов. Одним из его первых условий было то, что мексиканские войска должны вернуться в свои казармы беспрепятственно. Таким образом, всего с шестью сотнями человек он ускользнул от пятикратного числа противников. Через несколько дней к нему присоединилось несколько сотен человек. Затем он начал энергичную и непрекращающуюся атаку на испанскую позицию, за которой последовала капитуляция всего корпуса; и 2200 испанцев были отправлены в Гавану в качестве военнопленных. Силы Санта-Анны никогда не превышали 1500 человек.

Кампания такого ранга естественно поставила его в выдающееся положение в глазах общественности. Тем не менее, он оставался в сравнительном спокойствии в своих поместьях близ Веракруса, вероятно, по принципу Наполеона — ожидая своего часа. Он вскоре настал; в 1841 году Бустаманте, президент, стал непопулярным; среди войск зловеще роптали, и Санта-Анна был призван возглавить революцию. Собрав пять или шесть сотен человек, в основном необученных новобранцев, он двинулся на столицу. Предприятие было необычайно авантюрным, ибо Бустаманте был опытным офицером с 8000 человек под своим непосредственным командованием. Санта-Анна снова попробовал эффект дипломатии; результатом стало то, что Бустаманте в конечном итоге сдал и свою власть, и свой пост, и вскоре после этого был отправлен в изгнание.

Санта-Анна теперь управлял страной как диктатор. Его администрация имела опрометчивость, но и честность его испанского происхождения; и Мексика, освобожденная от бремени своей испанской зависимости, начала наслаждаться богатствами своего бесподобного климата и безграничного плодородия, когда в Техасе возник новый враг — американские поселенцы, которым в духе космополитизма было повсеместно позволено въезжать на мексиканские территории в качестве жителей. Результатом стало то, что они начали требовать провинциальной независимости. Коренное население было в целом спокойно; но приезжие интриговали, выступали с речами и требовали прямого союза с Соединенными Штатами. Борьба была слишком недавней, чтобы требовать пересказа. Санта-Анна, с опрометчивостью, характеризующей его мужество, бросился в эту войну с войсками, явно не готовыми. После различных стычек, в которых поселенцы сильно пострадали, его недисциплинированные силы были разгромлены, а Санта-Анна, оставшись один на поле боя, был взят в плен при попытке к бегству. За этим последовала «Независимость» Техаса, которая была быстро заменена на «Аннексию» к Соединенным Штатам, которой его независимость была погашена.

«Аннексия» была немедленно объявлена мексиканским правительством нарушением того договора, по которому соседние государства обязались уважать владения друг друга; и следствием этого стало вторжение американской армии в Мексику. Мексиканские силы на границе были явно слишком слабы для какого-либо эффективного сопротивления; и американский генерал, после некоторых задержек в движении и разделения своих сил, которые один активный офицер в обороне обратил бы в его крах, атаковал мексиканцев, выбил их с позиций и захватил их пушки. С того времени продвижение американцев, по-видимому, было остановлено трудностями страны. Будет ли американский командующий сражаться или вести переговоры, совершить рывок к столице или договариваться о Калифорнии — должно быть оставлено на усмотрение событий. Но Паредес, нынешний глава государства и командующий войсками, имеет репутацию храброго офицера, и о Санта-Анне много говорят как о человеке, которого нация с радостью призвала бы к спасению своей страны.

Но у Мексики есть одна роковая черта, которая заставляет разум отчаиваться в том, что она когда-либо займет место великой нации. Каким бы вопиющим ни было суеверие континентальной Европы, оно кажется слабым по сравнению с экстравагантностью мексиканских церемоний. В тех отдаленных странах, некогда охраняемых при испанском правительстве с самой ревнивой бдительностью от глаз чужеземцев, постепенно принималась каждая церемония, любой формы и цвета, которую только могли изобрести глубочайшее суеверие, подкрепленное огромным богатством, влиянием могущественной иерархии и рвением народа, одновременно отчаянно невежественного и необычайно падкого на зрелища. Рим и даже Неаполь были умеренны по сравнению с Мексикой. Перенесение Святых Даров к больному было почти публичным зрелищем; его перевозка к жене Санта-Анны сопровождалась двадцатью тысячами человек. Праздник Тела Христова демонстрирует улицы, по которым текут тридцать или сорок тысяч человек всех слоев общества, с тысячами солдат, чтобы увеличить и придать военный блеск показу. Во главе процессии движется платформа, на которой высшие сановники церкви несут облатку. Затем следует, в аналогичном транспортном средстве, «Наша Госпожа Целительница», благословенная Дева Мать, маленькая алебастровая кукла со сломанным носом и выбитым глазом. Это был образ самой себя, данный Девой Кортесу, чтобы возродить доблесть его солдат после их мексиканского поражения; и в это священники исповедуют верить, а население действительно верит. Гардероб куклы с драгоценными камнями оценивается в миллион долларов. Кукла останавливает все заразные болезни и необычайно активна во времена холеры.

Некоторые из популярных представлений на библейские сюжеты на самом деле слишком поразительны, чтобы их можно было описывать христианским ушам. Среди них — представление Рождества как особого показа в канун Рождества. Иосиф входит в Вифлеем с Марией; они сидят на одном муле; они тщетно ищут ночлег в городе. Наконец они находят конюшню. Остальная часть представления, часть которой, однако, проходит за занавесом, не поддается описанию. И все это делается с высочайшего одобрения церковных властей.

Годовщина «Чуда» «Девы Гваделупской» — один из «великих дней» Федеративной Республики. Президент, кабинет министров, архиепископ и все главные государственные чиновники присутствуют вместе с огромным множеством людей всех классов. Член Конгресса произносит речь на эту тему; и в Деве и ее истории сомневаются не больше, чем в истории Великой хартии вольностей. История, таким образом провозглашенная и таким образом принятая на веру, вкратце такова:

Индиец, идя однажды утром в шестнадцатом веке в Мексику, увидел женскую фигуру, спускающуюся с неба. Он испугался; но женщина сказала ему, что она Дева Мария, спустившаяся, чтобы стать покровительницей мексиканских индейцев, и приказала ему объявить епископу, что церковь должна быть построена на горе, где она встретила его. Индиец полетел к епископу, но прелат прогнал его. На следующий день он встретил Деву на том же месте, и она назначила день, чтобы убедить скептически настроенного священника. Она велела ему подняться на вершину горы, где он должен был найти скалу, покрытую розами впервые со времен Сотворения мира. Он нес розы в своем фартуке к епископу, когда, о чудо! он обнаружил, что на его фартуке отпечатана фигура Девы в бархатном плаще, усыпанном золотыми звездами! Ее доказательство было неотразимым, и церковь была построена. Оригинальный портрет до сих пор выставлен там, в золотой раме, усыпанной драгоценными камнями, с девизом: Non fecit taliter omni nationi. (Он не сделал так для всякого народа; или, более значимо, для любого другого народа.) Копии чудотворной картины, более или менее дорогостоящие, можно найти почти в каждом доме, и все они пользуются полным почтением святости. Церковь Девы, хотя и не такая большая, как Кафедральный собор, более изящного стиля и почти такая же богатая; балюстрада из чистого серебра, а все канделябры и т.д. — из драгоценных металлов.

Праздность и низкий социальный слой, из которого берется большинство монахов и монахов, делают безбрачие особенно опасным для общества. Высшие чины духовенства сравнительно благопристойны; но многие из них имеют эти подозрительные дополнения к дому священника, которые называются «экономками», с соответствующей долей тех столь же подозрительных дополнений, которые в народе называют «племянниками и племянницами», причем вся система является той, которая поставляет большую часть сплетен мексиканского общества. Но на этих темах мы не желаем останавливаться.

Удастся ли американскому вторжению достичь Мексики, или получить Верхнюю Калифорнию, или развалить Федерацию — это вопросы будущего. Распад Федерации, по-видимому, уже начался и спонтанно; говорят, что Юкатан потребовал независимости; и северные провинции, граничащие с Соединенными Штатами, по всей вероятности, вскоре предъявят то же требование. Очевидно, что нынешняя мексиканская территория слишком велика для изменчивого, отвлеченного и слабого правительства, которое Мексика демонстрировала в течение последней четверти века — территория в семь раз больше Франции, или, возможно, в десять раз больше, может управляться центральной столицей только до тех пор, пока население остается малочисленным, бессильным и бедным. Но если бы Мексика имела население, пропорциональное Франции, а нет причин сомневаться в ее способности поддерживать такое население, столица управляла бы территорией, содержащей немногим менее трехсот миллионов человек; очевидная невозможность, если бы эти люди были активными, богатыми, умными и вовлеченными в торговлю с миром. Пример китайского населения не является противоположным случаем. Там империя была древней, трон почти священным, имперская власть поддерживалась большим военным учреждением, характер народа был робким, а страна находилась в состоянии умственного застоя. И все же даже для Китая могут быть близки большие перемены.

Но на весь предмет следует смотреть с более всеобъемлющей точки зрения. Происходит общее потрясение наций. Турок, египтянин, африканец и китаец — все испытали импульс в последние годы, который мощно повлиял на всю их систему. Этот импульс теперь движется на запад. Огромные регионы за Атлантикой теперь начинают вторую стадию того существования, первой стадией которого было их открытие Европой. Язык, привычки и история, политические чувства Англии становятся им знакомы. Они начали свое национальное образование в великой школе самоуправления, с Англией в качестве учителя; и как бы ни было запоздалым ученичество или как бы ни были суровы события, которые превращают теорию в пример, мы имеем твердую веру в концепцию, что все вещи в конечном итоге будут работать вместе во благо, и что дух возрождения уже послан на свою могучую миссию в Новый Свет, как и в Старый, к «связанным, как и к свободным»; к тем, кого плохое управление ослабило, а суеверие унизило, как и к тем, кто, обладая первоначальными преимуществами цивилизации и религии, пробился своим трудным путем к растущему знанию, истине и свободе, и чей прогресс одинаково наделил их силой и возложил на них обязанность быть моральными лидерами Человечества.

ЛЕТНИЙ ДЕНЬ. Томас Эйрд.

Утро.

Dear little Isle of ours! your very clouds,

Ranged in the east and battlemented black,

White flock of zenith, or, with stormy glory,

Tumbling tumultuous o’er the western hills,

Lend power and beauty to your pictured face,

Relieved and deepened in its light and shade,

Varied of dale and mountain, pleasing still

Through all the seasons, as they come and go,—

Blue airy Summer, Autumn brown and grave,

Gnarled sapless Winter, and clear glinting Spring.

Mine be the cottage, large enough for use,

Yet fully occupied, and cheerful thus.

Desolate he who, with his means abridged,

And wants reduced, yet pride of property

Still unimpaired, dwells in a narrow flank;

Of his ancestral house, gloomily vast

Beyond his need,—dwells with the faded ghost

Of former greatness. There the bellied spider,

That works in cool and silent palaces,

Has halls his own. The labyrinthine rooms

Seem haunted all. Mysterious laden airs

Move the dim tapestries drearily. And shapes

Spectral at hollow midnight beckoning glide

Down the far corridors, and faint away.

Up with the summer sun! Earlier at times,

And see gray brindled dawn come up before him;

There’s natural health, there’s moral healing in

The hour so naked clear, so dewy cool!

But oft I wish a chamber in the black

Castle of Indolence, far in, where spark

Of prying light ne’er comes, nor sound of cock

Is heard, nor the long howl of houseless cur,

Nor clock, nor shrill-winged gnat, nor buzzing fly

That, by the snoring member undeterred,

Aye settles on your nose’s tickled tip

Tormentingly. Deep in that charmèd rest

Laid, I could sleep the weary world away,

Months at a time—so listless fancy thinks.

Oh! curse of sleeplessness! Haggard and pale,

The tyrant Nero, see him from his bed

Wandering about, haunting the long dim halls,

And silent stairs, at midnight, startled oft

At his own footsteps, like a guilty thing

Sharp turning round aghast. The palace sleeps,

And all the city sleeps, all save its lord.

Then looks he to the windows of the east,

Wearily watching for the morning light,

That comes not at his will. Down on his bed

He flings himself again. His eyeballs ache;

His temples throb; his pillow’s hot and hard;

And through his dried brain thoughts and feelings drift,

Tumultuous, unrestrained, carrying his soul

On the high fever’s surge. The imperial world

For one short dewy hour of healing sleep!

Worlds cannot buy the blessing. Up he reels,

And staggers forth. Slow-coming day at length

Has found him thus. Its living busy forms,

Its turms, its senators, its gorgeous guests,

Bowing in homage from barbaric isles,

Its scenes, its duties are to him a strange

Phantasmagoria: Through its ghastly light

Wildered he lives. To feel and be assured

He yet has hold on being, with the drugs

Of monstrous pleasures, cruelty and lust,

He drugs his spirit; ever longing still

For the soft hour of eve, if sleep may come

After another day has worn him out.

But images of black, bed-fellows strange,

Lie down with him; drawing his curtain back,

Unearthly shapes, and unimagined faces,

Look in upon him, near down on his eyes,

Nearer and nearer still, till they are forced

To wink beneath the infliction, like a weight

Of actual pressure, solid, heavy, felt.

But winking hard, a thousand coloured motes

Begin to dance confused, and central stars,

And spots of light, welling and widening out

In rings concentric, peopling all the blind

Black vacancy before his burning balls.

But soon they change to leering antic shapes,

And dread-suggesting fiends. Dim, far away,

Long dripping corpses, swaying in the waves,

Slowly cast up, arise; gashed, gory throats,

And headless trunks of men, are nearer seen,

And every form of tragic butchery—

The myriad victims of his power abused

By sea and land. To give their hideousness

Due light, a ceiling of clear molten fire,

Figured with sprawling imps, begins to glow

Hot overhead, casting a brazen light

Down on the murdered crew. All bent on him,

Near, nearer still, they swarm, they crowd, they press;

And round and round, and through and through the rout,

The naked Pleasures, knit with demons, dance.

Wild whirls his brain anew. This night is as

The last, and far more terrible. Guilt thus,

And sleeplessness, more than perpetuate

Each other—dreadful lineage! Let us hope,

For human nature, that the man was mad.

Up from your blameless sleep, go forth and meet

The glistening morn, over the smoking lawn

Spangled, by briery balks, and brambled lanes,

Where blows the dog-rose, and the honey-suckle

Hangs o’er the heavy hedge its trailing sheaf

Of stems and leaves, tendrils and clasping rings,

Cold dews, and bugle blooms, and honey smells,

And wild bees swinging as they murmur there.

The speckled thrush, startled from off the thorn,

Shakes down the crystal drops. With spurring haste,

The rabbit scuds across the grassy path;

Pauses a moment—with its form and ears

Arrect to listen; then, with glimpse of white,

Springs through the hedge into the ferny brake.

Or taste the freshness of the pastoral hills

On such a morn: Light scarfs of thinning mist

In graceful lingerings round their shoulders hang;

New-washed and white, the sheep go nibbling up

The high green slopes; a hundred gurgling rills,

Sparkling with foam-bells, to your very heart

Send their delicious coolness; hark! again,

The cuckoo somewhere in the sunny skirts

Of yonder patch of the old natural woods;

With sudden iron croak, clear o’er the gray

Summit, o’erhanging you, with levell’d flight,

The raven shoots into the deep blue air.

Lo! in the confluence of the mountain glens,

The small gray ruin of an ancient kirk.

’Twas the first kirk, so faithful reverence tells,

Of Scotland’s Reformation: And it drew,

Now as before, from all the hills around

The worshippers; till, in a richer vale,

To suit the populous hamlet rising there,

A larger, nearer parish church was built.

Thus was the old one left. But there it stands,

And there will stand till the slow tooth of Time

Nibble it all away; for it is fenced

Completely round, not with just awe alone,

But superstitious fears, the abuse of awe

In simple minds: Strange judgments, so they say,

Have fallen on those who once or twice have dared

To lay their hands upon its holy stones

For secular uses, and remove its bell.

With such excess of love—we’ll blame it not—

Does Scotland love her Church. Be it so still

And be its emblem still the Burning Bush!

Bush of the wilderness! See how the flames

Bicker and burn around it; but a low

Soft breath of the great Spirit of Salvation

Blows gracious by, and the dear little Bush,

The desert Bush, in every freshened leaf

Uncurled, unsinged in every flowery bud,

Fragrant with heavenly dews, and dropping balsams

Good for the hurt soul’s healing, waves and rustles,

Even in the very heart of the red burning,

In livelier green and fairer blossoming.

Earth sends her soft warm incense up to heaven;

The birds their matins sing. Joining the hymn,

The tremulous voice of psalms from human lips

Is heard in the free air. You wonder where,

And who the worshippers. Behold them now,

Down in the grassy hollow lowly seated,

Close by the mountain burn—an old gray man,

His head uncovered, and the Book of life

Spread on his knee, a female by his side,

His aged wife, both beggars by their garb,

With frail cracked voices, yet with hearts attuned

To the immortal harmonies of faith,

And hope, and love, in the green wilderness

Praising the Lord their God—a touching sight!

High in the Heavenly House not made with hands,

The archangels sing, angels, and saints in white,

Striking their golden harps before the Throne;

But, in the pauses of the symphony

A voice comes up from Earth, the simple psalm

Of those old beggars, heard by the Ear of God

With more acceptance than hosannahs sung

In blissful jubilee. ’Tis hard to think

The people of the Lord must beg their bread;

Yet happy they who, poor as this old twain

On earth, like them, have laid fast titled hold

Upon the treasures of Eternity!

Her nest is here: But ah! the cunning thing,

See where our White-throat, like the partridge, feigns

A broken wing, thick fluttering o’er the ground,

And tumbling oft, to draw you from her brood

Within the bush. Now that’s a lie, my birdie!

Your wing’s not broken; but we’ll grant you this,—

The lie’s a white one, white as your own throat.

Yet how should He who is the Truth itself,

And whose unquestioned prompting instinct is,

Implant deceit within your little breast,

And make you act it, even to save your young?

The whole creation groans for man, for sin,

And death its consequence: We’re changed to you

In our relations, birdie; as a part

Of that primeval ill, we rob your nest.

To meet this change, and in God’s own permission

Of moral wrong, was it, that guile was given

Even to the truest instinct of your love;

And your deceit is our reflected sin?

Subtle philosopher, or sound divine,

’Tis a grave question; can you answer it?

The more we wonder at the curious warp

From truth, the more we see the o’erruling law

Of natural love in all things, which will be

A fraud in instinct, rather than a flaw

In care parental. Oh! how gracious good,

That all the generations, as they rise,

Of living things are not sustained by one

Great abstract fiat of Benevolence;

But by a thousand separate forms of love,

All tremblingly alive: The human heart,

With all its conduits and its channel-pipes,

Warm, flowing, full, quiveringly keen and strong

In all its tendrils and its bloody threads,

Laying hold of its children with the fast

Bands of a man; fish, bird, beast, reptile, insect,

The wallowing, belching monsters of the deep,

Down to the filmiest people of the leaf,

Are all God’s nurses, and draw out the breast,

Or brood for Him. Oh! what a system thus

Of active love, of every shape and kind,

Has been created, from the Heart of Heaven

Extended, multiplied, personified

In living forms throughout the Universe!

In life’s first glee, and first untutored grace,

With raven tresses, and with glancing eyes,

How beautiful those children, lustrous dark,

Pulling the kingcups in the flowery meadow!

Born of an Indian Mother: She by night,

An orphan damsel on her native hills,

Looked down the Khyber Pass, with pity touched

For the brave strangers that lay slain in heaps,

Low in that fatal fold and pen of death.

Sorrow had taught her mercy: Forth she went

With simple cordials from her lonely cot,

If she might help to save some wounded foe.

By cavern went she, and tall ice-glazed rock,

Casting its spectral shadow on the snow,

Beneath the hard blue moon. Save her own feet

Crushing the starry spangles of the frost,

Sound there was none on all the silent hills;

And silence filled the valley of the dead.

Down went the maid aslant. A cliff’s recess

Gave forth a living form. A wounded youth,

One unit relic of that thick battue,

Escaping death, and mastering his deep hurt,

From out the bloody Pass had climbed thus far

The mountain side, and rested there a while.

The virgin near, up rose he heavily,

Staggered into the light, and stood before her,

Bowing for help. She gave him sweet-spiced milk,

And led him to her home, and hid him there

Months, till pursuit was o’er, and he was healed,

And from her mountains he could safely go.

But grateful Walter loved the Affghan girl,

And would not go without her: They had taught

Each other language: Will she go with him

To the Isles of the West, and be his wife?

Nor less she loved the fair-haired islander,

And softly answered, Yes. And she is now

His Christian wife, wondering and loving much

In this mild land, honoured and loved of all;

With such a grace of glad humility

She does her duties. And, to crown her joy

Of holy wedded life, her God has given her

Those beauteous children, with the laughing voices,

Pulling the kingcups in the flowery meadow.

Our walk is o’er. But let us see our bees,

Before we turn into our ivied porch.

The little honey-folk, how wise are they!

Their polity, their industry, their work,

The help they take from man, and what they give him

Of fragrant nectar, sea-green, clear, and sweet,

Invest them almost with the dignity

Of human neighbourhood, without the intrusion.

Coming and going, what a hum and stir!

The dewy morn they love, the sunny day,

With showery dropping balms, liquoring the flowers

In every vein and eye. But when the heavens

Grow cloudy, and the quick-engendered blasts

Darken and whiten as they skiff along

The mountain-tops, till all the nearer air,

Seized with the gloom, is turbid, dense, and cold,

Back from their far-off foraging the bees,

In myriads, saddened into small black motes,

Strike through the troubled air, sharp past your head,

And almost hitting you, their lines of flight

Converging, thickening, as they draw near home;

So much they fear the storms, so much they love

The safety of their straw-built citadels.

Полдень.

At times a bird slides through the glossy air,

O’er the enamelled woodlands; but no chirp

Of song is heard: All’s dumb and panting heat.

How waste and idle are yon river sands,

Far-stretching white! The stream is almost shrunk

Down to the green gleet of its slippery stones;

And in it stand the cows, switching their tails,

With circling drops, and ruminating slow.

A hermit glutton on a sodded root,

Fish-gorged, his head and bill sunk to his breast,

The lean blue heron stands, and there will stand

Motionless all the long dull afternoon.

But the old woods are near, with grateful glooms,

Dells, silent grottoes, and cold sunken wells;

There rest on mossy seats, and be refreshed:

Thankful you toil not, at this blazing hour,

Beneath the dog-star, in some sandy lane

Of the strait sea-coast town, pent closely in

With walls of fiery brick, their tops stuck o’er

With broken pointed glass, and danders hot

Fencing their feet, with sparse ears of wild barley

Parched, dun, and dead amongst them; o’er your head

The smoke of potteries, and the foundry vent

Sending its quivering exhalation up—

Heat more than smoke; to aggravate the whole,

The sweltering, smothering, suffocating whole,

The oppressive sense upon your heart of man’s

Worst dwellings round you—smells of stinking fish,

Torn dingy shirts, half washed, flea-spotted still,

Hung out on bending strings at broken windows;

Hunger, and fear, and pale disordered faces,

Lies, drunken strife, strokes, cries, and new-coined oaths,

All hot and rough from the red mint of hell.

Lo! with her screwed tail cocked aloft in air,

The cottar’s cow comes scampering clumsily.

Her, sorely cupped and leeched, the clegs have stung

From her propriety; and hoisting high

Her standard of distress, this way she comes

Cantering unwieldily, her heavy udder,

Dropping out milk, swinging from side to side.

Pathetic sight! So long have we been used

To see the solemn tenor of her life,

From calfhood to her present reverend age

Of wrinkled front, scored horns, and hollow back,—

Tenor unbroken, save when once or twice

A pool of frothy blood before the smithy

Has made her snuff, snort, paw, and toss her head,

Wheel round and round, and slavering bellow mad:

That blood the cadger’s horse, seized with the bots,

When he on cobwebbed clover, raw and cold,

Had supped, gave spouting, spinning from his neck,

Beneath the blacksmith’s mallet and his fleam.

Is this the cow, at home so patient o’er

The cool sobriety of cabbage leaves,

Hoarse cropped for her at morn, when the night-drops

Lie like big diamonds in the freshened stock,—

Drops broken, running, scattered, but again

Conglobed like quicksilver, until they fall

Shaken to earth? Is this the milky mother,

That long has given to thankful squeezing hands,

With such an air of steady usefulness,

The children’s streaming food—twelve pints a day;

And with her butter, and her cheese, and cans

Of white-green whey, has bought the grocery goods,

Snuff and tobacco? Oh! the affecting sight!

Help, help, ye Shades, the venerable brute!

But gradually subsiding to a trot,

She takes the river with a fellow-feeling,

And, modestly aloof to raise no strife,

There settles down behind the stranger cows.

Ah! Crummie, you have stolen this scampering march

Upon the little cow-herd. Far are heard

The opening roarings of his wondering fear,

Nearer and nearer still, as they come on,

Loading the noontide air. Three other friends

Had he to feed, besides the family cow.

Twin cushats young, the yellow hair now sparse

In their thick gathering plumage, nestling lie

Within his bonnet; they can snap, and strike

With raised wing; grown vigorous thus, they need

A larger dinner of provided peas.

Nor less his hawk, shrill-screaming as it shakes

Its wings for food, must have the knotted worms

From moist cold beds below the unwholesome stone,

That never has been raised—if he be quick

To raise it, and can seize them ere they slink

Into their holes, or, when half in, can draw them,

With a long, steady, gentle, equal pull,

Tenacious though they be, and tender stretched

Till every rib seems ready to give way,

Unbroken out in all their slippery length.

These now he wandered seeking, for the ground

Was parched, and they the surface all had left;

And many a stone he raised, but nothing saw,

Save insect eggs, and shells of beetles’ wings,

Slaters, cocoons, and yellow centipedes.

Thus was he drawn away. When he came back,

His cow was gone. Dismayed, he looked all round.

At last he saw, far-off on the horizon,

Her hoisted tail. He seized his birds and ran,

Following the tail, and as he ran he roared.

Yonder he comes in view with red-hot face;

Roaring the more to see old Crummie take

The river—how shall he dislodge her thence;

And get her home again? Oh! deep distress!

The world is flooded with the dazzling day.

We take the woods. Couched in the checkered skirts,

Below an elm we lie. A sylvan stream

Is sleeping by us in a cold still pool,

Within whose glassy depth the little fishes

Hang, as in crystal air. Freckled with gleams,

’Neath yonder hazelly bank that roofs it o’er

With roots and moss, it slides and slips away.

Here a ray’d spot of light, intensely clear,

Strikes our eyes through the leaves; a sunbeam there

Comes slanting in between the mossy trunks

Of the green trees, and misty shimmering falls

With a long slope down on the glossy ferns:

Light filmy flies athwart it brightening shoot,

Or dance and hover in the motty ray.

We love the umbrageous Elm. Its well-crimp’d leaf,

Serrated, fresh, and rough as a cow’s tongue,

Is healthy, natural, and cooling, far

Beyond the glazy polish of the bay,

Famed though it be, but glittering hard as if

’Twere liquor’d o’er with some metallic wash.

Thus pleased, laid back, up through the Elm o’erhead

We look. The little Creeper of the Tree

Lends life to it: See how the antic bird,

Her bosom to the bark, goes round away

Behind the trunk, but quaintly reappears

Through a rough cleft above, with busy bill

Picking her lunch; and now among the leaves

Our birdie goes, bright glimmering in the green

And yellow light that fills the tender tree.

Low o’er the burnie bends the drooping Birch:

Fair tree! Though oft its cuticle of bark

Hangs in white fluttering tatters on its breast,

No fairer twinkles in the dewy glade.

Sweet is its scented breath, the wild deer loves it,

And snuffs and browses at the budding spray.

But far more tempting to the truant’s eyes,

Wandering the woods, its thick excrescences

Of bundled matted sprigs: Soft steals he on,

To find what seems afar the cushat’s nest,

Or pie’s or crow’s. Deceived, yet if the tree

Is old, he seeks in its decaying clefts

The fungous cork-wood that gives balls to boys,

And smooth-skinn’d razor-strops to bearded men.

Bent all on play, our little urchin next

Peels off a bit of bark, and with his nails

Splits and divides the many-coated rind

To the last outer thinness; then he holds

The silky shivering film between his lips,

And pipes and whistles, mimicking the thrush.

Nor less the Beauty of our natural woods

Is useful too. What time the housewife’s pirn

(Oh, cheerless change that stopp’d the birring wheel!)

Whirled glimmering round before the evening fire,

’Twas birchen aye. And when our tough-heel’d shoes

Have stood the tear and wear of stony hills

Beyond our hope, we bless the birchen pegs.

In Norway o’er the foam, their crackling fires

Are fed with bark of birch, and there they thatch

Their simple houses with its pliant twigs.

At home, the virtues of our civic besoms

Confess the birch. The Master of the School

Is now “abroad:” Oh! may he never miss,

Wander where’er he will, the birchen shaw,

But cut the immemorial ferula,

To lay in pickle for rebellious imps,

And discipline to worth the British youth.

The Queen can make a Duke; but cannot make

One of the forest’s old Aristocrats.

Behold yon Oak! What glory in his bole,

His boughs, his branches, his broad frondent head!

The ancient Nobleman! Not She who rules

The kingdoms, many-isled, on which the sun

Never goes down, with all the investiture

Of garters, coronets, scutcheons, swords, and stars,

Could make him there at once. Patrician! Nay,

King of the woods, his independent realm!

Whate’er his titled name, there let him stand,

Fit emblem of our British constitution,

Full constituted in the rooted Past,

With powers, and forces, and accommodations,

The growth of ages, not an act or work!

Beyond this emblem of old diguity,

And far beyond the associated thought

Of “Hearts of Oak,” that mightiest incarnation

Of human power that earth has ever seen—

As when we launch’d our Nelson, and he went

Thundering around the world, driving the foe,

With all their banded hosts, from hemisphere

To hemisphere, before him, by the terror

Of his tremendous name, but overtook

And thunder-smote them down, swept from the seas,—

Beyond all this, the reverend Oak takes back

The heart to elder days of holy awe.

Such oaks are they, the hoariest of the race,

Round Lochwood Tower, the Johnstones’ ancient seat.

Bow’d down with very age, and rough all o’er

With scurfy moss, and the depending hair

Of parasitic plants, (the mistletoe,

Be sure, is there, congenial friend of old,)

They look as if no lively little bird

Durst hop upon their spirit-awing heads:

Perhaps, at midnight hour, Minerva’s bird,

The grave, staid owl, may rest a moment there.

But solemn visions swarm on every bough,

Of Druid doings in old dusky time.

When lowers the thunder cloud, and all the trees

Stand black and still, with what a trump profound

The wild bee wanders by! But here he is,

Hoarse murmuring in the fox-glove’s weigh’d-down bell.

Happy in sumner he! but when the days

Of later autumn come, they’ll find him hanging

In torpid stupor, on the horse-knot’s top;

Or by the ragweed in the school-boy’s hand,

As forth he issues, angry from his bike,

Struck down, he’ll die—what time the urchins, bent

On honey, delve into the solid ground:

They seize the yellower and the cleaner comb,

But drop it quick, when squeezing it they find

Nought there but milky maggots; then they pick

The darker bits, and suck them, though they be

Wild, bitter flavoured, in their luscious strength,

And dirty brown, and mix’d with earthen mould.

The luckier mower in the grassy mead,

Turns up with his scythe’s point, or with its edge,

The foggie’s bike, a ball of soft, dry fog.

With what a sharp, thin, acrid, pent-up buzz,

Swarming, it lives and stirs! But when the bees

Are all dislodged, and, circling, wheel away,

The swain rejoices in that bright clean honey.

Ah! there’s Miss Kitty Wren, with her cocked tail,

Cocked like a cooper’s thumb. Miss Kitty goes

In ’neath the bank, and then comes out again

By some queer hole. Thus, all the day she plies

Her quest from hedge to bank, scarce ever seen

Flying above your head in open air.

Unsmitten by the heat where now she is,

She strikes into her song—Miss Kitty’s song!

(We never think of male in Kitty’s case.)

The song is short, and varies not, but yet

’Tis not monotonous; with such a pipe

Of liquid clearness does she open it,

And, with increasing vigour, to the end

Go through it quite: Thus, all the year, she sings,

Except in frost, the spunky little bird!

On mossy stump of thorn, her curious nest

Is often built, a twig drawn over it,

To bind it firm; but more she loves the roof

Of sylvan cave over-arched, where the green twilight

Glimmers with golden light, and fox-gloves stand,

Tall, purple-faced, her goodly beef-eaters,

To guard and dignify her entrance-gate.

The ballad vouches that a wee, wee bird

Oft brings a whispered message to the ear;

So here’s our ear, Miss Wren, (your pardon! we

Must call you Mrs now,) pray, tell us how

You manage, in your crowded little house,

To feed your thirteen young, nor miss one mouth

In its due turn, but give them all fair play?

And here’s our other ear; say, ere you go,

What means the Bachelor’s Nest? ’Tis oftener found

Than the true finished one. Externally,

’Tis built as well; but ne’er we find within

The cozy feathery lining for the home

Of love parental. Is it, as some think,

And as the name, though not precise, implies,

Made for your husband, whosoe’er he be,

To sleep o’nights in? Or, as others deem,

Is it a lure to draw the loiterer’s eye

Off from the genuine nest, not far away?

Or, shy and nice, were you disturbed in building;

Or by some other instinct, fine and true,

Impelled to change your first-projected place,

And choose a safer? This your Laureate holds.

But here comes Robin. In our boyish days,

We thought him Kitty’s husband. By his clear

Black eye, he’s fit to answer for himself.

Like her, he sings the whole year round; but she

Is not his wife. See how he turns the head

This way and that, peeping from out the leaves

With curious eye, and still comes hopping nearer.

Strong in his individual character,

His knowing glance, his shape, his waistcoat red,

His pipe mellifluous, and pugnacious pride,

Darting to strike intruders from his beat,

And other qualities, his love of man

Is still his great peculiarity.

The starved hedge-sparrow haunts the moistened sink,

On gurly winter days, the bitter wind

Ruffling her back, showing the bluer down

Beneath her feathers freckled brown above,

But ne’er she ventures nearer where man dwells.

With sidelong look, bold Robin takes our floor;

And when, as now, we rest us in the depths

Of leafy woods, he’s with us in a trice.

Such is the genius of red-breasted Robin.

Along the shingly shallows of the burn,

The smallest bird that walks, and does not hop,

How fast yon Wagtail runs; its little feet

Quick as a mouse’s! Thus its shaking tail

Is kept in even balance, poised and straight.

With hopping movements ’twould not harmonise,

But, wagging inconveniently more,

Mar and confound the bird’s progressive way,

When off the wing. Wisdom Divine contrived

The just proportions of this compromise

Betwixt the motions of the feet and tail.

Aloft in air, each chirrup keeping time

With each successive undulation long,

The Wagtail flies, a pleasant summer bird.

A moment on the elm above our head

Rests the Green-linnet. Wordsworth says, He “from

The cottage-eaves pours forth his song in gushes.”

Not so in Scotland: Here he sometimes builds

His nest within the garden’s beechen hedge;

But never haunts our eaves. As for his song,

A few short notes, meagre and harsh, are all

This somewhat spiritless and lumpish bird

Has ever given us. Can the Master err?

With all the short thick rowing of her wings

The Magpie makes slow way. But her glib tongue

Goes chattering fast enough. In yonder fir,

The summer solstice cannnot keep her mute.

Surely, the bird should speak: Take the young pie,

And with a silver sixpence split its tongue,

’Twill speak incontinent; thus the notion runs

From simple father down to simple son,

In many parts. Oft in our boyhood’s days

We’ve seen it tried; but somehow, by bad luck,

It always happened that the poor bird died,

When, doubtless, just upon the eve of speech.

Sore was the splitting then, but far worse now:

The sixpence then, worn till it lost the head

Of George the Third, was thin as a knife’s edge,

And fitly sharp; the coin’s now thick and dull,

And makes the clumsier cleaving full of pain.

As boys we feared the magpie, for ’twas held

A bird of omen: oft ’twas seen to tear

With mad extravagant bill the cottage thatch,

Herald of death within: To neighbouring towns

The schoolboy, sent on morning messages,

Counted with awe how many pies at once

Hopped on his road; by this he learned to know

The various fortunes of the coming time.

Sweet lore was yours, O Bewick! with that eye

So keen, yet quiet, for the Beautiful,

And for the Droll—that eye so loving large!

Yet sweeter, Wilson, yours, as yours a range

More ample far, watching the goings-on

Of Nature in the boundless solitudes.

We know no happier man than him, at once,

With native powers, fixed from a restless youth,

To a great work congenial, which his might

Of conscious will has mastered ere begun;

Life’s work, and the foundation of his fame:

But oh! its sweetness, if in Nature’s eye

His is the privilege to work it out!

Such was the work of Wilson. Happy, too,

Is Audubon. When Day, like a bright bird,

Throughout the heavens has flown, chased by the black

Falcon of Night, he sleeps beneath a tree;

Upspringing with the morn, the enthusiast holds

On his green way rejoicing: His to catch,

And fix the creatures of the wilderness

In pictured forms, not in the attitudes

Of stiff convenience, but in all their play

Of happy natural life, fearless, untamed

By man’s intrusion, wanton, easy, free,

Yet full of tart peculiarities,

Freakish, and quaint, and ever picturesque,

Their secret gestures, and the wild escapes

From out their eyes; watching how Nature works

Her fine frugalities of means, even there

Where all is lavish freedom, finer still,

The compensations of her processes,

Throughout their whole economy of life.

Sweet study! Oh! for one long summer day

With Audubon in the far Western woods!

We leave the shade, and take the open fields,

Winding our way by immemorial paths,

So soft and green, the poor man’s privilege:

May jealous freedom ever keep them free!

Such is the sultry languor of the day,

The eye sees nothing clear. But now it rests

On yonder sable patch—ah! yes, a band

Of mourners gathered round a closing grave,

In the old churchyard. How unnatural

The black solemnity in such a day

Of light and life! But who was he or she

Who thus goes dust to dust? A matron ripe

In years and grace at once for death and Heaven.

Her aged father’s stay until he died,

She then was wed and widowed in one year,

And made a mother. With her infant son

She dwelt in peace, and nourished him with love.

Mild and sedate, upgrew the old-fashioned boy;

And went to church with her, a little man

In garb and gravity: you would have smiled

To see him coming in. She lifted him

Up to his seat beside her, drew him near,

And took his hand in hers. There as he sate,

Oft looked she down to see if he was sleeping;

And drowsy half, half in the languor soft

Of innocent trust and aimless piety,

The child looked up into his mother’s face.

And she looked down into his eyes, and saw

The neighbouring window in their pupils’ balls,

With all its panes, reflected small but clear;

And gave his hand soft pressure with her hand,

Still shifting, trying still to be more soft.

God took him from her. In a holy stillness

She dwelt concentred. Decent were her means,

And so she changed not outwardly. No trouble

Gave she to neighbours; but she helped them oft.

And when she died, her grave-clothes, there they were,

Made by her own preparing heart and hand,

And neatly folded in an antique chest:

Not even a pin was wanting, where, to dress

Her body with due care, a pin should be;

And every pin was stuck in its own place.

Nor was all this from any hard mistrust

Of human love, for she the charities

Took with glad heart; but from a strength of mind

Which stood equipped in every point for death,

And, loving order, loved it to the end.

The mourners all are gone. How lonely still

The churchyard now! Here in their simple graves

The generations of the hamlet sleep:

All grassy simple, save that, here and there,

Love-planted flowerets deck the lowly sod.

Blame not that sorrowing love: ’Tis far too true

To make of Burial one of the Fine Arts;

Yet the sweet thought that scented violets spring

From the loved ashes, is a natural war

Against the foul dishonours of the grave.

Bloom then, ye little flowers, and sweetly smell;

Draw up the heart’s dust in your flushing hues,

And odorous breath, and give it to the bee,

And give it to the air, circling to go

From life to life, through all that living flux

Of interchange which makes this wondrous world.

Go where it will, the dear dust is not lost;

Found it will be in its own place and form,

On that great day, the Resurrection Day.

Вечер.

Those shouts proclaim the village school is out.

This way and that, the children break in groups;

Some by the sunny stile, and meadow path,

Slow sauntering homeward; others to the burn

Bounding, beneath the stones, and roots, and banks,

With stealthy hand to catch the spotted trout,

Or stab the eel, or slip their noose of hair

Over the bearded loach, and jerk him out.

Here on his donkey, slow as any snail

At morn from the far farm, but, homeward now,

Willing and fast, an urchin blithe and bold

Comes scampering on: His face is to the tail

In fun grotesque; stooping, with both his hands

He holds the hairy rump; his kicking feet

Go walloping; his empty flask of tin,

That bore his noon of milk, quiver of life,

And not of death, high-bounding on his back,

Rattles the while. With many a whoop behind,

Scouring the dusty road with their bare feet,

In wicked glee, a squad of fellow-imps

Come on with thistles and with nettle-wands,

Pursuingly, intent to goad and vex

The long-eared cuddy: He, the cuddy, lays

His long ears back upon his neck, his head

Lowered the while, and out behind him flings

High his indignant heels, at once to keep

That hurly-burly of tormentors off,

And rid his back of that insulting rider.

Unconscious boyhood! Oh! the perils near

Of luring Pleasures! In the evening shade,

Drowsy reclining, in my dream I saw

A comely youth, with wanton flowing curls,

Chase down the sunlit vale a glittering flight

Of winged creatures, some like birds, and some

Like butterflies, and moths of marvellous size

And beauty, purple-ruffed, and spotted rich

With velvet tippets, and their wings like flame—

Onward they drew him to a coming cloud,

With skirts of vapoury gold, but steaming dense

And dark behind, close gathering from the ground:

And on and in he went, in heedless chase.

And straight those skirts curled inward, and became

Part of the gloom: Compacted, solid, black,

It has him in, and it will keep him there.

The cloud stood still a space, as if to give

Time for the acting of some doom within,

Ominous, silent, grim. It moved again,

Tumultuous stirred, and broke in seams and flaws,

And gave me glimpses of its inner womb:

Outdarting forkèd tongues, and brazen fins,

Blue web-winged vampire-bats, and harpy faces,

And dragon crests, and vulture heads obscene,

I there beheld: Fierce were their levelled looks,

As if inflicted on some victim. Who

That victim was, I saw not. But are these

The painted Pleasures which that youth pursued

Adown the vale? How cruel changed! But where,

And what is he? Is he their victim there?

Heavy the cloud went passing by. From out

Its further end I saw that young man come,

Worn and dejected; specks and spots of dirt

Were on his face, and round his sunken eyes;

Hollow his cheeks, lean were his bony brows;

And lank and clammy were the locks that once

Played curling round his neck: The Passions there

Have done their work on him. With trembling limbs,

And stumbling as he went, he sate him down,

With folded arms, upon a sombre hill,

Apart from men, and from his father’s house,

That wept from him; and, sitting there, he looked

With heavy-laden eyes down on the ground.

But the night fell, and hid him from my view.

In yonder sheltered nook of nibbled sward,

Beside the wood, a gipsy band are camped;

And there they’ll sleep the summer night away.

By stealthy holes, their ragged tawny brood

Creep through the hedges, in their pilfering quest

Of sticks and pales, to make their evening fire.

Untutored things, scarce brought beneath the laws

And meek provisions of this ancient State!

Yet, is it wise, with wealth and power like hers,

And such resources of good government,

To let so many of her sons grow up

In untaught darkness and consecutive vice?

True, we are jealous free, and hate constraint,

And every cognisance o’er private life;

Yet, not to name a higher principle,

’Twere but an institution of police,

Due to society, preventative

Of crime, the cheapest and the best support

Of order, right, and law, that not one child,

In all this realm of ours, should be allowed

To grow up uninstructed for this life,

And for the next. Were every child State-claimed,

Laid hold of thus, and thus prepared to be

A proper member of society,

What founts of vice, with all their issuing streams,

Might thus be closed for ever, and at once!

Good propagating good, so far as man

Can work with God. Oh! this is the great work

To change our moral world, and people Heaven.

Would we had Christian statesmen to devise,

And shape, and work it out! Our liberties

Have limits and abatements manifold;

And soon the national will, which makes restraint

Part of its freedom, oft the soundest part,

Would recognise the wisdom of the plan,

Arming the state with full authority

For such an institute of renovation.

This work achieved at home, with what a large

Consistent exercise of power, and right

To hope the blessing, should we then go forth,

Pushing into the dark of Heathen worlds

The crystal frontiers of the invading Light,

The Gospel Light! The glad submitting Earth

Would cry, Behold, their own land is a land

Of perfect living light—how beautiful

Upon the mountains are their blessed feet!

Through yonder meadow comes the milk-maid’s song,

Clear, but not blithe, a melancholy chaunt,

With dying falls monotonous; for youth

Affects the dark and sad: Her ditty tells

Of captive lorn, or broken-hearted maid,

Left of her lover, but in dream thrice dreamt

Warned of his fate, when, with his fellow-crew

Of ghastly sailors on benighted seas

He clings to some black, wet, and slippery rock,

Soon to be washed away; what time their ship,

Driven on the whirlpool’s wheel, is sent below,

And ground upon the millstones of the sea.

The song has ceased. Up the dim elmy lane

The damsel comes. But at its leafy mouth

The one dear lad has watched her entering in,

And with her now comes softly side by side.

But oft he plucks a leaf from off the hedge,

For lack of words, in bashful love sincere;

Till, in his innocent freedom bolder grown,

He crops a dewy gowan from the path,

And greatly daring flings it at her cheek.

Close o’er the pair, along the green arcade,

Now hid, now seen against the evening sky,

The wavering, circling, sudden-wheeling bat

Plays little Cupid, blind enough for that,

And fitly fickle in his flights to be

The very Boy-god’s self. Where’er may lie

The power of arrows with the golden tips,

That silent lad is smit, nor less that girl

Is cleft of heart: Be this the token true:—

Next Sabbath morn, when o’er the pasture hills

Barefoot she comes to church, with Bible wrapped

In clean white napkin, and the sprig of mint

And southernwood laid duly in the leaves,

And down she sits beside the burn to wash

Her feet, and don her stockings and her shoes,

Before she come unto the House of Prayer,

With all her reverence of the Day, she’ll cast

(Forgive the simple thing!) her eye askance

Into the mirror of the glassy pool,

And give her ringlets the last taking touch,

For him who flung the gowan at her cheek

In that soft twilight of the elmy lane.

Pensive the setting Day, whether, as now

Cloudless it fades away, or far is seen,

In long and level parallels of light,

Purple and liquid yellow, barred with clouds,

Far in the twilight West, seen through some deep

Embrowned grove of venerable trees,

Whose pillared stems, apart, but regular,

Stand off against the sky: In such a grove,

At such an hour, permitted eyes might see

Angels, majestic Shapes, walking the earth,

Holding mild converse for the good of man.

Day melts into the West, another flake

Of sweet blue Time into the Eternal Past!

Dumfries, May 18, 1846.

КАБРЕРА.

[История последней войны в Арагоне и Валенсии, написанная Д. Ф. Кабельо, Д. Ф. Санта-Крусом и Д. Р. М. Темпрадо. Мадрид: 1846.]

Двадцать седьмого декабря 1806 года в университетском городе Тортоса в Каталонии Мария Гриньо, жена Хосе Кабреры, трудолюбивого и уважаемого моряка, родила сына. Предназначенный для церкви, этот ребенок с самого раннего детства был избалованным любимцем своей семьи. Родители видели в нем опору и поддержку для своих преклонных лет, сестры — защитника; и никто не осмеливался противиться его прихотям или исправлять недостатки юного студента. Таким образом, предоставленный самому себе, своим наклонностям, естественно порочным, Рамон Кабрера вел жизнь бродяги, а не ученого и человека, предназначенного для принятия священного сана. Избегаемый более уважаемыми одноклассниками и горожанами, он попал в плохую компанию и вскоре стал печально известен своей ранней порочностью. Упреки начальства, мольбы родственников, даже наказания и изоляция были неэффективны, чтобы исправить его. Не любя книг, единственное применение, которое он находил возможностям обучения, заключалось в том, чтобы впитывать отвратительные и кровавые максимы Инквизиции. Зараза карлизма, широко распространенная среди духовенства епархии Тортосы, чей епископ Саэнс был влиятельным и преданным членом апостольской партии, была быстро подхвачена Кабрерой. По характеру и склонностям более подходящий для беспринципного военного партизана, чем для служителя Евангелия, для пожирающего волка, чем для кроткого и смиренного пастыря Божьего стада, как только в королевстве Арагон был поднят клич восстания, он поспешил присоединиться к нему своим голосом. 15 ноября 1833 года он присоединился к полковнику Карнисеру, который уже водрузил на валах Морельи знамя Карла Пятого.

Прошло шесть лет с момента окончания гражданской войны в Арагоне и Валенсии, и мы вряд ли надеемся заинтересовать английских читателей, вороша ее детали. Беря тома, указанные внизу, в качестве предмета статьи, наше намерение состоит скорее в том, чтобы дать правильное представление о характере человека, который одной партией был превознесен как герой, а другой заклеймен как дикарь. Краткий очерк его карьеры и несколько личных анекдотов дадут лучшие средства для решения, на какой из этих эпитетов он может с наибольшей справедливостью претендовать.

В течение первых шестнадцати месяцев войны Кабрера действовал как подчиненный Карнисера, вождя арагонских карлистов; и в течение этого времени он ничем не отличился, кроме случайных актов жестокости. Его самонадеянность и отсутствие военных знаний стали причиной потери не одного сражения — особенно боя при Майяльсе в Каталонии, в котором, как тогда думали, арагонская фракция получила смертельный удар. Это неудачное столкновение сопровождалось различными мелкими, столь же катастрофическими; и в начале 1835 года вожди карлистов в восточных провинциях полуострова были вынуждены скитаться по горам во главе малочисленных и деморализованных банд, ища укрытия от войск Королевы, против которых они были совершенно не в состоянии устоять. Разъяренный таким положением дел, и еще более поведением Карнисера, чьей снисходительности к пленным и населению он приписывал их неудачи, недовольный также своим неясным и подчиненным положением, Кабрера, который представлял в Арагоне апостольскую или ультраабсолютистскую партию и который по этой причине имел влиятельных сторонников при дворе Карла Пятого, решился на смелую попытку избавиться от своего вождя и командовать вместо него. Оставив свой пост, он отправился в Наварру в компании умной и решительной женщины с немалой личной привлекательностью, предназначенной в качестве умилостивительного дара королевскому вдовцу, чье расположение он собирался просить. По прибытии он получил частную аудиенцию у Дона Карлоса, которому представился способным командовать в Арагоне и добиться триумфа дела Короля. Он изложил свой план кампании, обвинил Карнисера в слабости и ошибочном гуманизме и настаивал на необходимости суровых и кровавых мер. Результатом его представлений и доводов его друзей, некоторые из которых были самыми уважаемыми советниками Претендента, стало его возвращение в Арагон с депешей, согласно которой Карнисеру было приказано передать свое командование Кабрере и явиться в штаб-квартиру в Наварре. Девятого марта 1835 года Кабрера принял верховное командование, а Карнисер, подчиняясь своим инструкциям, отправился в Страну Басков. По дороге он попал в руки кристинос и был расстрелян в Миранда-дель-Эбро.