_ BOOK XII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, AWAKENING A GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE, BEGINS. December, 1740-May, 1741
(Chapter XII cont.)
No. 1. SNATCH OF PARLIAMENTARY ELOQUENCE BY MR. VINER (19th April, 1741).
The fuliginous explosions, more or less volcanic, which went on in Parliament and in English society, against Friedrich's Silesian Enterprise, for long years from this date, are now all dead and avoidable,--though they have left their effects among us to this day. Perhaps readers would like to see the one reasonable word I have fallen in with, of opposite tendency; Mr. Viner's word, at the first starting of that question: plainly sensible word, which, had it been attended to (as it was not), might have saved us so much nonsense, not of idle talk only, but of extremely serious deed which ensued thereupon!
"LONDON, 19th APRIL, 1741. This day [Mollwitz not yet known, Camp of Gottin too well known!] King George, in his own high person, comes down to the House of Lords,--which, like the Other House, is sunk painfully in Walpole Controversies, Spanish-War Controversies, of a merely domestic nature;--and informs both Honorable Houses, with extreme caution, naming nobody, That he much wishes they would think of helping him in these alarming circumstances of the Celestial Balance, ready apparently to go heels uppermost. To which the general answer is, 'Yes, surely!'--with a vote of 300,000 pounds for her Hungarian Majesty, a few days hence. From those continents of Parliamentary tufa, now fallen so waste and mournful, here is one little piece which ought to be extricated into daylight:--
"MR. VINER (on his legs):... 'If I mistake not the true intention of the Address proposed,' in answer to his Majesty's most gracious Speech from the Throne, 'we are invited to declare that we will oppose the King of Prussia in his attempts upon Silesia: a declaration in which I see not how any man can concur who KNOWS NOT the nature of his Prussian Majesty's Claim, and the Laws of the German Empire [NOR DO I, MR. V.]! It ought therefore, Sir, to have been the first endeavor of those by whom this Address has been so zealously supported, to show that his Prussian Majesty's Claim, so publicly explained [BY KAUZLER LUDWIG, OF HALLE, WHO, IT SEEMS, HAS STAGGERED OR CONVINCED MR. VINER], so firmly urged and so strongly supported, is without foundation and reason, and is only one of those imaginary titles which Ambition may always find to the dominions of another.' (HEAR MR VINER!)" [Tindal, xx. 491, gives the Royal Speech (DATE in a very slobbery condition); see also Coxe,
House of Austria, iii. 365. Viner's Fragment of a Speech is in Thackeray,
Life of Chatham, i. 87.]...
A most indispensable thing, surely. Which was never done, nor can ever be done; but was assumed as either unnecessary or else done of its own accord, by that Collective Wisdom of England (with a sage George II. at the head of it); who plunged into Dettingen, Fontenoy, Austrian Subsidies, Aix-la-Chapelle, and foundation of the English National Debt, among other strange things, in consequence!--
Upon that of Kanzler Ludwig, and the "so public Explanation" (which we slightly heard of long since), here is another Note,--unless readers prefer to skip it:--
"That the Diplomatic and Political world is universally in travail at this time, no reader need be told; Europe everywhere in dim anxiety, heavy-laden expectation (which to us has fallen so vacant); looking towards inevitable changes and the huge inane. All in travail;--and already uttering printed Manifestoes, Patents, Deductions, and other public travail-SHRIEKS of that kind. Printed; not to speak of the unprinted, of the oral which vanished on the spot; or even of the written which were shot forth by breathless estafettes, and unhappily did not vanish, but lie in archives, still humming upon us, "Won't you read me, then?"--Alas, except on compulsion, No! Life being precious (and time, which is the stuff of life), No!--
"At Reinsberg as elsewhere, at Reinsberg first of all, it had been felt, in October last, that there would be Manifestoes needed; learned Proof, the more irrefragable the better, of our Right to Silesia. It was settled there, Let Ludwig, Kanzler of the University of Halle, do it. [Herr Kanzler Ludwig, monster of Antiquarian, Legal and other Learning there: wealthy, too, and close-fisted; whom we have seen obliged to open his closed fist, and to do building in the Friedrich Strasse, before now; Nussler, his son-in-law, having no money:--as careless readers have perhaps forgotten?] Ludwig set about his new task with a proud joy. Ludwig knows that story, if he know anything. Long years ago he put forth a Chapter upon it; weighty Chapter; in a Book of weight, said Judges;--Book weighing, in pounds avoirdupois and otherwise, none of us now knows what: [Title of this weighty Performance (see Preuss,
Thronbesteigung, p. 432) is, or was (size not given),
Germania Princeps (Halae, 1702). Preuss says farther, "That Book ii. c. 3 handles the Prussian claims: Jagerndorf being? 13; Liegnitz,? 14; Oppeln and Ratibor,? 16;--and that Ludwig had sent a Copy of this Argument [weighty Performance altogether? Or Book ii. c. 3 of it, which would have had a better chance?] to King Friedrich, on the death of Kaiser Karl VI."]--but, in after years, it used to be said by flatterers of the Kanzler, 'Herr Kanzler, see the effect of Learning. It was you, it was your weighty Book, that caused all this World-tumult, and flung the Nations into one another's hair!' Upon which the old Kanzler would blush: 'You do me too much honor!'
"Ludwig, directly on order given, gathered out his documents again, in the King's name this time; and promised something weighty by New-year's day at latest." Doubtless to the joy of Nussler, who has still no regular appointment, though well deserving one. "And sure enough, on January 7th, at Berlin, 'in three languages,' Ludwig's DEDUCTION had come out; an eager Public waiting for it: [Title is,
Rechtsgegrundetes Eigenthum (in the Latin copies,
Patrimonium, and
Propriete fondee en Droit in the French copies)
des &c.,--that is to say,
Legal Right of Property in the Royal-Electoral House of Brandenburg to the Duchies and Principalities of Jagerndorf, Liegnitz, Brieg, Wohlau (Berlin, 7th January, 1741).]--and at Berlin it was generally thought to be conclusive. I have looked into Ludwig's Deduction, stern duty urging, in this instance for one: such portions as I read are nothing like so stupid as was expected; and, in fact, are not to be called stupid at all, but fit for their purpose, and moderately intelligible to those who need them,"--which happily we do not in this place.
Judicious Mr. Viner availed nothing against the Proposed Address; any more than he would against the Atlantic Tide, coming in unanimous, under influence of the Moon itself,--as indeed this Address, and the triumphant Subsidy which was voted in the rear of it, may be said to have done. [Coxe, iii. 265.] Subsidy of 300,000 pounds to her Hungarian Majesty; which, with the 200,000 pounds already gone that road, makes a handsome Half-million for the present Year. The first gush of the Britannia Fountain,--which flowed like an Amalthea's Horn for seven years to come; refreshing Austria, and all thirsty Pragmatic Nations, to defend the Keystone of this Universe. Unluckily every guinea of it went, at the same time, to encourage Austria in scorning King Friedrich's offers to it; which perhaps are just offers, thinks Mr. Viner; which once listened to, Pragmatic Sanction would be safe. [Mr. Viner was of Pupham, or Pupholm, in Lincolnshire, for which County he sat then, and for many years before and after,--from about 1713 till 1761, when he died. A solid, instructed man, say his contemporaries. "He was a friend of Bolingbroke's, and had a house near Bolingbroke's Battersea one." He is Great great-grandfather to the present Mr. Viner, and to the Countess de Grey and Ripon; which is an interesting little fact.]
This Parliament is strong for Pragmatic Sanction, and has high resentments against Walpole; in both which points the New Parliament, just getting elected, will rival and surpass it,--especially in the latter point, that of uprooting Walpole, which the Nation is bent on, with a singular fury. Pragmatic Sanction like to be ruined; and Walpole furiously thrown out: what a pair of sorrows for poor George! During his late Caroline's time, all went peaceably, and that of "governing" was a mere pleasure; Walpole and Caroline cunningly doing that for him, and making him believe he was doing it. But now has come the crisis, the collapse; and his poor Majesty left alone to deal with it!-- _