The chaos and blind uproar of the
scene which followed, measured by the crowded reports in the journals of
many subsequent days, and in one feature of that case, has never to my
knowledge had its parallel; or, if a parallel, only in one case--what
followed, I mean, on the acquittal of the seven bishops at Westminster in
1688. At present there was more than passionate enthusiasm. The frenzied
movement of mixed horror and exultation--the ululation of vengeance which
ascended instantaneously from the individual street, and then by a sublime
sort of magnetic contagion from all the adjacent streets, can be
adequately expressed only by a rapturous passage in Shelley:--
'The transport of a fierce and monstrous gladness
Spread through the multitudinous streets, fast flying
Upon the wings of fear:--From his dull madness
The starveling waked, and died in joy: the dying,
Among the corpses in stark agony lying,
Just heard the happy tidings, and in hope
Closed their faint eyes: from house to house replying
With loud acclaim the living shook heaven's cope,
And fill'd the startled earth with echoes.' [6]
There was something, indeed, half inexplicable in the instantaneous
interpretation of the gathering shout according to its true meaning. In
fact, the deadly roar of vengeance, and its sublime unity, _could_
point in this district only to the one demon whose idea had brooded and
tyrannized, for twelve days, over the general heart: every door, every
window in the neighborhood, flew open as if at a word of command;
multitudes, without waiting for the regular means of egress, leaped down
at once from the windows on the lower story; sick men rose from their
beds; in one instance, as if expressly to verify the image of Shelley (in
v.
Pages:
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75