as Minister of Justice, it was
more his part to do so. Brawny Danton is in the breach, as of stormed
Cities and Nations; amid the Sweep of Tenth-of-August cannon, the rustle
of Prussian gallows-ropes, the smiting of September sabres; destruction
all round him, and the rushing-down of worlds: Minister of Justice
is his name; but Titan of the Forlorn Hope, and Enfant Perdu of the
Revolution, is his quality,--and the man acts according to that. "We
must put our enemies in fear!" Deep fear, is it not, as of its own
accord, falling on our enemies? The Titan of the Forlorn Hope, he is not
the man that would swiftest of all prevent its so falling. Forward,
thou lost Titan of an Enfant Perdu; thou must dare, and again dare, and
without end dare; there is nothing left for thee but that! "Que mon nom
soit fletri, Let my name be blighted:" what am I? The Cause alone is
great; and shall live, and not perish.--So, on the whole, here too is a
swallower of Formulas; of still wider gulp than Mirabeau: this Danton,
Mirabeau of the Sansculottes. In the September days, this Minister was
not heard of as co-operating with strict Roland; his business might lie
elsewhere,--with Brunswick and the Hotel-de-Ville. When applied to by an
official person, about the Orleans Prisoners, and the risks they ran,
he answered gloomily, twice over, "Are not these men guilty?"--When
pressed, he 'answered in a terrible voice,' and turned his back.
(Biographie des Ministres, p. 97.) Two Thousand slain in the Prisons;
horrible if you will: but Brunswick is within a day's journey of us;
and there are Five-and twenty Millions yet, to slay or to save. Some
men have tasks,--frightfuller than ours! It seems strange, but is not
strange, that this Minister of Moloch-Justice, when any suppliant for a
friend's life got access to him, was found to have human compassion; and
yielded and granted 'always;' 'neither did one personal enemy of Danton
perish in these days.' (Ibid. p. 103.)

To shriek, we say, when certain things are acted, is proper and
unavoidable. Nevertheless, articulate speech, not shrieking, is the
faculty of man: when speech is not yet possible, let there be, with
the shortest delay, at least--silence. Silence, accordingly, in this
forty-fourth year of the business, and eighteen hundred and thirty-sixth
of an 'Era called Christian as lucus a non,' is the thing we recommend
and practise. Nay, instead of shrieking more, it were perhaps edifying
to remark,