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CHIEFS OF PARTIES, 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT, 
 
 WITH ORIGINAL ANECDOTES. 
 
 BY 
 
 DANIEL OWEN MADDYN, ESQ. 
 
 OP THE INNEE TEMPLE. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE AGE OP PITT AND FOX," &C. & C. 
 
 " Desire of power, oa earth, a vicious weed, 
 
 Yet sprung from high is of celestial seed j 
 
 In God 'tis glory ; and when men aspire 
 
 'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire." 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHARLES J. SKEET, PUBLISHER, 
 
 10, KING WILLIAM STREET, 
 
 CHARING OKOSS. 
 
 1859. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 \ 
 
 Some years since I laid before the public the 
 first volume of "The Age of Pitt and Fox." 
 Unforeseen circumstances have as yet prevented 
 the completion of that work. 
 
 In the meanwhile, I avail myself of the sugges- 
 tion publicly given to me by a distinguished critic 
 in a leading organ that I should apply myself to 
 the portraiture of living Statesmen, and from the 
 weight attached to his reputation I have here 
 acted upon the hint, and I have incorporated with 
 the present publication some political pieces which 
 have been received not unfavourably. The con- 
 tents have been arranged so as to illustrate the 
 working of Party during the last sixty years. 
 
 Want of space has compelled me to omit from 
 these volumes the description of some eminent 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 politicians who yet await an impartial rejudgment. 
 Should my present undertaking be so fortunate as 
 to meet with public approval, I may, on a future 
 occasion, have the pleasure of submitting my 
 delineations of other personages memorable in the 
 modern annals of Party. 
 
 London, March 3(rt1i, 1859. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIKST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IHE XTSE or PAEIT, 
 
 Habit of Party — ^Diffionlty of abolishing it — Advantages — Tlie 
 working of the House of Commons — Examples of great States- 
 men — Its evils — The Whigs — Failure of the " no party" 
 plan — Limitations — Society may be kept free from it — 
 Tyranny of a majority — Of individual liberty. . . .1 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 OS LEADEESHIP. 
 
 Lifluenee of Statesmen on events — Illustrated by the " Canmng 
 Schism" — ^Effects of the course of the Duke of Wellington in 
 1829 — Sir Robert Peel and the Reform Question— Of Chiefs 
 in Parliament — Nature of the English Cabinet. . .15 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A DAT WITH rOX. 
 
 Why did Foi fail as a Statesman ? — His daily life described — At 
 breakfast — His appearance — His morning visitors — His mis- 
 cellaneous correspondents — Gossip — Fashion — The Turf — 
 Brookes's Clnb — Its reception of him in the forenoon — The 
 Prince of Wales and his companions — The lounge in the Park 
 — The scene described — Loitering with the Duchess of 
 Devonshire and Lady Duncannon — The stars of high life 
 — The Duchess of Rutland — Mrs. Fitzherbert — Fox's private 
 dinner with Mrs. Armistead — How he studies his speech 
 —Description of Old St. Stephen's Chapel— Celebrities of the 
 time— Burke cried down— A grand debate— Splendid display 
 by Pitt— Fox described in reply — Retirement to Boodle's— 
 The close of the day in a gambling house — Characterisation of 
 Fox as a man and a statesman 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A DAT WITH PITT. 
 
 The haughty horseman— Ride across Dulwioh Hill— At Addis- 
 combe— Consultation withLordHawkesbury— Dinner — Young 
 Jenkirison and his school-friend George Camdng—Sories 
 rirgilian<B — 1M& Talk — Pitt retiring to rest — Madge 
 Brooks— Resemblance of Pitt to Sir Isaac Newton— Charac- 
 ter of him in dog Latin— Early studies of the Minister— His 
 
 calm self-reliance — The ride back to town — At the Treasury 
 
 His ante-chamber— Its occupants— Doctor Price of Sinking 
 Fund notoriety— Entry of the Duchess of Gordon— Lord 
 Mornington— The visit to his elder brother— Contrast between 
 Pitt and Fox as leaders of "Party"— Of the method of Pitt's 
 statesmanship— How he brought about the Union with Ireland 
 —Pitt more on a level with his own age than Fox— Admissions 
 
CONTENTS. -vii 
 
 of Lord Join Russell — Want of controlling power in Fox— Dif- 
 ference between Chatham and Pitt — Indication of the Anglo- 
 Irish element in Chatham— His inheritance of the blood of the 
 Geraldines — Curious original anecdote of Lord Chatham — Dis- 
 cussion of the question as to whether there has been exaggeration 
 in the respect traditionally given to the talents of Fox and Pitt ? 
 — Citation of private testimonies — Tributes to them by Byron 
 and Scott — Walpole and William Pitt the Younger the most 
 efficient of Party Leaders 59 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GEBNVILLES. 
 
 Long continuance of their power — Enumeration of offices held 
 by them — Their personal resources — Contrasted with rival 
 families — Their practical system of politics — Their industry 
 and knowledge — Contrasted with " the Greys" and Stafford- 
 House Whigs — Their representative abiUties — Character of 
 Lord Grenville — Their management of property — Their fail — 
 How they lost their public influence — Their private ruin — 
 Utflity of a connection like the Grenvilles — Distinction 
 between " party" and " connection" — The Grenvilles and 
 "Junius" — Present aspect of the controversy about that 
 writer — Reasons why the question has interest — His Kterary 
 triumphs and defects — Variety of opinions as to his genius — 
 Theory of Mr. Smith that Earl Temple was " Junius" ex- 
 amined — Importance of the Letters found at Stowe — Reasons 
 why Francis could not have been " Junius" — Difficulty of his 
 identification 95 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEEEAGH. 
 
 Want of leading Chiefs after the death of Fox and Pitt— Defects 
 of Lord WeUesley, Dundas, and Canning — Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley while M.P. for Newport— Portraiture of him and 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 his friend Lord Castlereagh as tliey appeared in 1807-8 — Hare 
 personal advantages of Lord Castlereagh — His boldness in the 
 Irish House of Commons — Pitt's first ideas about the Union — 
 Viewstakenby, Castlereagh— The Catholic Question — Success 
 of Castlereagh, both in the English and Irish Parhaments — 
 Kivalry and duel between Castlereagh and Canning — Combina- 
 tion to write down Lord Castlereagh — Enumeration of the 
 reasons why he became obnoxious to clamour — His relations 
 to the Court and the Hertford House clique — His appeal 
 to Alexander Knox to write a true history of "The Irish 
 Union " — His letter — Thoughts suggested by it — Fate of the 
 materials for the secret history of the Union — The great 
 energy of Lord Castlereagh — Illustrations of it — His promptly 
 tude — His errors — The Downing Street traditions of him — 
 Rise of his posthumous reputation — Sir R. Peel's tribute to 
 him — Curious anecdote of the Marquis of Anglesey's "walk- 
 ing stick," and of the first discovery of the Thistlewood 
 Conspiracy. 123 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EVE OE THE BErORM EUA. 
 
 State of England on . the death of George the Fourth — The 
 Tory and Whig Parties — Of the middle classes — The sentiments 
 of the working people — Effects of the scandals of Windsor 
 Castle — The character of George the Fourth — Ascent of the 
 Throne by William the Fourth— Position of the Duke of 
 Wellington — His secret knowledge of the dangerous illness of 
 George the Fourth— The position of Sir Robert Peel— His 
 gradual rise in influence — His accomplishments — His mode 
 of looking at politics — A representative of the new rich class — 
 Contrasted with Henry Brougham— The versatile powers of 
 Brougham described— His adaptability to all classes— His 
 pohtics and general aims— O'Connell— His character — Change 
 in his development — His wonderful gifts of mind and body— 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 Want of English tribunes — Cobbett and Hunt — The working 
 classes — The half educated — Their habits— And their political 
 character — The true middle classes — The gentry of the country 
 — Their political views — Whig and Tory Squires — Pitt Club — 
 The Benthamites and Philosophical Radicals — Estimate of 
 them — Their failure in politics — The General Election of 1830 
 — ^Election of Henry Brougham for Yorkshu-e — The constituency 
 of that Shire 169 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ETE or THE EErOKM: EBA. 
 
 Position of the Duke of Wellington — Rising cry for " Reform," 
 — Three ways of dealing with it — Mr. Canning's ideas upon 
 it — His mode of looking upon the question — How the views of 
 Mr. Canning were rendered untenable — Consequences of the 
 Catholic Relief Bill in 1829— The system of gradually pro- 
 gressive Reform — Strong objections to it — The large plan 
 of Reform — Doubts about the practical capacity of the Whigs 
 — Duke of Wellington's declaration against Reform — 
 Ferment in the public mind — Ealse alarm in " the City" — The 
 fall of the Cabinet— Mr. Brougham and Reform. . . 202 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CABINET OP 1831-2-3-4. 
 
 Earl Grey — His character described — Retrospect of his career 
 — The Leadership of the House of Commons — Lord Althorp— 
 Whig difficulties about the claims of Brougham— The Whig 
 Aristocracy and men of genius — The objections to Mr. 
 Brougham as Leader of the House of Commons— Offer to him 
 of the Attorney-Generalship— His treatment of it— Allusion to 
 it by Umnymede — The fallen tribune— The risen Chancellor- 
 Motives which probably swayed Lord Brougham— Attack 
 on him by Mr. Wilson Croker— Sketch of Mr. Croker's 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 antecedents — The old Quarterly Reviewers — Debate on Mr. 
 Croker's motion — Appearance of Mr. Macaulay — Reflections 
 on the acceptance of the Chancellorship by Lord Brougham — 
 Beginning of his Decline and Pall — Sketch of Viscount Pal- 
 merston as he appeared in 1831 — Description of Lord 
 Melbourne — The Colonial Office — Lord Goderich — Mr. Charles 
 Grant — Earl of Carlisle — Lord HoUand — Sketch of him — 
 Loose morals of the Foxite Whigs — His dinner-table — Its 
 use to the party — His posthumous reputation — The Marquis 
 of Lansdowne — His virtues — Lord Durham — Characterised — 
 His merits and defects — Portrait of Sir James Graham — His 
 talents — Description of his style of speaking — His formidable 
 abilities — His sarcasm — Finished style and forcible logic of 
 his arguments — His want of sincerity — His recklessness — 
 Aristocratic composition of the Cabinet — Neglect of the claims 
 of Sir James Mackintosh — His services and reputation — Mr. 
 Canning's opinion of him — Official difficulties of the Ministry 
 — Embarrassment abont O'Connell — His energy and violence 
 — Disappointment about his promises — Aristocratic dislike of 
 him — The Irish arrangements — Lord Duncannon — Want of 
 policy towards O'Connell — Lord Anglesey — Description of 
 Mr. Stanley (Earl of Derby)— Committee of Three on plan- 
 ning a Reform BUI— Quidnuncs in the Spring of 1831— The 
 lull in the public mind — Indication of the consequences to 
 the Reform Party from the construction of the Grey Ministry 
 — Its resemblance to a Coalition — Weakness of Lord Grey 
 as a Premier — Uncomfortable relations between Lord Chan- 
 cellor Brougham and his colleagues— His browbeating— The 
 way in which they finally ejected him— Reasons of ill-will 
 between the Miaisters— The damage produced by the quarrel 
 between Mr. Stanley (Earl of Derby) and Mr. O'Connell— 
 Their prolonged gladiatorial encounters- Neglect of Finance 
 by the Whigs— Delusions and Illusions— The Money Interest 
 —Importance of attending to it— Neglect of it by the Whigs- 
 Mismanagement of the Reform Movement by the Whigs- 
 Reasons for distrusting State Doctors. . . 017 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PEEL, Oa THE GREAT AMBIGUITY. 
 
 The statue of Peel at Cheapside — The feelings of the passers by 
 — Questions about Peel's character — Description of him when 
 young — His contemporaries as they appeared in 1810 — 
 Personal appearance of young Peel — His conduct as Chief 
 Secretary for Ireland — His official abilities — His mode of 
 treating the Catholic Question — His views upon it — 
 His general behaviour — His treatment of his party — 
 Lord GrenviUe's prophecy about him — His conduct to 
 Canning — The charge against him in 1846 by Lord George 
 Bentinck — Mr. Disraeli's retrospective absolution of Sir 
 Hobert Peel — Peculiarities of the question — StiU open for 
 argument — Another mode of discussing the subject — 
 The Catholic Question in 1825 — Lord Liverpool's view of it 
 — Important circumstance overlooked by Sir R. Peel in his 
 defence in 1846 — The result of the General Election of 1826 
 — " Junius" on his legs — " Look to the last state of the poll" 
 — The change from 1827 to 1829 — Oomparisou between 1825 
 and 1839 — ^What Sir Robert Peel must have meant — Mistaken 
 by Sir Edward Knatchbull — The conclusion on the whole 
 question — The only way indicated by which the sincerity of 
 Sir R. Peel and the authenticity of Mr. Barrow's report can be 
 reconciled — Acquittal of Sir R. Peel — His trying position in 
 1829 — His relation to his contemporaries in 1830. . 272 
 
CHIEPS OF PAETIES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE USE OF PARTY. 
 
 The first question which an Englishman, who 
 is anxious to take part in politics, asks himself is, 
 " What Party shall I join ?" and if he be of a 
 reflective turn of mind, he may follow it by an- 
 other. " Why should there be parties at all ? 
 Why may not a man act in public as independently 
 as he thinks in private ?" 
 
 A little examination of the system under which 
 we live, must show that if there is much to 
 be urged against Party, there is still more to be 
 said in its favour. It was established by our 
 ancestors, it is coeval with the assertion of Parlia- 
 mentary powers, and it has the experience of 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 two hundred years in its favour. Englishmen 
 have been accustomed to it, they understand its 
 worth, they know its good and evil, and their 
 political instincts teach them when to discard its 
 service, and when to employ it to advantage. 
 Even if it were desirable that society should seek 
 for its abolition, there would be a practical 
 consideration as to the possibility of extirpating 
 political habits, which are intertwined with some 
 of the noblest recollections of Englishmen. 
 
 In recent times, declaimers and essayists have 
 attempted to decry the value of Party, and bring 
 it into general disfavour as an obsolete and clumsy 
 instrument of legislation. In the crude specula- 
 tions of such cynical commentators, the fallacies 
 of inexperience may be discerned. Such theorists 
 are not practically acquainted with the working of 
 Parliament, and they do not see the advantages 
 which infinitely counterbalance any evils resulting 
 from politicians being combined into parties. The 
 history of the unsuccessful National Assembly of 
 France, and of the anomalous junctions of 
 American politicians, might teach reflecting 
 minds, the great advantage to be derived from 
 organisations with principles on our English 
 method. Extinguish " Party" if you can. What 
 then ? The Constitution will be in peril of being 
 
THE TSE 01' PARTY. 3 
 
 ruined either by the absorbing absolutism of an 
 unopposed executive, or by an anarchy of factions 
 soliciting the intervention of a dictator. 
 
 Abolish political connections, and instead of 
 great parliamentary battles fought under chosen 
 and experienced leaders, identified with definite 
 views, the country would then be subjected to a 
 teasing, vexatious system of guerilla politics, 
 under which disconnected skirmishers and cla- 
 morous adventurers would harass and exhaust 
 the public mind until it became indifferent to 
 great aims. There would be an utter waste of 
 strife resulting from knots of petty pretenders, 
 who could be only political subalterns, while 
 "party" of a high constitutional school is pre- 
 served. 
 
 The priceless advantage of a representative form 
 of government is, that it goes far to embody opi- 
 nion. The predominating sentiment ought some- 
 times to check, and at other times to rouse those 
 invested with ruJing powers. The country hkes to 
 see the great questions of the age put into public 
 controversy. It takes pleasure in witnessing the 
 energetic struggles of Whigs and Tories to obtain 
 the voice of Parliament in their favour. It under- 
 stands what the two sides are struggling for, and, 
 after an attentive hearing of their wordy war, it 
 
 B 2 
 
4 CHIEFS OF PABTIES. 
 
 pronounces its verdict. That verdict may, in 
 some cases, be hasty, or partial, but the country 
 has confidence that the system under which it is 
 given is the best for Englishmen. The leaders on 
 both sides personify ideas, and represent powerful 
 interests and wide-spread sympathies. iParty may 
 be mocked at by the retired moralist, frigidly 
 declaiming against the fanaticism to which human 
 nature is prone, but a true Englishman will value 
 the system because it best enables him to see the 
 political action of the age. It is nothing more 
 than the necessary result of the representative 
 system at full work. 
 
 Without Party, the House of Commons would 
 be nothing but a huge collection of cliques and 
 coteries, propounders of crotchets, advocates of 
 abstractions, following individual caprices, and not 
 identified with the deep-lying passions and the 
 active sympathies of society at large. The debates 
 of the Commons would probably be more calm if 
 the voice of Party was never heard in it, but, 
 the experience of the legislative assemblies in 
 other countries gives no warrant for thinking that 
 its members would be more pure if they were 
 allowed to wander at will around the Speaker's 
 chair, and if the tone of the individual politician 
 was not kept higher by the reputation of the Party 
 
THE USE OF PARTY. 5 
 
 in which he serves. Its strict discipline may 
 occasionally be too severe, but it teaches politicians 
 not to consider themselves as isolated spectators ; 
 it binds them by social ties, and it trains them to 
 act in public under the guidance of great principles 
 of action, and inspires them with sentiments of 
 honour. With the help of Party, a member of 
 Parliament obtains some representative value ; 
 without its aid, he remains nothing but himself, 
 and represents only his money or his estate. He 
 may be an orator : but though his talents might 
 be admired, his speeches would have no repre- 
 sentative force. Men would only say of him : 
 " He is but a formidable critic, or a thundering 
 inveigher; when he denounces, he only dazzles, 
 he does not drive men before him ; he evaporates 
 in emotion ; he may sit or vote at either side, he 
 has no decided character after all, it is impossible 
 to tell how he will act in the approaching crisis." 
 
 Walpole was a statesman of extraordinary 
 practical ability, and he knew the value of Party, 
 and employed it ; Bolingbroke, while appealing to 
 patriotic principles, enforced the use of Party; 
 Chatham was a superlative orator, and an ad- 
 ministrator of vast energy, and when he sought 
 to discard Party he failed ; the Grenvilles, so rich 
 in personal resources, were not able to work their 
 
6 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 connection without it; Fox and Pitt, shining 
 specimens of political Englishmen of the first 
 class, were by word and deed upholders of Party ; 
 Burke, a sort of political Shakespeare, and almost 
 a moral prophet, in his " Thoughts on Discontents" 
 drew up an elaborate code on Party ; politicians of 
 spotless integrity have all recognised its value. 
 
 Great and able men have from time to time 
 striven to act in politics without its aid, but they 
 could not succeed in their wishes. For a great 
 part of his life, the brilliant "William Windham 
 was regarded only as an ingenious critic upon the 
 political performances of his contemporaries. Lord 
 Brougham quarrelled with the Whigs, and, like 
 Lord Chatham, attempted to stand alone; but his 
 representative value was of diminished importance, 
 though the energy of his untiring intellect re- 
 mained strong and unbroken. Others there have 
 been, less great and gifted, and their public 
 careers proved abortive, in spite of talent and 
 private worth, because they had not the repre- 
 sentative value which Party confers. Do not such 
 examples teach a strong lesson as to the futility 
 of attempting to govern without recognition of 
 Party ? 
 
 It is true, certainly, that Party has its malignity, 
 its unfairness, its exaggeration of men and things ; 
 
THE USE OF PARTT. 7 
 
 but has not Religion its superstition and fanaticism, 
 and is not Philosophy prone to abuse of the 
 reasoning power ? It is not allowable to plead the 
 abuses of an Institution against its solid benefits 
 and permanent advantages. Party has its bold 
 aspirations, its gallant struggles for the right, its 
 manly resolves not to yield to a tyrant majority, 
 its public purposes and its patriotic aims. King 
 William, in 1688, succeeded in becoming our 
 sovereign, but he failed in trying to govern without 
 it; he defeated the House of Bourbon, and 
 he dethroned the House of Stuarts, but he did 
 not succeed against the Whigs and Tories. Had 
 he put them down, he would have been a greater 
 conqueror in England than his Norman namesake 
 in 1066. 
 
 Christendom has its several churches and dif- 
 fering creeds, and there can be nothing unnatural 
 in Parliament having its Parties, The origin of 
 the whole system can be traced to times anterior 
 to the days when Whigs and Tories were so 
 baptised. In the reign of James the First, some 
 leading members of Parliament occupied them- 
 selves with exposing the delinquencies of high 
 officers of state, and it is to the example then 
 given that may be traced the spirit of co-operative 
 political union on which Party depends. Party 
 
O CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 was visible in the Long Parliament, and its 
 workings can be recognised in the aspirations and 
 actions of Falkland and Hyde upon one side, and 
 Hampden and Pym upon the other. After the 
 Restoration, when Parliamentary government again 
 came into operation, Party was soon seen and 
 heard; it survived 1688, and it has outlived all 
 the changes consequent on the Scotch and Irish 
 Unions, and on the growth of the Indian and 
 Colonial empire ; and it has ever since retained 
 the hereditary names bestowed upon it in the 
 times of Shaftesbury and Halifax. 
 
 The great Whig Families are a standing Party 
 in themselves, and their recent history has shown 
 that they do not intend to give up the power 
 which comes from acting in concert. There have 
 been, and may be again, differences and contro- 
 versies between old Whigs and new Whigs, but 
 the Whigs will still act together, proud of their 
 traditions, and conscious of the social importance 
 which comes from historical names supported by 
 vast estates. The Bedford Whigs, the Stafford 
 House Whigs, the Cavendishes, and other great 
 families, are interlaced by relationship. They 
 have ties of kindred, and a community of sen- 
 timent, and acting together in Parhament, they 
 must exercise such considerable weight as to call 
 
THE USB OF PAETT. 9 
 
 for the opposition of a regular and connected 
 political influence upon the other side. Neither 
 the command of the Crown, nor the clamour of 
 the public could compel the Whigs to dissolve 
 their ancient confederacy. They have a system, 
 and they will not part with it. The Whigs will 
 no more commit self-destruction to please the 
 public than they would give up Woburn Abbey, 
 and Chatsworth, and Dunrobin, and Bowood. 
 The Pitt Club has long been extinct, but the Fox 
 Club flourishes, and there is as much party spirit 
 as ever in Brookes's. 
 
 In the first session of the Reform Bill Par- 
 liament there was a dissolution of party ties to 
 a considerable extent. A vast number of the 
 new and inexperienced members sent up by the 
 country in enthusiasm, declined to acknowledge 
 Party in Parliament. There were the philosophical 
 radicals, and an anomalous crowd of provincial 
 politicians, orators in their own districts, and all 
 expecting to be leaders in the debates. The 
 Tories, from antecedent causes, were disorganised, 
 and the great Reform Party was severed into 
 jarring sections. The result was utterly unsatis- 
 factory ; the public mind was bewildered by the 
 multiplicity of factions, and practical politicians on 
 both sides were glad to see parties organised, and 
 
10 CHIEFS or PABTIES. 
 
 the issues on great questions put plainly before the 
 country, and advocated clearly and distinctly by 
 chosen and responsible chiefs in opposite ranks. 
 Experience proved that both time and energy 
 were economised by the practice of Party in Par- 
 liament. 
 
 But though it may be most desirable that Party 
 should continue to be a habit in Parliament, it does 
 not at all follow that society should desire that 
 party interests should be eagerly pursued out of 
 doors. It is right that representative politicians 
 should wear certain colours, for it is necessary that 
 the combatants should be distinguished by different 
 uniforms ; the responsibility of our representative 
 is increased by his clear profession of his principles, 
 but there is no obligation on every private English- 
 man to become a party man. The merchant, the 
 doctor, the barrister, the manufacturer may very 
 fairly say, " I have my own opinions, and on a 
 proper occasion, I am ready to express them, but 
 my social and personal duties occupy my time so 
 exclusively that I cannot study the political ques- 
 tions of the time so closely as to be able to offer 
 a conscientiously positive opinion on them. I 
 prefer, as a matter of sentiment, the Whigs, or the 
 Tories (as may be his opinion) but I cannot assume 
 the responsibility of being a partizan. Neither 
 
THE USE OF PARTY. 11 
 
 am I a politician. I read the newspapers with 
 interest, and I like to observe the political drama, 
 and my sympathies are with one side more than 
 the other, but I am not a politician. I like to see 
 Party in Parliament ; but I do not want that this 
 neighbourhood, or city, or borough, should have 
 its society spHt asunder by bitter polemical dis- 
 cussions." 
 
 In the House of Commons, its members are 
 habituated to the rules of Party, which are a code 
 in themselves. The influence of chiefs in Parlia- 
 ment helps to regulate and control the action of 
 Party at particular times. Discretion and judg- 
 ment are political virtues of cardinal importance 
 in leaders, but in the city, the county, or the 
 borough, it is not practicable to have any res- 
 ponsible chiefs, other than those active, bustling, 
 individuals who push themselves forward, 
 and grasp at the dictatorship of a district. An 
 Englishman may well be justified in resisting the 
 authority of such influences. 
 
 We live, also, under a Monarchy with its 
 Lords and Commons, and our lot is not cast 
 under a Democratic Republic with its Universal 
 Sufi^rage, and its incessant electioneering. If we 
 wished to estabhsh a pure Democracy in Eng- 
 land, there could be no way more eifectual than 
 
12 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 for the gentry and middle classes to encourage 
 a party spirit out of doors. Their example 
 would naturally be followed by the working 
 bodies in the community, and the inevitable 
 result would be a struggle between opposite 
 classes, from which serious danger might justly 
 be apprehended. In a commercial Empire 
 the loss of time resulting from the excessive 
 pursuit of politics would be injurious. The 
 lines of the Poet Laureate, have the deepest signi- 
 ficance in the politics of England. 
 
 " It is the land that freemen till. 
 
 That sober-suited freedom chose. 
 The land where girt with friends or foes 
 A man may speak the thing he will. 
 
 " A land of settled government, 
 A land of old and just renown. 
 Where freedom broadens slowly down, 
 From precedent to precedent. 
 
 " Where faction seldom gathers head. 
 But by degrees to fullness wrought. 
 The strength of some diffusive thought. 
 Hath time and space to work and spread. 
 
 " Should banded unions persecute. 
 Opinion, and induce a time. 
 When single thought is civil crime. 
 And individual freedom mute." 
 
THE USE OF PAUTY. 13 
 
 Shelley has called poets " the hierophants of 
 unapprehended inspiration," and with the subtle 
 touch of genius, the Laureate has, in the foregoing 
 lines, recalled the ideas that guide Englishmen in 
 their worship of Constitutional Liberty. They 
 are ready to recognise the virtue of political 
 association of Party in Parliament, but they are 
 not at all willing to submit to the tyranny of 
 " banded unions" out of doors, before whose 
 noisy despotism, " opinion " would be in danger 
 of persecution, and under whom " individual 
 freedom " would be mute. Their instincts tell 
 them also, that progress is more certain when 
 it is safe, and that Liberty is more likely to en- 
 dure when it " broadens down" upon foundations 
 secured by precedents. In short, because the 
 British Constitution is a representative form of 
 government, it is right that there should be 
 Party in Parliament, but because England is not 
 ruled by a delegative Democracy it is also right 
 to distrust the excess of party spirit out of doors, 
 and to deprecate the erection of organised plat- 
 forms, with stipendiary advocates, and itinerant 
 tribunes. 
 
 The responsibility which devolves upon the 
 Chiefs of Party, is one of the securities which 
 the country possesses for careful Parliamentary 
 
14 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 management of its affairs. Where the dictator- 
 ship which results from the delegation of a 
 Democratic Republic prevails, the power of 
 political chiefs is not so lasting as when Repre- 
 sentative government is established. The in- 
 fluence arising from leadership will require special 
 illustration. There are precedents in statesman- 
 ship which are effective in securing Parliament from 
 the erratic ambition or the selfishness of its 
 chiefs. 
 
OF LEADERSHIP. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY OF LEADERSHIP. 
 
 There are men of the world, keen and shrewd, 
 and philosophers of the closet, acute and profound, 
 who deride the idea that the great events in 
 politics, or in religious revolutions, are powerfully 
 influenced by mere individuals. They believe 
 entirely in " general causes," and they say that too 
 much causative force has been attributed to the 
 Caesars, Luthers, Cromwells, Napoleons and Mira- 
 beaus of history. Others, again, think that indi- 
 viduals are almost everything, and they cite some 
 of the personages just named as evidence for 
 the truth of their views. The question might 
 be debated for ever, and I shall not enter upon 
 it, believing as I do that there are sometimes 
 ordained dispensations of providential circumstan- 
 
16 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 ces which completely rule events, while at other 
 times extraordinary characters must themselves 
 be classified under general causes. "This won- 
 der-working word of circumstances," to quote 
 Madame de Stael (one of the few speculative wri- 
 ters admired by the Duke of Wellington), is just 
 as apphcable to a single agency of the highest 
 class as to any aggregate of secondary powers. 
 
 Those, however, who contend that individual 
 influences have decisive power over events, might 
 fairly point to what occurred in England between 
 1826 and 1830 as justifying their views. No 
 one could have thought that the death of Lord 
 Liverpool could have been fraught with serious 
 eventuality, yet it saddled the Tory party with 
 " the Canning schism." Lord Liverpool had ruled 
 from 1812 to 1826; he was an excellent man, 
 an able Minister, an honest Tory, and he had 
 strong personal influence over Mr. Canning, who 
 owed much to him. He had been the 
 Ministerial head of the Tory Cabinet for fourteen 
 years, and when he died no public man was 
 living who had control over Mr. Canning. That 
 consummate orator and brilliant politician thought 
 that he could be Prime Minister without ar- 
 rangements with the great chiefs of the Tory 
 party. Sooner than succumb to the Duke of 
 
OF LEADERSHIP. 17 
 
 Wellington, Lord Eldon, and Mr. Peel. Then 
 Mr. Canning made a coalition with a portion of 
 the Whigs. In the meanwhile, the Duke of York 
 (the next heir to the Throne) died, and momentous 
 consequences hung upon that event. George IV. 
 was in declining health, and the new heir was the 
 Duke of Clarence, who supported the Canning 
 views of Catholic Emancipation. The death of 
 Canning then took place, and he left a feeble 
 Ministry behind him. The Whigs, also, had been 
 weakened by the fact that they had split amongst 
 themselves on the question of the support to be 
 given to Mr. Canning. The Duke of Wellington 
 and Mr. Peel succeeded the Canningites as Pro- 
 testant and anti-Catholic Ministers in 1828, and 
 in 1829, acting no doubt on most honourable 
 motives, and making personal sacrifices, those 
 great personages carried the " Catholic question," 
 and a great blow was given to the claims and 
 honour of the Tory party by the mode in which 
 that measure was passed. 
 
 It was not because Roman Catholics were ad- 
 mitted to the Legislature that the Tory party 
 suffered in 1829, but because party considerations 
 and natural political feelings were apparently con- 
 demned and held cheap by the Ministers of the 
 day. There can be no doubt but that the Tory 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
18 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 chiefs greatly weakened the Conservative con- 
 nexion by their peculiar mode of dealing with 
 the "Catholic Question" in 1829. It would 
 have been far better that it should have been 
 carried by a Whig Cabinet than that a Protestant 
 -Ministry should have conceded it without securi- 
 ties. The spectacle of the victor of Waterloo 
 and the then Member for the University of 
 Oxford, whose fame had been chiefly founded on 
 anti-Catholic politics, being compelled to succumb 
 to an organised league of the Irish agitators, had 
 the worst effect. Hence the English political 
 unions ; hence, also the organised professional 
 agitations of subsequent years. 
 
 But why dwell upon those causes now? 
 Simply because I desire to point plainly to the 
 real reasons why the Conservative Party was able 
 to oflFer so little effectual resistance to the mea- 
 sures of 1831 and 1832. The death of the 
 Duke of York, the Canning schism, the unpopu- 
 larity of George IV., and, above all, the way in 
 which "Emancipation" was resisted in 1828, 
 and rapidly conceded in 1829, had injured the 
 power and prestige of the Tory party. The Duke 
 of Wellington carried things with a high hand 
 in 1829, and it is not the least reflection on 
 the memory of that illustrious personage to say 
 
OP LEADEBSHIP. 19 
 
 that at that time his Grace did not understand 
 " Government by Party " as well as he did in 
 subsequent years, when at many a crisis the 
 Sovereign in difficulties " sent for the Duke of 
 Wellington." The Duke of Richmond and many 
 members of the high Tory aristocracy, felt that 
 the Government of England could not be carried 
 on by a system savouring of military absolutism ; 
 and the result was that the Grey Ministry was 
 formed just after the Duke of Wellington had 
 delivered an intense panegyric upon the then exist- 
 ing system of Parliamentary representation. 
 
 That celebrated speech of the Duke of Welling- 
 ton against Reform, in 1830, was not so much 
 ill-timed as incautiously expressed. There were 
 many waverers then upon the subject of Reform, 
 even in Ministerial circles ; the larger body of 
 Canningites were also detached from the Minis- 
 terial Tories, and there were very many thorough- 
 going Church and State Tories who believed that 
 Pitt, if he were then hving, would have given 
 England a Reform BiU. It cannot be denied that 
 the mode in which the CathoUc qustion was con- 
 ceded was in itself a Parliamentary Reform. The 
 forty-shilling freeholders of Ireland were disfran- 
 chised, as a quasi security for Protestant interests 
 in Ireland ; a new Parliamentary franchise was 
 
 c 2 
 
20 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 enacted, and the Reformers of England were 
 thereby furnished with a precedent which they 
 knew how to apply. Sir Robert Peel had kept 
 himself uncommitted upon " Reform." He had 
 taken little part in its debates and of all questions 
 that could be agitated, it was that least suited to 
 the character of his mind. Its discussion required 
 reference to principles, an appreciation of original 
 and constructive science, and qualities of another 
 kind than are found in merely practical natures. 
 Crive Sir Robert Peel a fixed and positive system, 
 and no statesman could possibly wring from it 
 more practical advantages, and bring out more 
 skilfully all its favourable points. He was an 
 admirable administrator; he was not a great 
 originator. His temper of mind, his mental facul- 
 ties, and his personal resources exhibited many 
 of the characteristics of a Parliamentary Mazarin, 
 and few of those which might have belonged to 
 a Parliamentary Richelieu. The brilliant engineer 
 who built the Eddystone Lighthouse took his idea, 
 as he told the world, from observing the stem 
 of an oak tree, and adopting its construction. 
 Such a conception, if Sir Robert Peel had been 
 bred an engineer, would never have sprung up 
 in his brain, which could understand anything 
 by the most difficult demonstration, but never by 
 
OF LEADERSHIP. 21 
 
 the force of prescient genius could reach to results 
 previously unapprehended. The lines of Torres 
 Vedras were a most magnificent conception, and 
 were enough to stamp their projector with the fame 
 of original genius. If Sir R. Peel had been bred 
 to military life, does any one suppose that he ever 
 could have thought beforehand of the design of 
 the Peninsular campaign, or invented the defence 
 of Portugal ? 
 
 These considerations are important because the 
 Conservative party sufiFers even now from the 
 strategy, or, to speak more exactly, the want of 
 strategy, of the Conservative leaders in 1830-1-2. 
 Their mode of dealing with " Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion " had placed them in difficulties on " Reform " 
 which they had not anticipated. The rapidity 
 with which they struck the Protestant colours to 
 O'ConneU and the Clare electors in 1829, while 
 at the same time they pertinaciously resisted 
 every moderate measure of Reform, was the worst 
 course that they could have adopted. Their own 
 Parliament did not follow them. They were de- 
 serted on Sir Henry Parnell's motion for Financial 
 Reform. 
 
 It is one of the securities for the right conduct 
 of public affairs that grave responsibility should 
 devolve on the Parliamentary chiefs. At various 
 
23 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 periods, in the annals of Party, it stands recorded 
 that the extreme intemperance of leaders and 
 their injudicious conduct have seriously damaged 
 their followers. Mr. Pitt was enabled to retain 
 office for so long a time, not only by his great 
 talents, but also by the numerous errors of Mr. 
 Fox and his Whig companions. After those great 
 chiefs died, a large portion of the public, a con- 
 siderable following in Parliament, and his courtly 
 influences were favourable to installing the 
 Marquess Wellesley as a leading statesman, but the 
 private excesses, and extravagant habits of that 
 " Sultanised Englishman " deprived him of the 
 credit that otherwise would have followed his ad- 
 ministrative discernment, his largeness of mind, his 
 brilliant accomplishments, his striking fluency of 
 speech, and that Imperial range of views which emi- 
 nently distinguished him. It is worth observing, also, 
 that in the critical period which occurred between 
 the death of Fox and the fall of Napoleon, that 
 the characters of Lord Grenville and Earl Grey 
 were not suited for making friends, and gaining 
 allies. They were both dignified, consistent 
 and able ; but they were deficient in pliancy, and 
 in skill in dealing with men. On the other hand, 
 Lord Liverpool with his admirable temper, his 
 modest demeanour, his strong sense of public 
 
OF LEADERSHIP. 23 
 
 duty, and his tact in conciliating sectional poli- 
 ticians was singularly calculated for managing a 
 Cabinet, and justice has not yet been done to the 
 services of that meritorious Minister. 
 
 In our own times, also, Parties have been 
 powerfully affected by the acts and the characters 
 of the Chiefs selected to lead them, and to manage 
 their affairs. The year 1834 was a memorable 
 one in the political history of Parliament. In the 
 beginning of that year, the Reform Party seemed 
 triumphant, and Sir Robert Peel could count on 
 only about one hundred and thirty members to 
 support him ; but before the ensuing Christmas, a 
 great number of the banking firms of London had 
 signed an urgent address of confidence in the 
 member for Tamworth, and the polls at the 
 General Election, consequent on his acceptance of 
 office (after his return from Rome) were extremely 
 close throughout the country, and parties in Par- 
 liament were balanced for the next seven years. 
 Leading influences in the Reform Party, in that 
 most remarkable year of 1834 had exercised great 
 effect. Lord Grey, the Premier, had grown feeble 
 and distrustful, and querulous. His son-in-law, 
 the Earl of Durham, wielded his Radical popularity 
 without discretion, and Lord Brougham — but the 
 venerable hairs of that famous personage, and the 
 
24 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 recollection of the splendid services of a brilliant 
 career forbid harsh allusion to circumstances which 
 helped to sever the Reform Bill Whigs. The 
 part, also, taken at that time by the late Mr. 
 O'Connell, and the overpowering influence which 
 he possessed in some quarters were held to be a 
 sufficient excuse for the secession of the Duke of 
 Richmond, and Mr. Stanley (Earl of Derby) from 
 the counsels of the Reform Party. 1834 is almost 
 as significant a date in our modern Party annals 
 as 1829 or 1846. 
 
 The power held by a Chief of a party is necessarily 
 great, and it should be exercised under feelings of 
 the highest responsibility. He is to exercise that 
 power as a trustee in political equity, but he must 
 not abuse the capital of his own party for the 
 personal end of obtaining influence with the 
 Court, or attracting popular applause. His Party 
 gives its leader confidence — it clothes him with 
 power and looks to him as its advocate, its 
 champion, its principal representative. There is 
 no obligation to stand in the position of a leading 
 Chief. But if he accepts the position, it cannot be 
 denied that he contracts obligations to those who 
 hail him as their leader. 
 
 There is a great leading precedent as to the 
 conduct of a political Chief who differs on a serious 
 
OF LEADERSHIP. 25 
 
 question from his followers. It is that of Mr. 
 Pitt's conduct in 1802. When he found that he 
 could not induce the Court, or persuade his 
 followers to support the Catholic question, he 
 resigned his office, though office was the passion 
 of his life, and though the times were grave. He 
 accepted place in two years afterwards, but he 
 had avowed his principles, and he had given ample 
 time to his former followers to consider whether 
 they would continue their confidence in him. 
 
 The conduct of Chiefs in Parliament must 
 necessarily be influenced by the precedents of 
 great statesmen. It would be dangerous to allow 
 leaders to act solely from themselves, without 
 regard to political obhgations. The duties of 
 Chiefs in a representative constitution are totally 
 different from those of official politicians who live 
 under a democracy. In the latter form of govern- 
 ment, a minister may be excused for a certain 
 deference to the roar of the multitude, but in a 
 constitutional monarchy a statesman must submit 
 his conduct to the operation of the rules which 
 have guided the conduct of Parties and Parliament 
 since the Revolution. 
 
 It might be said that there is no statutory 
 obligation on statesmen compelling them to pay 
 obedience to the rules of Party, and to great 
 
26 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 historical examples. But the national manners in 
 politics, the course of the free English public 
 mind, and the grand traditions of the Commons 
 of England are not made, and could not be un- 
 made by technical law. The Cabinet of England 
 does not depend upon positive enactment. The 
 Queen is advised, and the Empire in her Majesty's 
 name, is governed by the Cabinet ; it is an in- 
 fluence and a power perfectly constitutional, but 
 its power springs from Parliamentary usages, and 
 from the same force of moral and political causa- 
 tion which inspires the unwritten code of the laws 
 of Party. 
 
 The history of the institution of the Cabinet is 
 one of the most curious chapters in English 
 Government. Originally, the word " Cabinet" 
 was applied to the room in which the Ministers of 
 any State assembled ; and by an easy transition in 
 popular parlance, it came to be applied to the 
 Ministry. In the latter signification, it has been 
 stated by some writers that both the word and the 
 thing. Cabinet and Council of State, occur earlier 
 in Italian and French than in English history. 
 The Privy Council of England originally performed 
 the duties now belonging to the Cabinet, and Lord 
 Bacon remarked that the members of the Privy 
 Council were too numerous for despatch and 
 
OF LEADERSHIP. 27 
 
 secresy. Lord Clarendon refers incidentally to the 
 " Cabinet" of Laud, Strafford and Lord Cotting- 
 ton which secretly advised Charles the First. 
 Mr. Hallam, in his " Constitutional History," 
 while discussing the origin of the Cabinet, has 
 confessed that he has not the means of tracing 
 its institution clearly, and nothing more plainly 
 shows how entirely conventional and technically 
 indefinite is the Cabinet, than the elaborate debate 
 in 1806 on Lord Ellenborough having been ad- 
 mitted a Cabinet Minister while he was also a 
 Chief Justice. In his essay on Sir William 
 Temple, Lord Macaulay has an interesting passage 
 on the philosophy of " Cabinet making," and in 
 his " History of England" the noble Lord writes, 
 while describing the growth of the Cabinet as a 
 political institution ; 
 
 "It at lengtL. drew to itself the chief executive power ; 
 yet, strange to say, it still continues to be altogether un- 
 known to the law. The names of the noblemen and gentle- 
 men who compose it are never officially announced. No 
 record is kept of its meetings and resolutions ; nor has its 
 existence ever been recognised by any Act of Parliament.' 
 
 When the Cabinet is thus seen to be an 
 institution dependent upon custom and political 
 tradition, it cannot be matter for surprise that 
 
28 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 in our Parliamentary system the rules of Party and 
 the duties of political leadership should have 
 strong moral obligations, although their enactment 
 cannot be found in the law books. Reference to 
 precedent, to example, and to the actions and 
 opinions of statesmen have a certain weight with 
 Parliament, and there is still much to be learned 
 from the contemplation of the way in which some 
 Chiefs of Party gained great power with the 
 people of England, and others lost an influence 
 which they might have retained with wiser con- 
 duct. 
 
A DAY WITH FOX. 29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A DAY WITH FOX. 
 
 The question has been often asked, why a 
 man of Fox's great talents and high connec- 
 tions, was not more successful in his political 
 career? The answer to that enquiry- is to be 
 found in the fact that his modes of life, and 
 protracted dissipation, created strong preju- 
 dices against him amongst the people at large. 
 To know why he failed as a statesman, we 
 must learn how he lived as a man; and I 
 will take upon myself the task of painting the 
 fife of Charles Fox for a day from the materials 
 published, and from some in my own possession. 
 Mv picture will not be a fancy one: no facts 
 or statements shall be made which I cannot 
 authenticate. We must of course suppose that 
 
30 CHIEFS 0¥ PARTIES. 
 
 we have received a cloak of invisibility while we 
 exercise the privileges of Asmodeus for — 
 
 A DAY WITH CHARLES FOX. 
 
 About the noon of a summer's day {circa 
 1787-8), sauntering along that " sweet shady side 
 of Pall-mall" sung of by Captain Morris, the 
 fancy seizes us to visit Mr. Fox, whose orations 
 we have read with delight, of whose marvellous 
 talents we have heard such wonders. Accordingly 
 we proceed to one of the innumerable residences 
 that he occupied during the vicissitudes of his 
 career. We find him living in second-rate 
 lodgings, in the neighbourhood of St. James's- 
 street, and the mediocrity of his abode strikes 
 us as contrasting with the splendour of his fame. 
 Ascending to his sitting room we are face to face 
 with a great historical character, and our breath 
 is in suspense while with eager curiosity we gaze 
 in his retirement upon the idolised hero of Party 
 Worship, 
 
 Lounging over his late breakfast sits one whose 
 personal appearance alone would rivet the atten- 
 tion. His figure in robust manhood shews none 
 of those traces of dissipation that we might have 
 expected from the life of a roysterer. His 
 
A DAY WITH FOX. 31 
 
 swarthy complexion recalls to us his nickname — 
 "Niger;" and the thick and bushy eyebrows, 
 with something of a saturnine aspect, strangely 
 blended with the signs of a passionate tempera- 
 ment, remind us of his Stuart blood through the 
 Lennox family.* There is the " Charley Fox " 
 of White's and Almack's— the "Mr. Fox" of 
 aristocratic Whig coteries — the " Fox " of history's 
 page ! With what an easy, indolent air he sips 
 his chocolate, while he glances over some piece 
 of French trash, in which rumours, bon mots, 
 scandals about the Faubourg St. Germain, and 
 pedantry from the pays Latin are jumbled to- 
 gether in the fricassee style of French literature. 
 There is a good natured look of affability about 
 our statesman that conciliates good will ; and yet 
 that compressed mouth and beetling brow, with 
 its occasional heavy frown, tell of one whose 
 temper can be wrathful, and whose soul can be 
 impassioned with the fire of genius. 
 
 * His mother was Lady Georgina Caroline Lennox, 
 eldest daughter of the second Duke of Richmond. Lord 
 Holland (p. 4, vol. i.) talks of the sensation at Court from 
 a duke's daughter marrying a commoner not of illustrious 
 family, but he omits to state that the marriage was an 
 elopement. Lady Caroline Fox was great-granddaughter 
 of King Charles II. 
 
32 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 The carelessness of the whole man as seen 
 in his character is one of the most true and 
 significant signs of his nature. Here is no formal 
 bookcase with variorum classics and standard 
 essayists. His books are as miscellaneous as his 
 acquaintances, and, like his other friends, range 
 from good to bad. A stray volume of Tacitus iS 
 beside the last Italian opera — the new " Racing 
 Calendar " is carelessly tossed over his old Eton 
 copy of Thucydides. His valet brings in m6re 
 letters to him, in addition to the unopened pile 
 already on the table, and we can see that the sight 
 of all that he has to read, daunts the man of ease. 
 The variety of his life is attested by the super- 
 scriptions of his letters. Here is the formal 
 clerkly hand of a money-lending usurer. There 
 is a trumpery letter from a tuft-hunting democrat, 
 proud of writing " My dear Sir " to the nephew 
 of the Duke of Richmond. He takes up a long 
 packet with " E. B." in the corner. It is a prolix 
 MS. written in a tremulous hurried hand, with copi- 
 ous interlineations. But the morning is too oppres- 
 sive to begin with poring over politics, and that 
 dirty vile scrawl on yon crumpled paper, with 
 news about " Seagull"* from the famed Sam 
 
 * " Seagull" won tlie Oatlands at Ascot, and in stakes 
 
A DAT WITH TOX. 33 
 
 Chifn'ey arrests his eyes. The political MS. is 
 crumpled into a drawer, and, while our Statesman 
 with something like bustling activity, makes fresh 
 notes in his betting-book, there is ushered in one 
 of his dearest friends. It is Fitzpatrick, a dandy 
 of the eighteenth century, an Irish humorist with 
 some Parisian grace, and something of a military 
 carriage. He is prematurely haggard and care- 
 worn from the campaigns of pleasure, and his 
 conversation, neither edifying nor instructive, is 
 vastly amusing. And while the two friends are 
 confidentially discussing of their common affairs, 
 for they are deep in each other's secrets, pleasant 
 noise of laughter is heard on the stairs, and the 
 swarthy face of Fox is gladdened as his dear 
 sprightly Jack Townshend comes in along with 
 the "Hare of many friends." What jokes! 
 What mirth ! What capital sayings sparkle, flash, 
 and fly about that little shabby drawing-room. 
 It Is brilliant with the hues of fancy and humour. 
 
 (then smaller than now) won close on 1,600?. He easily 
 .beat the Prince of Wales's "Escape" at Ascot, two miles 
 for five hundred guineas, vast sums depending on the 
 match, Sam Chifney used to say " Mr. Fox was a grand 
 man, and know'd 'osses very well." Lord Holland thought 
 it beneath " the dignity of history" to describe his uncle's 
 speculations on the turf. 
 
 VOL. I. ^ 
 
34 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 And Fox himself — with what an easy, delighted 
 air he enjoys the banter and good humour of his 
 companions ! The namies of the gifted and the 
 beautiful are mentioned, and he tears open his 
 invitations to the various scenes of gaiety and joy 
 where his presence is persuasively bidden in the 
 autographs of the fashionable rulers of the age. 
 Well, our statesman leads a pleasant hfe, and 
 who would say that politics are a grave 
 pursuit ? Ay, or a great one ! 
 
 Yet stay ! We must see more of the life of 
 this man of ease. The day is wearing on, and 
 he saunters out to Brookes's. Every hand is 
 put out to welcome him, and he is evidently 
 the favourite of the club. Around him are 
 clustered the Fitzroys, and the Keppels, and 
 the St. Johns. How pleased he is to see George 
 Byng, and with what warmth he greets that 
 delicate, slender young man — the new member 
 for Northumberland— a speaker of brilliant pro- 
 mise — Charles Grey ! Every one is glad to 
 see him, and he has a word for all. He is the 
 king of his company, until a new arrival comes, 
 and with courteous eagerness the great party 
 leader acknowledges the presence of George, 
 Prince of Wales. They were early this morn- 
 ing in each other's company before, and the 
 
A DAT WITH FOX. 36 
 
 Prince's face betrays what Fox's countenance 
 does not show — that a night of joy had been 
 succeeded by the headache of repentance. 
 And now the Prince and Fox retire to a pri- 
 vate room, where we must not intrude on the 
 secret plottings in which the vanity of Court 
 life, and the passions of a pohtical chieftain 
 are commingled. But soon the secret council 
 is at an end, and, after a fresh ambuscade has 
 been plotted against Mr. Pitt, the Prince and 
 Fox emerge in high spirits, and the Prince 
 gaily challenges Lord Derby to a game of bil- 
 liards, while Fox mounts his horse and goes 
 to the Park. How the crowd look after him ! 
 How all the idlers regard his well-known face ! 
 See him beside the chariot yonder! Who 
 could think that this was a man deep in state 
 affairs, while he eagerly talks gossip and prat- 
 tles badinage to the delighted ears of those 
 lovely sisters, the Duchess of Devonshire and 
 Lady Duncannon. Yes ! He has made them 
 happy. He certainly will join the coalition 
 water party up to Richmond. What a gay, 
 joyous scene it is to-day, and what a blaze of 
 fashion is in the Park ! All eyes look towards 
 the Duchess of Devonshire's chariot. See how 
 admiring groups of provincials are gazing with 
 
 D 2 
 
36 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 admiration at the great lion of the day. They 
 scrutinise his careless, easy dress, and note his 
 blue and buff costume. They see his face, un- 
 clouded with care, and hear his laugh, while he 
 tells light, gay anecdotes to the brilliant occupants 
 of the chariot. Here comes Lady Lade and her 
 eternal ponies ; and the Duchess looks grave, and 
 Fox bites his lips. And next comes the Countess 
 of Clermont along with Lady William Gordon, 
 telling of life at Paris and Marie Antoinette. 
 There is a gentleman riding near, and, as he 
 salutes Charles Fox, the Duchess of Devonshire, 
 with her sprightly vivacity, quotes the line of th^ 
 " RoUiad"— 
 
 " The comely Villiers witli his flaxen locks."* 
 
 Here follows the gallant Colonel St. Leger, a 
 star of fashion and idol of the fair. He is wel- 
 comed with the sweetest smiles by the Duchess 
 of Devonshire. But the smile vanishes as St. 
 Leger announces that the Duchess of Rutland, 
 the brightest ornament of the Pittite female aris- 
 tocracy, is driving hither in her pony carriage. 
 There they are, the two rival beauties of the day 
 
 * The Hon. John Charles Villiers, a great friend of the 
 Prince of Wales, uncle of the present Earl of Clarendon, K..G. 
 
A DAY WITH FOX. 37 
 
 — Devonshire excelling in fascination, and Rutland 
 unrivalled in grace — the first a daughter of the 
 house of Spencer, and inheriting much of the 
 versatile talent of her race ; the Second a Somer- 
 set, with the blood of the Plantagenets in her 
 veins; both equal in the amount of admiration 
 which followed them, but Devonshire decidedly 
 carrying the palm in popularity, and the other 
 achieving the victory in power. What a stately 
 air has Rutland as she proudly sweeps by ! Fresh 
 from her Vice-regal throne, she seems to have 
 acquired more imposing dignity. And she smiles 
 with flattered pride as she thinks of the lines in 
 which Fox announced her conquest, when she 
 was Marchioness of Granby : 
 
 " Ye meteors, who with mad career 
 Have rov'd through Fashion's atmosphere. 
 And thou, young, fair, fantastic Devon, 
 Wild as the comet in mid heaven. 
 Hide your diminished heads, nor stay 
 T' usurp the shining realms of day. 
 For see, th' unsullied morning light. 
 With beams more constant and more bright. 
 Her splendid course begins to run. 
 And all creation hails the sun."* 
 
 * See " The Meteor, the Comet, and the Sun," from 
 
38 CHIEFS OP PARTIES. 
 
 And now Fox rides on slowly. One might 
 suppose that he had much more to think of in 
 life than toying and coquetting with pretty women. 
 Is this the fitting course for a man professing to 
 live for empire ? Instead of toying with beauties, 
 ought he not to be studying statistics? What 
 
 would Sir Robert P ? Down, thou snarler! 
 
 Know that* it is an age of passion, of vague as- 
 pirations, of grand and stirring social theories. 
 It is in the latter end of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, before the steam-engine is invented, when 
 the name of Peel is only mentioned with 
 spinning-jennies, and Sheridan's lines* on the new 
 
 Mr. Fox's pen, written in 1781, in honour of the Mar- 
 chioness of Granby. It is in these lines occur 
 
 " epicenian Damer, 
 For John scarce knows which sex can claim her." 
 
 These lines are not printed in the Memoirs of Fox by 
 Lord Holland. 
 
 * "Mr. Peel, Mr. Peel, 
 
 In return for your zeal, 
 I'm told they have dubb'd you Sir Bob — 
 
 By coarse Manchester stuff, 
 
 You have got wealth enough. 
 And for honours you'll now drive a job, Mr. Peel, 
 
 For honours you'll now drive a job." 
 
A DAY WITH FOX. 39 
 
 baronetcy — long before the time when a Clerk 
 talking blue-books for three hours could be hailed 
 as a debater. It is characteristic of the period that 
 the first debater should be also the fashion of 
 the day, Ay! the fashion; and what spell there 
 was in that word in those days, when Fox was 
 playing his great part ! It would have been good 
 policy in such days for a statesman with the King 
 and Queen adverse to him to court the smiles of 
 celebrated beauty. But see ! He is not a favour- 
 ite with all the lovely women. There is another 
 lady in a pony carriage — for pony driving is the 
 female rage of the time. What a decided cut 
 this lady has given to Fox, who seemed anxious 
 to salute her ! She is very beautiful still, though 
 already she has had two husbands, and some say 
 
 that she is secretly married to ; but thereby 
 
 hangs a tale, and there, too, lies the reason why Mrs. 
 Fitzherbert turns away her head from Charles Fox.* 
 
 * See the published letter in which Mr. Fox dis- 
 suades the Prince from thinking of the marriage. Mr. 
 Fox's aunt. Lady Sarah, was very near being Queen of 
 England, secundum Walpole and Mr. Grenville. She was 
 a very extraordinary woman. First married to one of the 
 Bunburys of Suffolk, she was subsequently united to 
 Major George Napier, and was mother of the conqueror 
 of Scinde and the brillant historian of the Peninsular War. 
 
40 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 And now the Park is getting thin, and the 
 gay charioteers turn homeward their fairy steeds. 
 Fox, too, is preparing to leave. He looks rather 
 more grave than we could like. Could the ap- 
 parition of Mrs. Fitzherbert have suggested un- 
 pleasant thoughts to him ? Or does he want to 
 shake off that boring Tom Stepney who wants 
 to ride 'with him ? Well, he is at last alone 
 riding out through Gloucester-gate, and he puts 
 his horse to a canter, and is soon at his favourite 
 sejour — the house of Mrs. Armistead. Ah ! that 
 name conjures up recollections of unlawful love. 
 Yes ! and of a love that cherished Fox as he 
 was loved by none other in the world Which 
 of all his gay worldly companions, of all the 
 friends that extolled his genius, would do as that 
 woman, and risk life to secure the existence of 
 the popular leader? Now she is his mistress, 
 but the day will come when he will gratefully 
 call her by the sacred name of wife, and give 
 her his hand in marriage, as the only recompense 
 in his power for risking her life as his nurse in 
 a contagious malady that but for her would have 
 proved mortal,* 
 
 * The cause of the marriage as stated in the text 
 has not heen puhhshed before, I believe, but I 
 
A DAT WITH FOX. 41 
 
 She seems surprised to see him. She did not 
 expect him for another hour. So much the better 
 — he has something to read before dinner. Tos- 
 sing himself on a sofa, he draws from his pocket 
 a paper that we saw this morning. Yes ! it is 
 the "E.B." paper; and with knit brows he 
 begins to apply himself to a disquisition from 
 the pen of "the greatest philosopher in action 
 that the world ever saw,"* Fox reads — admires, 
 and learns from one who in the science of pohtics 
 was his master. " Well," he mutters to himself, 
 " what genius and knowledge this good Ed- 
 mund has ! Yet the House of Commons pre- 
 fers me to him, and Burke knows it, and by 
 
 have it on private information. Fox was taken from his 
 lodgings in the evening to St. James's Church, and 
 married privately by the Hon. and Rev. Mr. St. John. 
 It vpas the first time that he had left his house after his 
 illness. See also his lines to his wife on his fiftieth birth- 
 day. 
 
 * So said Sir James Mackintosh, applying Burke's own 
 definition of political science. " It is the business of the 
 speculative philosopher to mark the proper cm c?s of govern- 
 ment. It is the province of the statesman, who is the 
 philosopher in action, to find means for these ends." — 
 (Thoughts on the Discontents.) This distinction has 
 always been overlooked by the Benthamites and Radi- 
 cals. 
 
42 CHIEFS OP PARTIES. 
 
 Jove, the House is right ! For where could a House 
 of Commons be found to follow this profound 
 reasoning, these soaring flights of fancy ? Speeches, 
 as I often say, are made to be spoken, and not 
 to be read, as the House knows by instinct. 
 Fox on his legs, and Burke upon paper — such 
 is the right division of labour." He masters the 
 paper with rapid facility, tenaciously grasps its 
 facts, and with intuitive logic sees the variety 
 of views which the speculative mind of Burke 
 has suggested. Without a ruffle on his brow, 
 he joyously announces that he has got his task 
 ready for the Commons, joins his mistress at their 
 quiet dinner, where she eagerly listens to her 
 Charles eloquently rhapsodising about the merits 
 of a marvellous new actress — one Mrs. Siddons 
 — with a voice almost as grand as that of Mr. 
 Pitt, and with a delivery unrivalled by the orators 
 of any time. Well ! while Fox is dining we shall 
 see what the Commons are about, who are eagerly 
 waiting for his appearance. 
 
 Here we are in old St. Stephen's ! The first thing 
 that strikes us is the plainness of the room where 
 the chief rulers of the British Empire are as- 
 sembled. Here is no splendid hall, no tesselated 
 corridor, no long-drawn vistas, no fretted vaults of 
 Gothic architecture. The whole place reminds one 
 
A DAY WITH FOX. 43 
 
 of a superior descriptionof dissentingmeetmg-house. 
 Here are the gentlemen of England assembled 
 to the number of nearly five hundred. It is easy 
 to know the Opposition, with the large number of 
 blue and buffs amongst them ! What a number 
 of old men are in the House ; and there are also 
 a number of very young ones, fresh from college. 
 But where is Pitt ? He has not come yet ; there 
 is his place vacant on the Treasury bench, and 
 there is Pitt's right-hand man — tall Harry Dundas 
 — ready to sing the Scotch tune of " Wha wants 
 me ?" Look at that odd, queer creature, looking 
 like an overgrown shrimp in contortions. Ah ! 
 that is a great friend of Pitt's — 'tis young Wil- 
 berforce, the member for Yorkshire. The young 
 man talking to him, with a star on his breast, and 
 with a pair of eyes outshining his star, is young 
 Lord Mornington — a poor Irish Lord — rather a 
 favourite of the King. He has not yet realised 
 the expectations formed of him. There is Sir 
 John Scott, the Attorney-General, with his grave, 
 sensible, sturdy face. What a contrast he is to 
 that elegant aristocratic-looking member on the 
 front Opposition bench ! That is Mr. Erskine, 
 another of the brilliant advocates who have failed 
 in St. Stephen's. There, at the middle of the 
 front bench, is Rose, the Secretary to the Treasury, 
 
44 CHIEFS OF PAUTIES. 
 
 careworn and flurried, looking as if his New 
 Forest property was to be taken from him. How 
 unlike he is to his brother Secretary — Steele — 
 the member for Chichester — a picture of Silenus. 
 But what a Babel of noise ! We can scarcely 
 catch a word that falls from the member on his 
 legs, vehemently flourishing a paper in his hand. 
 How odd it looks to see a public speaker harangu- 
 ing with spectacles on nose, hke this unheard 
 member ! 'Tis Burke ! Ah ! You see what a 
 rage he is in, while, thanks to that clownish- 
 looking person — Rolle, the member for Devon — 
 not a word is heard from " the greatest man then 
 living."* But the fault is not altogether with 
 the Commons. Like other men of genius, Burke 
 is arrogant, morose, and is embittered with per- 
 sonal annoyances. 'Tis the unhappiest time of 
 his life.f He sits down — and how well listened 
 to is the next speaker, with his formal, slow, and 
 precise manner. That's George Bankes, the 
 member for Corfe Castle — one of the most high- 
 spirited men in the House — a man who would 
 not barter his independance for an earldom. See 
 how that tall, emaciated-looking man is noting 
 
 * Lord Macaulay, in Essay on " Warren Hastings." 
 t Fide Wilberforce's Diary for this period of Burke's 
 life. 
 
A DAT WITH FOX. 45 
 
 the statements of Bankes. He gets up to reply. 
 'Tis Sir Philip Francis. How impatient are his 
 gestures ! How sharp is his tone ! How acrimo- 
 nious in manner ! And he is followed by some 
 nondescript on the Treasury bench. But see 
 the bustle below the bar ! 
 
 Yes ! there stalks the stately figure of William 
 Pitt, marching along the gangway to the Treasury 
 bench ! He looks like one born for power, with that 
 wide imperial brow — that lordly air of supremacy — 
 that sovereign stare at the embattled front of Opposi- 
 tion. There is something of his sire about his carri^- 
 age ; but his features have the Grenville look, as his 
 blood partakes of its phlegm. He is dressed with 
 elegant formality, in his customary black waist- 
 coat and blue-body coat. And now there is fresh 
 noise below the gangway — and while the Speaker, 
 roaring " Order, order ! below the bar" — ■ 
 
 " In vain the power of strengthening porter cries. 
 And nods to Bellamy for fresh suppUes" — ■ 
 
 in comes the much-desired Charles Fox, greatly 
 to the relief of the discomfitted Opposition, who now 
 have the worst of the debate. That is Lord Surrey — 
 the Protestant Lord Surrey — talking to Fox. People 
 whisper that Lord Surrey is still a Papist, and 
 
46 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 it is said that he wears that ugly coat on him as a 
 penance. And now Sheridan is up ! How well 
 he does it ! And how readily the House gives 
 its ear to him, while he dazzles with ingenious 
 thoughts, and amuses with his fancy, though his 
 declamation fails to stir the passions. His tone 
 is not deeper nor higher than that of the comedy 
 in which he has immortalized his name. How 
 angry poor Burke looks at Sheridan's success ! 
 Rivals at the same side are always more jealous 
 than avowed adversaries face to face. 
 
 At last Pitt rises. All is hushed. His figure 
 seems too tall for an orator, and his aspect is for- 
 bidding, with its stern and haughty air. But 
 his voice is that of a demi-god. How gloriously 
 it fills the ear, as the speaker's swelling sentences 
 are fluently rolled forth in mellifluous harmony. 
 The action is flowing and facile, too unvaried 
 for perfectly artistic grace, but with enough of 
 elocutionary art. Not only every word, but every 
 syllable is distinctly caught. If we had not heard 
 him we could scarcely imagine this blended force 
 and harmony, this energy without discord, this 
 marvellous facility united to imposing stateliness. 
 In his words, as in his matter, there is no appeal 
 to our imagination, but the whole man, with his 
 air of heaven-given dictatorship, his awe-inspiring 
 
A DAT WITH FOX. 47 
 
 severity of deportment, his lofty scorn for his foes, 
 his evident faith in himself — justified by his vast 
 powers — we say, the whole man does kindle up 
 our imagination, and realizes our recollection of 
 Athenian and Roman story. Here is that man 
 whose prowess would have daunted the sensitive soul 
 of Cicero, and whose logic of clearness beyond ail 
 that the schools could teach, with musical thunder 
 of grandly terrible declamation, might have con- 
 torted with jealousy the heart of Demosthenes. 
 Here is that king of men — that ruler of his time 
 — who, long before thirty summers have passed, 
 has changed the fate of parties — crushed the 
 Whigs — reconstructed on new principles the 
 party of the Court — allied the Tories to the com- 
 mercial energy of the land — unfurled the banner 
 of " British Empire," and inscribed it with his 
 motto, " Ships, Colonies, and Commerce." For 
 three hours, with unfaltering force, he has defied 
 his adversaries, and defended his resolves, and, 
 amidst reverberating voUies of cheers, he resumes 
 his seat, himself the only unmoved, human being 
 in that spell-bound assembly. 
 
 Well, Fox never can answer that display. You 
 cry — " What a pity that he spent all his day 
 sauntering about ! And last night, too, how he 
 wasted it in the orgies where Captain Morris 
 
48 CHIEPS OF PARTIES. 
 
 sung: his bacchanalian strains !" You think thart 
 Fox raust break down, and you feel for hira, as 
 with heavy, lumbering air, he advances slowly 
 towards the table, and fumbles awkwardly with 
 his fingers. There he stands, amidst a dead 
 silence of expectation. Look at his careless half-but- 
 toned vest, his crumpled linen, his almost slovenly 
 attire. What is he saying ? We cannot hear him dis- 
 tinctly. He seems quite confused, and his sentences 
 are all entangled. Ah ! he must fail, as his 
 father before him did when " battling it out " 
 ■with another Pitt.* His voice, too, is different 
 in its coarse and husky sound from the sonorous 
 organ of his gifted foe. His gestures, also, how 
 commonplace — his whole air, how ungainly, as 
 we contrast it with the stateliness of the last 
 speaker. But how very still the House is ! The 
 Opposition do not seem dispirited, nor does the 
 Treasury bench look prematurely elated. Both 
 sides know by experience, the nature of the man 
 before them. His voice is becoming more clear — 
 he has got rid of that unseemly obstruction to his 
 utterance. We find that he is saying, in very 
 
 * " Old as I am, I hope to see you both battling it out 
 in these walls as I hare done your fathers before you." — 
 Anecdote of General Grant, in 1780. 
 
A DAY WITH FOX. 49 
 
 plain and unaflfected words, that the minister, 
 though adroit and artful, is, after all, very superfi- 
 cial in his views. He— Charles Fox — does not 
 mean to deny that a case of apparent strength and 
 reason might be made by the minister. Well, he 
 fancies the case — ^and we are surprised to find 
 him restating his adversary's view. He does so 
 with clearness, precision, and transparent simplicity 
 of style. The case could not be put more strongly 
 for the other side than Fox has placed it. He 
 enlists attention and sympathy by the equity of 
 his statement. 'Tis his art ! 'tis his matchless 
 art, which died with Fox. Now, then, he has 
 the case fairly before the House — now the matter 
 in dispute is clearly seen. Ha ! with what over- 
 whelming vehemence, what terrific impetuosity 
 he anathematizes the contemptible sophistry of 
 the case which he had recently just restated ! 
 He scouts its utter absurdity, and rends to pieces 
 the whole argument. He analyses it, and re- 
 futes each assertion separately ; he returns again 
 and again to the main proposition, never gliding 
 away into ambiguous language, or skulking from 
 a difficulty. This plain downright manner disarms 
 all suspicion of sophistry, and you evidently see 
 that he is making havoc with the substance of Pitt's 
 speech. Now how he glows with ardour as he 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 CHIEFS OF PAUTIES. 
 
 approaches a part of the question where humanity 
 is concerned ! He becomes more intense every 
 moment. A new view of the whole question, 
 not thought of before, is bursting upon the 
 astonished House. The speaker's masculine sense 
 is translating into parliamentary English the super 
 subtle and abstracted conclusions of the " E.B." 
 paper. Vast prospects of great social good flash 
 into the orator's mind, and he pours forth all his 
 thoughts with the fiery impulsiveness of an 
 enthusiast. His argument becomes impassioned ; 
 his reasoning blends with his emotion. This 
 is the ignited logic — the Greek fire of heart- 
 stirring eloquence — the tongue to plead for the 
 injured and oppressed — to speak of human 
 anguish. This is the man who would burn to 
 break the shackles of the dusky tribes of Africa. 
 Those near him see the tears bursting from his 
 eyes — those far off hear the voice faltering with 
 sympathy, and the genuine sensibility of a strong 
 mind has magic power over the sympathies. He is 
 carrying the House with him : how he revels in 
 his power ! ' He realises to his mind the pleasure 
 described by an anonymous essayist of antiquity — 
 the heart stirring joy of successful extempore 
 speaking : " Sed extemporahs audacise, atque 
 ipsius temeritatis, vel prsecipua jucunditas est * * 
 
A DAY WITH FOX. 51 
 
 gratiora, tamen quae sua sponte nascuntur."* 
 Completely carried away himself by his own 
 enthusiasm, and by that which he had raised, his 
 pulse at fever heat, and his heart knocking against 
 his ribs, amid a tempest of cheers he sinks 
 back into his seat, exultant in the glory of stirring 
 to the very depths the deep-lying passions of the 
 Commons of England ! 
 
 Pitt's speech now seems like the recollection 
 of a mighty sound in your ear. Fox has left 
 upon you the impression that he had all the 
 reason and argument upon his side. Pitt gave 
 you Httle materials for thinking upon, and Fox 
 poured forth masses of thought. But you do not 
 stop to criticise. Your eyes are fixed on the rush 
 to Fox's seat, and on the eager crowd of roaring 
 Whigs who seek to grasp their champion's hand ; 
 and you leave the House, astonished how a man 
 of his apparently idle habits can show himself 
 the match for Pitt, another prodigy of powers — 
 " rare in their separate excellence, wonderful in their 
 special combination." You wonder still more when 
 you find that Fox's speech has scarcely told upon 
 the division. The minister has gained by three 
 
 * See the tract " De Oratoribus," commonly bound- up 
 with the works of Tacitus, but not behaved to be from his 
 pen. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 to one, and Fox's glory is to inspire his beaten 
 party in the hour of defeat with hopes of future 
 victory. 
 
 Follow the orator as he drives to Boodle's, where 
 he sups. There again he is first amongst the 
 first, revelling in spirits, not presuming in the 
 least upon his intellectual superiority. As in the 
 the morning at Brookes's, so now at Boodle's, he 
 is welcomed by all, and makes himself happy 
 amongst them. Well, he is entitled to close the 
 night with pleasure, and repose from his labours. 
 Close the night ! Who talks of doing it ? Why 
 thou rustic novice, know that Charley Fox (again 
 he is ' Charley') is now only beginning it ! See 
 his countenance beaming with gratification as he 
 drains the flowing beakers. How he enjoys and 
 takes part in the ringing talk and vehemently 
 vivacious gaiety of the wits and talkers around 
 him. He makes us think of the description by 
 Beaumont of the nights at the Mermaid . 
 
 " Heard words that have been 
 So nimble and so full of subtle flame. 
 As if that every one from whence they came 
 Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest. 
 And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
 Of his dull life." 
 
A DAY WITH FOX. 53 
 
 But what a strange look Fox's face is getting 
 now ! We iiave not seen him the whole day ex- 
 hibit that sinister expression. He fixes his eye 
 on Lord Foley, and heeds not Courtenay's arti- 
 ficial wit and classical puns, nor does he mind 
 "Blue Hanger's"* aphorisms about the art of 
 dressing, nor Fitzpatrick's raptures on Roman 
 punch. Even though fresh news from Newmarket 
 has come to-night, he does not care about it. We 
 do not like that hard callous expression ; it seems 
 quite unnatural to his countenance. There is a 
 vicious rigidity creeping over it that is very dis- 
 pleasing. He nods to Lord Foley, and the pair 
 leave the room, after a hackney-coach has been 
 ordered. When the door has been closed upon 
 them, Courtenay, coarsely enough, with a toss 
 of his head, winks at Lord Besborough, and makes 
 significant gestures. 
 
 And now there is a chorus of sounds echoing 
 the refrain, " What a man that Fox is to be 
 sure !" His talents are extolled to the skies, and 
 the state of his affairs is commented upon. He 
 has no doating father now to pay £140,000 for 
 his gambling. But he still is deep on the turf, 
 
 * Lord Coleraine. 
 
54 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 and has shares in blood horses,* and his cards 
 may yet turn up trumps — and, better than all, 
 Billy Pitt may be turned out. Another hour has 
 passed away since that joyous supper at the club. 
 The summer morning has dawned, and the early 
 market-gardeners are coming into town. The 
 eastern sky is streaked with the rising sun, and 
 the cool air is refreshing after the heated supper- 
 room. For the ten thousandth time the contrast 
 between the calm beauty of nature, and the stir 
 and noise of feverish passing life comes upon us, 
 and the heart is touched. But as we are passing 
 down this narrow street leading from Jermyn- 
 street, what noise is that ? Ha ! there is a riot 
 in yonder house, and the door is suddenly opened, 
 and a couple of fellows looking like bandits in 
 servants' livery, kick out into the street, amid 
 profuse imprecations, a cheating blackleg. Yes ! 
 it is a gaming house. 
 
 Ascend the stairs, walk into the second-floor 
 chamber, and look upon the horrid scene. 
 
 Yon Jew from Amsterdam is a gamester, noted 
 
 * So late as 1790 Fox and his partner had thirty horses 
 on the turf. In 1789 it was thought that he won at the 
 Spring Meeting at Newmarket 50,000?. He. had great 
 confidence in Lord Foley's judgment. 
 
A DAT WITH FOX. 55 
 
 through Europe. Near him is an Irish peer, 
 staking the remains of his rack rents. There 
 sits Lord Egremont, who thinks the whole set 
 around a pack of pickpockets; that fine young 
 man with frenzy in his face, flushed with feverish 
 rage, is a Prince of the Blood Royal — the Duke of 
 York. And there is Fitzpatrick, exhausted in 
 body, and excited in mind — and, oh shame ! — 
 there is that Fox, on whose burning words, the 
 senate lately hung enraptured ! There is that 
 Fox, from whose lips we heard the words of 
 virtue, the precepts of the purest morality, and 
 the faltering accents of enthusiastic philanthropy ; 
 see him now, half maddened with the auri sacra 
 fames. See the gnawing misery in his haggard 
 features, and hear him — but no ! We cannot 
 look on. The hero of our idolatry has fallen to 
 a man. Our dream of a philanthropic demigod 
 vanishes. We will not wait to see the ruined 
 gambler stagger home to his lodgings where we 
 found him last noon ; our feelings are revolted. 
 We have for the moment no patience with a 
 whining sentimentalist who would cry. " Alas ! 
 poor human nature !" 
 
 So ends the Chronicle of " A Day with Fox." 
 It will of itself explain why such a man was, from 
 
56 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 first to last, conquered by one his equal but 
 scarcely his superior in great intellect. Darker 
 tints might be used, but I have described enough 
 to show the reason why, amidst the grave and 
 decorous people of England, Fox held office for 
 months, and Pitt counted his power by decades 
 of years ! The personnel of Charles Fox was 
 fatal to his party and himself. 
 
 Fox, however, though deservedly condemned as 
 a politician by many, has always been a favourite 
 character with Englishmen. Of all our famous 
 statesmen, none had so much human-heartedness. 
 Violent in views and vehement in speech, he was 
 gentle and generous, " a man made to be loved." 
 His life was a striking series of unsuccessful strug- 
 gles, in which he displayed extraordinary talents in 
 trying to atone for extravagant errors. It is as a 
 man, as a social celebrity, as a shining figure, that 
 Fox has gained such posthumous fame. Some of 
 his qualities are traceable to the sparkling Bur- 
 gundy blood of the Lennox family which foamed 
 and mounted in his veins. His father was a coarse 
 type, and had nothing of the ideal in his nature ; 
 his mother (Lady Georgina Caroline, eldest 
 daughter of the second Duke of Richmond) had 
 much romance in her, and her sisters were also 
 women of remarkable qualities. Her next sister, 
 
A DAY WITH FOX. 57 
 
 Emilia, married the first Duke of Leinster, and 
 was mother of Lord Edward Fitzgerald ; and the 
 youngest sister, Lady Sarah, was near being the 
 wife of George IIL, and was mother of the con- 
 queror of Scinde, and of the historian of the Pe- 
 ninsular war. 
 
 I think, also, that a comparison between the 
 portraits of Charles James Fox and those of his 
 mother's family in the early part of the last cen- 
 tury, would show that physically Fox was a Len- 
 nox. When a young man, Charles Fox had a 
 singularly swarthy appearance, with great black 
 eyebrows. His face, complexion, and some of the 
 indolent, pleasure-seeking parts of his character 
 recall the memory of Charles IL, and also of the 
 Duke of Monmouth. Fox, I suspect, had in early 
 life often thought of the fame of Bolingbroke, and 
 he probably wished to realise such a character as 
 Henry St. John had been in his youthful manhood. 
 But Bolingbroke was a far more brilliant man, and 
 had many subtle and exquisite qualities that were 
 wanted in Fox. He had a capacity for literary 
 composition, and excelling in it, entirely beyond 
 the powers of Charles Fox, whose style is wordy, 
 tautologous, and without the light of imagination. 
 The excesses of their private lives, and many other 
 traits, assimilate them to each other. Fox, above 
 
58 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 all men, was the politician who was most made I 
 be the charm of his own circle and to be belove 
 by his friends. Grattan said of him, with som( 
 thing of the double exaggeration of friendship an 
 genius, " His heart was that of a woman, but h 
 mind was adamant : his weaknesses were virtues 
 they did much to relieve him from the hard habii 
 of a politician, and assisted nature to make hii 
 amiable and interesting." His " Memorials" wi 
 not raise the posthumous fame of Fox. His fori 
 was as an orator ; with the pen in his hand, 1; 
 was mediocre. He was a fine scholar, but he wi 
 no philosopher; he was a brilliant debater, but 1 
 was not a deep thinker; he was a fascinatin 
 man, but he was a dangerous statesman ; he wj 
 an extraordinary public character, but he was tc 
 factious for a true patriot, and too reckless for 
 great Englishman ; yet his frank nature, his pe 
 sonal courage, and his generous soul will alwa^ 
 give attractiveness to his name, and even remo 
 generations may cherish his memory. 
 
A DAT WITH PITT. 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A DAY WITH PITT. 
 
 Official life is rarely picturesque, and the 
 ordinary course of Pitt's career does not present 
 so many salient points for dramatic description, as 
 are to be found in those of his rival. Neverthe- 
 less, again claiming the privilege of Asmodeus, I 
 will depict 
 
 A DAY WITH PITT. 
 
 In the afternoon of a fine day in November, 
 1788, a tall horseman, with a groom after him, 
 might be observed crossing Westminster bridge to 
 the Surrey side. Riding with excessive rapidity, 
 and seated almost bolt upright in the saddle, he 
 looks neither to the right nor to the left, but seems 
 rapt in abstraction. A physiognomist, at a pass- 
 ing glance, would pause before saying, whether the 
 
60 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 countenance was most expressive of mental thought 
 or personal arrogance. The grave face, indeed, 
 tells of habitual reflection ; but that prominent 
 haughty nose, tossed disdainfully upwards, is sug- 
 gestive of pride carried even to scorn. His figure 
 is gaunt, and is more wiry than muscular, but 
 the well-opened chest and manly bearing promise 
 elasticity and energy. Some few of the foot-pas- 
 sengers look after him, and recognise his striking 
 form, for they have often seen that haughty horse- 
 man riding thus rapidly about town ; and, once 
 seen, few could forget the imperious look of that 
 uncrowned ruler of men who answered to the 
 world-famed name of " Mr. Pitt." 
 
 It is even he, and he looks more grave and re- 
 solute than usual. As the servant has saddle- 
 bags, it appears that his master was going some 
 considerable distance. But he would scarcely go 
 very far at this advanced season of the year. On- 
 ward he rides faster and faster, and more rapidly 
 than his livery-groom likes,* and the minister 
 takes the road that crosses the Surrey hills by 
 Norwood and Dulwich. He pulls up for a mo- 
 ment in ascending a sharp acclivity, and draws 
 
 * Several grooms died in Pitt's service from the effects 
 of long vpaiting while in a heat after galloping after their 
 master. 
 
A DAY WITH PITT. 61 
 
 aside to let a yellow barouche pass by. How that 
 showy, bold-looking woman stares after him ! 
 Ah ! that is Miss (or rather " Mistress") Hervey, 
 who twenty years ago used to be toying at the bar 
 at Nando's with gay young Templars, and who is 
 now at the head of the Lord Chancellor Thurlow's 
 establishment at Knight's Hill, Dulwich. But the 
 minister is not going there, and canters by its gate 
 without stopping ; and on he rides, until he reaches 
 the heights by White Horse House, and, if he had 
 any feeling for the picturesque, the man of great 
 orations might enjoy the striking effect of the de- 
 clining day upon that fine burst of country, which 
 meets his eye as he looks over the cultivated 
 tracts of West Kent and East Surrey. But for 
 that fair landscape, and the chiaroscuro of the 
 darkling light over Croydon town, the horseman 
 has not the least sentiment. And Pitt stiU trots 
 forward at his rapid pace, taking the road to 
 Beckenham, but he is not going so far. He soon 
 turns off the high-road about a mile to the east of 
 Croydon town, and dismounts at an old-fashioned 
 villa, seated in a flat and rather swampy paddock, 
 which gives the courtesy title of " park " to 
 " Adgecombe," or " Addiscombe," according to 
 later orthography.* 
 
 * "Wilberforce records the fact, which we know also from 
 
63 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Pitt is glad to learn that its owner, Lord 
 Hawkesbury, has recovered from his severe cold, 
 and soon he is in the study, where the veteran 
 official (now a new peer) is laid up before the fire, 
 in a half-invalided condition. In a moment the 
 sudden visit is explained. Pitt wants to talk to 
 old Jenkinson about fifty things that press. The 
 crisis has become very serious indeed, and Lord 
 Hawkesbury is dismayed, as he sees the very 
 grave expression of Pitt's face. Darker and 
 darker becomes that bold and manly countenance 
 as he describes the terrible state of things. Yes- 
 terday he was at Windsor, and saw the King of 
 England in the paroxysms of madness. He be- 
 held earthly majesty laid prostrate by an actus 
 Dei; and he had seen the Queen, and all the 
 household, struck with consternation. He had 
 witnessed the alarm of the loyal and prosperous 
 citizens of London, and had beheld horror on the 
 faces of great merchants that swayed 'Change. 
 A panic, — political, official, and commercial, — is 
 seizing on the public mind. The rank and file of 
 the Ministerialists are threatening to desert. The 
 faction at Carlton House expects to carry all before 
 it. The King's sons, — George, Prince of Wales, 
 
 other sources, that Pitt was constantly in the habit of 
 taking secret counsel with the first Lord Liverpool. 
 
A DAY WITH PITT. 63 
 
 and Frederick, Duke of York, — have shown them- 
 selves, in an hour of anxious trial, to be bad En- 
 glishmen, and bad sons ! And Fox — " Ah ! there 
 is the cause of all their errors. The Princes 
 have fallen into the hands of bad advisers." — Fox 
 has left Mrs Armistead behind him on the Con- 
 tinent, and he will now strive might and main to 
 repair his coalition defeat, and restore the fallen 
 political fortunes of his clamorous faction, thirsting 
 for revenge. 
 
 All this, and much more, is talked over by Pitt 
 and Lord Hawkesbury, when a loud and joyous 
 laugh is heard outside. " 'Tis only Robert, and 
 one of his young college friends from Oxford." 
 And the statesmen continue their colloquy, until 
 the noise of wheels is heard coming up to the 
 door. 'Tis Sir Peter Burrell, on his way to 
 Beckenham, along with his visitor. Sir William 
 Young. They had no idea that Pitt could be here, 
 and Lord Hawkesbury makes them stay and dine. 
 As Pitt will sleep at Addiscombe, there will be 
 time enough for their private colloquy at night ; 
 and Pitt, who never tires of parliamentary or offi- 
 cial topics, is glad to have companions who will 
 take their wine after dinner, since the host is not 
 equal to the bottle. 
 
 And now dinner is announced, and " Robert, 
 
64 CHIEFS OF PAUTIES. 
 
 himself to be a Prime Minister in after days, 
 comes in. But who is that along with him, whom 
 he familiarly calls " George ?" It is a tall and 
 manly youth, with a form of uncommon grace, 
 a countenance in which amiability and intelligence 
 are stamped, with lustrous eyes, a voice of 
 singular sweetness, and an air of genius in his 
 every look and gesture. Pitt is not mistaken. It 
 is that brilliant lad who struck him so much at 
 Eton in the delivery of the complimentary speech 
 when Robert Jenkinson good-naturedly gave his 
 place to his friend George Canning.* Both Sir 
 C. Burrell and Sir W. Young are also struck by 
 the appearance of the gifted young Oxonian, who 
 eagerly listens as he hears these politicians fresh 
 from the great world tattle of the topics of the 
 day. Nor is Pitt unobservant of his animated 
 look, as Sir W. Young tells the story of Lord 
 Mornington (a name dear to Oxonians) having 
 consulted the Sortes Virgiliancs on the question, 
 "Whether the Prince of Wales would be Re- 
 gent?" and his opening at the passage in the 
 seventh book of the iEneid : 
 
 " Sic regia tecta subibat 
 Horridus ;" 
 
 * Historical. 
 
A DAr WITH PITT. 65 
 
 and how, when he put the question. " Whether 
 the King would recover his understanding?" he 
 was answered by a line m the sixth book, 
 
 " Corpora viva nefas Stygia vectare carina," 
 
 and Pitt calls on young Canning to translate 
 the last line, and he cries, " Good, Sir, good !" 
 as the ready tongue of the orator in his teens 
 replies, " It is criminal to treat as dead a man 
 who has in hina the principle of life ;" and, amid 
 allusions to Welwood's memoirs and Lord Falk- 
 land, dinner is announced, and the small party 
 adjourn. The two youngsters find themselves out 
 of place while the politicians talk in the unknown 
 tongue of St. Stephen's, and they have tact enough 
 to retire early from the table. 
 
 Pitt has scarcely spoken at aU, but he has 
 listened while Sir Peter Burrell prattles on about 
 the way things are going on at Carlton House, 
 where Jack Payne, and Master Leigh from Eton, 
 and Lord Barrymore's young brother, and " Mrs. 
 Fitz," form the Cabinet,* along with Fox and 
 Sheridan ; and then Pitt, in a quiet, subdued way, 
 talks of the state of affairs at Windsor, where the 
 Prince grasped at the command, but really ordered 
 
 * Courts and Cabinets of George III, (vol. i., p. 445.) 
 VOL. I. F 
 
66 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 nothing that was decent, and how it was only 
 at his (Pitt's) entreaty, that a couple of grooms 
 of the chamber were appointed to receive the 
 inquiries of the anxious visitors. And Sir Wil- 
 liam Young tells of the Princes, and how the 
 Duke of York has taken kindly to play, and how 
 the hawks at Brookes's pluck his feathers without 
 mercy, reducing him to the vowels I. O. U.* 
 And the Prince of Wales is even worse. " And 
 all that," cries Lord Hawkesbury, " when their 
 father is so terribly afSicted !" and he then chimes 
 in with many stories he has heard from Lord 
 Bulkeley about the libertine lives that the royal 
 brothers are leading at this time of public sorrow. 
 But Pitt seems to be getting tired of all this, 
 and he appears impatient, so the subordinates 
 think it better to take a hint and retire; and the 
 two visitors depart for Beckenham, leaving Lord 
 Hawkesbury with Pitt, who then retire to the 
 library, where Pitt calls for another bottle of that 
 " capital wine." And then his host asks with 
 incredulity whether all the hardness of heart and 
 utter want of feeling shown by the Princes can 
 be true ? Pitt at first makes no other answer 
 but a significant look at his friend, and, then 
 
 * Courts and Cabinets of George III. (vol. ii., p. 98). 
 
A DAT WITH .PITT. 67 
 
 Irawing close, whispers in his ear, " The Queen 
 old me this •" and adds, sotto voce, facts which 
 nake Lord Hawkesbury cry with a start, " You 
 take my Mood run cold."* But Pitt does not 
 are for " indignation :"t he proceeds to the crisis 
 if the day, and again puts all the eventualities 
 if the occasion before the practical mind of the 
 'eteran official, who replies in the quiet manner 
 if one who had been in close connection with an- 
 ither Prime Minister when the political waves were 
 •unning high.:{: Yes ! Pitt is heartily glad that 
 le cantered out to Addiscombe : it eases his mind 
 o have Hawkesbury's common sense and expe- 
 ience on his side. And now he must retire 
 or the night, and he says that he must have 
 )reakfast at seven in the morning. So he pro- 
 leeds to his bed-room earlier than had been 
 mticipated by the household at Addiscombe. As 
 le opens his chamber door, he sees there is some 
 )ne in the room. It is a maid servant arranging 
 he toilet-table, and within ten miles round of 
 Droydon a prettier girl than Madge Brooks could 
 lot be found. Look at her trim spruce figure, 
 vith her neatly made kirtle tucked up so nicely, 
 
 * Courts and Cabinets of George III. (vol. ii., p. 68.) 
 ■|- " That valuable commodity — indignation." — Canning.. 
 J He liad been Lord Bute's private secretary. 
 
 F 3 
 
68 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 and her pretty coquettish mob cap, surmounting 
 a face fit for a May Queen. With her blooming 
 cheeks, her sparkling eyes, and gipsy-like glance, 
 and with lips that might tempt an anchorite, 
 she looks the very model from which George Mor- 
 land painted. Sweet Madge ! how that mantling 
 blush becomes you as you find yourself alone with 
 a youthful Prime Minister, flushed with wine ! 
 But your lips are safe from any rude coalition 
 with those of the orator before you. Madge 
 blushes still deeper as the great man addresses 
 
 her with — " Stay ! you must let me have ," 
 
 and Madge thinks he is going to say something 
 hke what other young bachelors would say ; but, 
 pshaw! 'tis only "a tinder-box" he wants, and Madge 
 retires, saying to herself, " that he's not such a 
 great man to look at after all, and if her John 
 Thomas was only dressed up he'd be a finer 
 gemman, that he would ;" but thus it is ; and, 
 with an indifference worthy of Sir Isaac Newton, 
 the statesman, unmoved by rustic beauty, goes to 
 his couch.* It wants ten minutes to eleven as 
 he lays his head on his pillow, and before the clock 
 
 * One popular paper gave the following character of 
 him in Dog Latin : — Warcarryonissimus, taxgatherissimus, 
 rinum guzzleando potentissimus, prettygirlihus indifferent- 
 issimus, et filius bitchee damnatissimus." 
 
A DAY WITH PITT. 69 
 
 tias struck he is fast asleep, and enjoys most 
 -efreshing repose before the midnight hour has 
 jone. And one, and two, and three, and four, 
 ire told from the turret clock, and still, with the 
 calmness of a child, the tired statesman slumbers on. 
 But, as the Kentish waggoner guides his wain 
 iowards Croydon, he can see a light in one of 
 ihe upper rooms at Addiscombe. 'Tis scarcely 
 naif-past four; but Pitt is up, and ransacking 
 n one of the saddle bags. He finds what he 
 is'ants. He has the full report of the proceedings 
 it the Convention Parliament in 1688, and he has 
 ;he written remarks on portions of it which he 
 made his new Solicitor-General (Sir John Scott) 
 note for him. According to his usual custom, he 
 ^oes back to bed, to read and meditate, and 
 arepare for the emergencies of the coming day. 
 How cool is his mind — how collected his faculties 
 — how calm is his unfaltering self reliance ! The 
 crisis is one that would ruffle the temper even 
 3f a master-spirit; but Pitt, with Fox, Burke, 
 Windham, and Sheridan in his front — with Lans- 
 iowne hovering on his flank — with Thurlow acting 
 ;raitorously towards him — with the Princes above 
 lim, conspiring for his fall — and with his royal 
 naster out of his reason — amid the falling funds 
 md dreary forebodings of frightened capitalists 
 
70 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 — even in the monarchy's travail — Pitt is un- 
 daunted as a Malborough amid the roar of battle, 
 in his own person incarnating the one poetic 
 passage of Addison, like whose " angel " he, 
 too, 
 
 " Rides in tlie whirlwind, and directs the storm." 
 
 Pitt feels that still the public voice of England 
 is with him, not with his foes. And the minister, 
 after three hours' pondering, descends to an early 
 breakfast, hurriedly swallowed, and he is soon 
 scouring on his high-trotting steed on the road to 
 London. 
 
 He sees the rural landscape around him, beauti- 
 ful even in November, with as utter indifference 
 as on the evening before. But as he advances 
 his Jnind is roused when, descending from the 
 heights near Norwood, he looks down over the 
 mighty city, and thinks of the " Fumum, et opes, 
 strepitumque Romse." London, in all its out- 
 stretched vastness is the material type of that 
 great developed Empire of which he thinks. 
 India — the Colonies — a mighty marine — a great 
 zone of British influence circling the world — such 
 are the ideas that loom through the solitary states- 
 man's mind, as he casts his piercing glance over 
 
A DAY WITH PITT. 71 
 
 the great city, whose spires and forests of masts 
 are only dimly, yet grandly, visible beneath his 
 view. 
 
 And now he is again at the Treasury. He 
 gives a look at his ofSce-book, and observes the 
 number of interviews with all manner of people 
 that he has appointed for this day. While look- 
 ing over it he utters a regret that he has not 
 Pretyman still for a private secretary ; and while 
 he is making a note, in comes William Grenville 
 with a hurried letter from Dr. Willis, from 
 Windsor, written in a more sanguine mood about 
 the King ; and their colloquy is interrupted by 
 Dundas, who talks at once of more " ratting " 
 amongst their supporters, but says the Scotch 
 members will be faithful. " I wish we could 
 say the same of ' more important people,' ", said 
 Pitt ; " for example, Thurlow." The word has 
 scarcely left his lips when the Chancellor is an- 
 nounced, and Dundas mutters a Scotch saying in 
 which " the deil " is all that is heard, and soon 
 after Pitt is closeted with one who looks black and 
 bold enough to make us think again of Dundas's 
 proverb. He is indeed " the black-brow'd 
 " phantom " that he was described by Burke, 
 and Pitt thinks of Fox's witty saying that " there 
 never was any man so wise as Thurlow ' looked.' " 
 
72 CHIEFS OF PAETIES. 
 
 But calmly and proudly Pitt looks down upon 
 the arch-schemer, while the deep intriguer tries to 
 hide his heart from that penetrating gaze. Well, 
 they have not broken with each other yet. 
 Thurlow has come to talk about the Irish Chan- 
 cellorship, for Lord Lifford has resigned at last, 
 and Fitzgibbon wants to get it. In a few 
 minutes he departs, and Pitt is forced to select 
 from his crowded antechamber what persons he 
 will see. The first he names is " Bob Smith" — 
 Phoebus ! What a name ! He is quite a pet of 
 the great statesman, and, like most of his fa- 
 vourites, he comes from the City — a banker, still 
 residing east of Temple-bar, but shortly to emerge 
 into a splendid mansion in the Green Park, and 
 wear the sparkling coronet of " Carrington." 
 And next he sees the Irish Fitzgibbon — small in 
 stature, but great in audacity of design — a pro- 
 vincial Thurlow, as towering in arrogance as his 
 English prototype — yet Pitt likes his clear intellect 
 and his ready comprehension of the minister's im- 
 perialising views. Then come the thronging de- 
 putations from the City — West Indian planters 
 raising an alarm about Wilberforce's plans for 
 abolition, and East Indian merchants with talk 
 about shipping, voyaging, cargoes, excise, Eastern 
 possessions, and all that perplexed business matter 
 
A DAY WITH PITT. 73 
 
 on which Pitt's mind rejoices to exercise Itself, 
 He is quite happy in listening to all their state- 
 ments : his intuitively logical intellect grasps the 
 relations of their facts to that scheme of a com- 
 mercial empire which is ever and anon recurring 
 to his great teeming brain. Yet he hstens with- 
 out emotion, while he is told of the City project of 
 yesterday to purchase him an annuity of three 
 thousand a year, in case he should be driven from 
 power.* 
 
 But he must assimilate all this knowledge with 
 vast plans of his own, and he desires that a certain 
 person from his thronged waiting-room should be 
 next shown in. Let us follow one of his assistant 
 private secretaries, and see whom he calls in to the 
 minister. Several members of Parliament are 
 waiting their turn, but he does not call on them, 
 nor on that Irish lord, who, for further promotion 
 in the peerage, is waiting to offer five seats in 
 support of the Lord Lieutenant at Dublin Castle ; 
 nor that general officer with a letter of introduc- 
 tion ; nor that Bishop wanting translation ; nor 
 the dean wishing for a stall. There are Burke 
 and Sir Philip Francis, also, come about arranging 
 certain forms of the Hastings case — and they, too, 
 are passed by ; and there is Lord Bulkeley, 
 
 * Courts and Cabinets of George III. (vol. ii., p. 74.) 
 
,74 CHIEPS OF PARTIES. 
 
 crammed with gossip and scandal ;* — and he, too, 
 is passed by, and the secretary whispers a cleri- 
 cal-looking person at whom my Lord the Bishop, 
 and Mr. Dean, have looked rather disdainfully, for 
 they guess that he has graduated only in a Hack- 
 ney academy. He looks awkward, with a stoop in 
 the shoulders of his ungraceful figure, yet there is 
 frankness, intelligence, and the unmistakeable 
 stamp of mind upon that meditative face.f How 
 angry Burke looks when he finds that this oracle 
 of Newington-green is called in before himself, 
 and how the throng in the antechamber is impa- 
 tient at the long tarrying of the dissenting divine ! 
 And, if they could have seen through stone walls, 
 they might have beheld Pitt deep and absorbed in 
 converse with that downright Unitarian parson — 
 Richard Price — who is " like a conjuror drawing 
 forth coil after coil of statistical tables," and results 
 in finance, which the sanguine and figure-loving 
 minister swallows with only too much avidity. 
 
 Their interview would have lasted longer but 
 for a volley of — what ? Artillery announcing an 
 anniversary — or a review in the park? For 
 
 * Courts and Cabinets of George III., passim, 
 
 f See Ms character, under the title of " Simplicius," in 
 
 Mrs. Chapone's Letters. He misled Pitt into the Sinking 
 
 Fund scheme. 
 
A DAY WITH PITT. 75 
 
 shame ! Think not of such jubilant sounds in 
 days when the King of England is so ill. But 
 still volley after volley is heard — joyous, exhilarat- 
 ing, and heart-stirring. But it is of genuine 
 Highland laughter, as wildly, madly joyous as if 
 each burst were the echo of another Burns striking 
 his lyre in praise of " John Barleycorn." In 
 comes the cause of it, mingling her saucy air of 
 fashion with a familiar popularity-hunting style — 
 the bold and brilliant Duchess of Gordon. Yes — 
 " she must see him," and, while the ofBcials stare 
 at her masculine assurance, she succeeds in forcing 
 her company on the minister. But, no ! — not 
 even after all her active services in counteracting 
 Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire — Pitt obsti- 
 nately refuses to go over this evening to Pall Mall, 
 to a quiet private dinner at Buckingham House 
 (where the Duchess now resides,) and she makes 
 her exit in another volley, and vows, in joking 
 mood, that she'll set on her friend Sir John Sin- 
 clair to write pamphlets against Mr. Pitt. " And 
 Sir John is a canny chiel wi' the pen. Ye dinna 
 ken Sir John as she does, Mr. Minister. Fast as 
 ye wad empty decanters of claret. Sir John wad 
 clean out ink-bottles ;" and bidding the minister 
 take that for not being more " douce" to a lady 
 fra' the north, ofif she goes, making the walls ring 
 again with another burst of cheery laughter. 
 
76 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 And then Pitt clears out the rest of the ante- 
 chamber, and tells Lord Mornington " to come 
 along with him to Chatham's," and they can talk 
 about what " Arthur wants (and Arthur is a good 
 boy) to have done with the yeomanry at Trim ;"* 
 and they stroll up together to the Admiralty. 
 They are met by a strange-looking person, walking 
 on tiptoe, flourishing his right hand in the air, 
 while, with his eyes upon the ground, he converses 
 eagerly with Sheridan. He salutes Lord Morn- 
 ington. " That's Grattan, doubtless over here in- 
 triguing about the Regency." And Pitt thinks 
 how, if he could have persuaded the English ma- 
 nufacturers to adopt his Irish Commercial Pro- 
 positions of 1785, Irish "nationality," with its 
 dangerous " patriots," might have been neutralised. 
 But the English manufacturers, led on by this 
 very gentleman, with a cold, purse-proud manner, 
 coming hither, prevented his plans. And Pitt 
 then speaks with much courtesy to one of his new 
 baronets, Sir Robert Peel ; but the day will come 
 when Pitt will play the new Irish Chancellor (Fitz- 
 gibbon) against Grattan, and incorporate Ireland 
 with England. And now they are on the steps of 
 the Admiralty, and are going in to the First Lord's 
 
 * Courts and Cabinets of George III. (vol. ii., p. 90) f 
 and vol. i. (p. 348, eaadsupra.) 
 
A DAT WITH PITT. 77 
 
 door ; but the valet, running out, tells them " Lord 
 Chatham* is not up yet," and the words " O dege- 
 nerem Neoptolemura !" almost leap out of Pitt's 
 mouth, while Lord Mornington spouts a Homeric 
 line against men in public council sleeping long ; 
 but Pitt's ear is arrested, not by the high-sounding 
 Greek, but by the eager whisper of the half- 
 breathless George Rose, telling him that a king's 
 messenger has come from Windsor with a " special 
 and immediate" despatch from the Queen. 
 Within twenty-four hours from the time when 
 we saw him yesterday on Westminster bridge, the 
 minister is posting to Windsor to aid with his 
 loyal counsels the consort of his royal master. 
 
 In " A Day with Fox " we saw the mighty 
 chiefs matched against each other as orators. 
 On the floor of the House of Commons criticism 
 would pause in assigning the palm of superiority 
 to either, magis pares quam similes. Contrasted 
 together as men, the sympathies of the human 
 heart will more powerfully be evoked by the union 
 of the amiable and brilliant in Fox's nature ; but 
 history can have no doubt in assigning victory in 
 STATESMANSHIP to that vigilant spirit of command 
 shown by the subject of " A Day with Pitt — " 
 
 * Pitt's elder brother. 
 
78 CHIEFS OF PAETIES. 
 
 " Wto, when terror and doubt througli the universe 
 reigned. 
 While rapine and treason their standards unfurl' d, 
 The heart and the hopes of his country maintain'd 
 
 And Old England preserv'd 'mid the wreck of the 
 world." 
 
 As Chiefs of a Party there could be little 
 comparison between Pitt and Fox. The former 
 was far more suited to meet the English public 
 of his generation. He had sympathies with com- 
 mercial development ; he hked to study questions 
 of money ; he was fond of hearing city men talk 
 of trade In aU its branches ; and a British Mer- 
 chant was to his eyes a far more dignified character 
 than in the estimation of his adversary. As an 
 administrator, Pitt was large in his combinations, 
 and prospective in his views, and fostered by his 
 special legislation the Empire of England grew 
 enormously. When people groan at the mag- 
 nitude of the National Debt, they forget that 
 the boundaries of the Empire were proportion- 
 ately enlarged by Pitt. 
 
 The mode in which Pitt planned and carried 
 out the Legislative Union with Ireland, was a 
 shining specimen of his ruling genius. When 
 he came into office in 1784, the connexion between 
 England and Ireland hung only by the link of 
 
A DAT WITH PITT. 79 
 
 the crown. In consequence of the Revolution of 
 1782 the Irish Parliament was free, and inde- 
 pendent, and there was imminent danger that 
 the countries would be severed. " Let us then 
 have a Commercial Union, and bind the two 
 Kingdoms by ties of interest," reasoned Pitt, and 
 he drew up his famous " Commercial Proposi- 
 tions," in 1785, which were most liberal in their 
 treatment of Irish manufacturers. Fox, at the 
 head of the Opposition did his best to defeat them, 
 and he had sufficient influence with Grattan to 
 induce the Irish Whigs to strive and reject them ; 
 but Pitt would have succeeded only for the vi- 
 gorous hostility of the English manufacturers, 
 led on by the first Sir Robert Peel. The trading 
 classes did not enter, at first, into the vast Imperial 
 views of the Minister. Pitt then saw that he 
 should shape a policy aiming at a future Legisla- 
 tive Union. There were mighty difficulties op- 
 posed to him, but he resolved to overcome them. 
 He increased the number of Irish Peers in order 
 to obtain power in the Irish Legislature, and he 
 sanctioned several changes in the organisation of 
 the Viceregal administration, so as to obtain a 
 connected influence for the British power within 
 the Irish Parhament itself. The aspiring young 
 Irish Peer Lord Mornington was sent out as 
 
80 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Governor-General to India, in order to develop 
 Imperial ambition in Ireland. The old standing 
 policy in Ireland had been to give the Chief- 
 Secretaryship and Chancellorship of Ireland to 
 Englishmen, but Pitt set aside that routine, and 
 opened up these prizes to Irish talent. He saw 
 that it would be impossible to overbear the force 
 of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy by himself, 
 unless he called new forces into action, and looking 
 far ahead of the men of his generation, he adapted 
 the scheme of " Catholic Emancipation," by 
 which he turned aside the substantial classes of 
 the Roman Catholic body from revolutionary pro- 
 jects, and trained them to look to England. 
 Never did any one statesman carry out a greater 
 design than the Irish Union, and Pitt kept his 
 mind concentrated on it from the time when his 
 " Commercial Propositions" were rejected. 
 
 After the United States had been permanently 
 severed from us, there was a panic lest the for- 
 tunes of England were beginning to decline. The 
 Economical School first came into action during 
 the first part of Pitt's career, and he gave a quick 
 and piercing eye and a ready ear to all those who 
 took strong interest in the commercial development 
 of the resources of the country. From his father, 
 Pitt had lofty, imperial instincts, and from the 
 
A DAT WITH PITT. 81 
 
 Grenvilles, he inherited a taste for the details of 
 official life. It was by the possession of these 
 qualities that he was able to meet with such suc- 
 cess the public of his own time. 
 
 A Chief of a Party ought to have a keen sense 
 of reality. Fox, during all his career, was de- 
 luded by a chimera. He seemed to fancy that 
 the days of the Long ParHament had come again. 
 His mind was inflamed by the idea of resistance 
 to the Crown. Kingly despotism in his imagina- 
 tion was destroying the Constitution of England ; 
 the public did not acquiesce in his melancholy 
 views.' While Pitt's mind was in the eighteenth 
 century, Fox was brooding over the events of the 
 seventeenth century. A large portion of the Dis- 
 senters, who had always been a great resource to 
 the Whigs, were strongly interested in commercial 
 prosperity, and they were naturally drawn into 
 support of Mr. Pitt, when they saw how deeply 
 conversant he was with trade. The candour of 
 Lord John Russell has admitted 
 
 " While the financial measures of Mr. Pitt created for 
 him a just popularity with the mercantile classes, a treaty 
 with France based on sound commercial principles mide 
 him odious to the manufacturers. Mr. Fox unwisely and 
 inconsiderately joined in the ignorant but popular clamour 
 and even countenanced the barbarous and hateful doctrine 
 that the French were our natural enemies." 
 
 VOli. I. G 
 
82 CHIEFS OF PARTIES, 
 
 And, again referring still to the period before 
 the outbreak of the French Revolution, Lord John 
 Russell has observed : — 
 
 " However unjustifiable may have been the conduct of 
 Mr. Pitt in making himself the instrument of a court 
 intrigue, candour must allow that his subsequent adminis- 
 tration during peace was marked by large public views, was 
 founded on sound principles, and led to happy results." 
 
 A Chief of a Party is often compelled to exhibit 
 his personal ascendancy, in composing the diffe- 
 rences and jealousies between his followers. In 
 this respect, Fox completely failed in his duty, 
 and it may be doubted whether he had the 
 steadiness for such a task. He allowed Sheri- 
 dan to gall, wound, and lacerate the sensitive 
 and vehement mind of Burke, instead of forcing 
 Sheridan to be more deferential to one so immea- 
 sureably his superior in political attainments and 
 experience. Burke was, doubtless, a difHcult man 
 to manage, but Pitt dealt with him more skilfully 
 than Fox. The facts shew that while Pitt was 
 capable of ruling a mighty party for a long series 
 of years, Fox could only head a faction. Pitt had 
 the faculties of an tidministrator ; and Fox had not 
 those powers. In Russia, in Austria, or in France, 
 Pitt, as a statesman, might have wielded prolonged 
 authority as the chief of organised power, but Fox 
 would have gained little political .fame, where he 
 
A DAY WITH PITT. 83 
 
 could not act from his passions, and when he 
 could not display his master faculty of reasoning 
 admirably on his legs. In no other exercise of the 
 mind than that of debate was Fox first-rate, but 
 Pitt met the Court and the ambition of his own 
 Party, and the selfishness of the trading classes, 
 and all the exigencies of a threatened Empire. 
 i?ox, the grandson of the Duke of Richmond, with 
 the Whig families to his back, and at one time, 
 with more than one-half of the English public 
 ready to follow him, and with more chances in his 
 favour than Pitt, never made one successful 
 political campaign. 
 
 The world will, however, long discuss whether 
 Pitt or Fox was the greater Englishman. Weighed 
 against each other not as men, or as orators, but as 
 Chiefs of Party, political society in all its sections has 
 long made up its mind that Pitt was far the 
 abler, and that he was more qualified to rule 
 a people like the English, with their ancient 
 monarchy, their hereditary aristocracy, and their 
 purse-proud democracy. 
 
 On the extraordinary difference between the 
 characters of Lord Chatham and Pitt, I observed 
 formerly : 
 
 " Neither in intellect, moral nature, or acquired 
 character, was there any resemblance between the 
 
 G 2 
 
84 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 men. The father's mind was imaginative and 
 poetical ; the intellect of Mr. Pitt was strictly 
 logical, qualified to excel in abstract science. The 
 disposition of Lord Chatham was vehement, warm, 
 and enthusiastic ; his impulses spontaneous, his 
 energy desultory : Mr. Pitt was cold, stately, im- 
 passive, uniform in his deportment, inflexible in 
 his purposes. And as they were not similar in 
 their minds, viewed abstractedly, or in their natures, 
 taken ethically, so were their personal characters 
 totally unlike, when weighed by a worldly standard. 
 Lord Chatham was pompous in his carriage, and 
 ceremonious in his manners ; at home, or in the 
 senate, he was theatrical in his style, travelled with 
 a large retinue, and loved the gauds of rank and 
 office ; in Mr. Pitt's conduct, public and private, 
 was to be seen Spartan simplicity. The father 
 had a passion for Fame in all its forms, both 
 present notoriety, and posthumous renown; the 
 son grasped at power, guided his course by his 
 own opinions, and had none of his parent's am- 
 bition for mere applause. In literary taste, a subtle 
 test for discovering character, they had no sym- 
 pathy. Spenser was known by heart to Lord 
 Chatham, and Mr. Pitt could declaim with rapture, 
 whole passages from Lucan."* 
 
 * " Age of Pitt and Fox." 
 
A DAY WITH PITT. 85 
 
 There was, certainly, a peculiar volcanic ex- 
 plosiveness of temperament in Lord Chatham, not 
 at all like to the usual character of Englishmen. 
 His imagination strongly influenced his politics ; 
 he was moody and strange, and his nature was 
 more like that of a Gael, than of an Anglo- 
 Saxon. 
 
 It has never before been noted that Chatham, 
 on the mother's side, was Anglo-Irish, and the 
 fact is curious and suggestive, when we recollect 
 his fpassionate soul, his weird fancy and vaunting, 
 fluctuating disposition. A branch of the English 
 Villierses, settled in Ireland in the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, had become ennobled in the Irish Peerage 
 by the title of Grandison. Edward Villiers, the 
 eldest son of George, fourth Viscount Grandison, 
 married, in 1676, Catherine, daughter and heir to 
 John Fitzgerald of Dromana, in the county of 
 Waterford* (the estate and demesne now possessed 
 by the Villiers Stuart family, represented by Lord 
 Stuart de Decies), and by that marriage Edward 
 Villiers became possessed of a large estate held by 
 the last representative of one of the numerous 
 branches of the high-mettled and haughty Ge- 
 
 * Collins's Peerage, by Sir Egerton Brydges, vol. iii, 
 page 788. 
 
86 CHIEFS OF PAUTIES. 
 
 ralflines. The third daughter of that marriage, 
 Harriet Villiers, was married to Robert Pitt of 
 Boconnoc, and was mother of Lord Chatham, and 
 grandmother of William Pitt the younger. The 
 Norman race in Ireland has preserved many of its 
 physical features, even after the vicissitudes of 
 centuries, and the countenance of Lord Chatham 
 was extremely like the Norman type in some of 
 its most marked features. It is not too much to 
 infer that Chatham drew some of his loftiest 
 instincts and his talent for haranguing an audience 
 from the gifted and glory-loving race of the 
 Geraldines.* 
 
 I 
 
 * The late Sir Richard Kellet (one of Mr. Pitt's Union 
 baronets) once related to me the following curious instance 
 of the waywardness and uncertainty which characterised 
 Lord Chatham. Along with other commercial cities, Cork 
 zealously supported the measures of the Great Commoner 
 when he was at the head of the Treasury, and voted him 
 the freedom of the city with a gold box. Pitt was pleased 
 with the compliment, and from his place in Parliament he 
 lauded the citizens of Cork, and he gave them as many 
 honied words as if he had visited the Stone at Blarney 
 Castle. Gratified with the praise bestowed on them from 
 so high a quarter, the citizens of Cork, who had profited 
 largely by the results of the " Seven Year's War," warmed 
 in their admiration of the Great Commoner, and resolved 
 to erect a statue to him, and one was accordingly ordered 
 from an eminent sculptor. Months rolled by, and one 
 
A DAT WITH PITT. 87 
 
 On Pitt's general character, I will transcribe a 
 portion of what I formerly observed. 
 
 " But even at the earliest period of his life, he 
 was a greater thing than a great orator — he was 
 a great man. Inflexible and self-rehant, he had 
 that power of affecting others, without stooping to 
 
 of Pitt's cold fits came on. Before the statue was finished 
 some discussion on a commercial question arose in Parlia- 
 ment; and the resolutions of the merchants at Cork were 
 appealed to by one of Pitt's adversaries. " Quote Cork 
 as being against me, forsooth ! (thundered out the Great 
 Commoner,) what do I care for what is said or done at 
 Cork!" and growing heated with contradiction, he actually 
 hurled one of his fiercest invectives at the people of Cork ; 
 denouncing the famous Cork harbour as " that refuge for 
 pirates, that spawning ground for smugglers, and prolific 
 nursery of privateers !" Astonishment was joined to indig- 
 nation when the news of this speech reached Cork, 
 and for a long time the statue was left lying in a 
 Custom-house vault, and it was vrith reluctance that the 
 artist's bill was defrayed. Explanations and partial vrith- 
 drawal of the offensive and false imputations were sub- 
 sequently given, and the statue was placed in the Mayor's 
 house. By accident, some painter's apprentices were left 
 locked up in the room where the statue stood, and in a 
 mischievous mood they painted it from top to toe in a 
 harlequin's costume — "the proper dress for him," as 
 Chatham's enemies said. It was well said by Grattan, 
 that " Chatham was very great and very odd." He was 
 a master spirit with many blemishes. 
 
88 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 their sympathies, which always indicates one born 
 to command. The strength of his mind was even 
 more remarkable than the symmetry of his facul- 
 ties " rare in their separate excellence, wonderful 
 in their special combination." Bold— prompt— 
 and decisive — there was nothing vague or wavering 
 in his nature. He possessed at once the discretion 
 which preserves a man from making ditEculties, 
 and the energy of spirit which enables him to 
 surmount them, when coming from without. In- 
 accessible to the approach of all ignoble passions 
 — constantly devoted to vast objects, without the 
 follies and vices of his contemporaries — lofty — 
 distant — solitary, he had many admirers, without 
 seeking for them, and a few friends, whom he 
 carefully selected. Ambitious of power — not 
 covetous of office — despising money— to rank 
 indifferent — austere in his tastes, his character far 
 from fascinating, was certainly august. " For 
 personal purity, disinterestedness, integrity, and a 
 love of his country, I have never known his 
 equal," was the testimony of a discerning and 
 faith-worthy witness — Wilberforce. Without any 
 vanity he had excessive pride. But free from 
 ostentation, he despised the showy splendour which 
 captivates the vulgar great. He was never dazzled, 
 unless by the brilliancy of his rivals — Burke and 
 
A DAT WITH PITT. 89 
 
 Fox ; for spurning at mediocrity, he disdained to 
 
 notice the second-rate, whether in men or things. 
 
 Nor was he at any pains to conceal his scorn for 
 the mob, amongst whom (like Henry Fielding), 
 he included a vast part of the Peerage and 
 Commonage of England. Like his father, " he 
 stood alone j" to use the words of his pupil. 
 Canning, " As the sturdy warrior, leaning on his 
 own battle-axe, conscious where his strength 
 lay, he- did not readily look beyond it." 
 With his range of powers — his many personal 
 gifts, and his towering spirit, he might have 
 played any parts in hfe, save those of a poet, or a 
 lover ! 
 
 " Viewing the forms of the two Pitts, father and 
 son, as they stand in History, what different emo- 
 tions their images call forth ! The impassioned 
 and romantic father seems like a hero of chivalry, 
 starting forth to thrill the English people with 
 
 . the inspiration of bye -gone times, and electrify 
 their hearts with the sentiments of their Teutonic 
 ancestry ; while the stately and classical son, filled 
 not with sentiments of freedom, but with the lust 
 of Imperial power ; existing only to sway — 
 blending his own pride with the , arrogance of his 
 conquering country, yet preserving a simplicity in 
 the splendour of his elevation, appears as a Roman 
 
90 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Dictator compelled into the dimensions of an 
 English Minister." 
 
 It has been doubted by some persons in our 
 time, whether the debating powers of Fox and 
 Pitt were really so great as tradition affirms them 
 to have been. The testimony of the laudator 
 temporis acti is suspicious, and to be received 
 with caution, but there is abundance of proof 
 that the power of their eloquence has not been 
 exaggerated. When the late Mr. O'Connell was 
 asked the question, who was the greatest public 
 speaker ever heard by him, he replied " William 
 Pitt," and Mr. O'Connell was not only a great 
 speaker himself, but had heard Fox, Grattan, and 
 Plunket in their best days, besides Canning, 
 Brougham and their successors. A well-known 
 scholar, eminently distinguished by profound 
 learning, has said to me, " In my early life I 
 had the fortune to hear Mirabeau repeatedly, and 
 most of the French revolutionary orators. From 
 my youth I was as familiar with the French tongue 
 as with English, and I was often influenced by the 
 exciting sentiments that flashed from the lips of 
 Vergniaud and the orators of the Gironde. They 
 delighted and dazzled me, but when I returned to 
 England, and when I heard the great Parlia- 
 mentary speakers in London, I at once felt the 
 
A DAY WITH PITT. 91 
 
 wide difference that lies between the showy de- 
 clamation of the heated tribune, and the masculine 
 force of the argumentative orator. There was 
 not a single orator in the speakers of the Gironde 
 whose accomplishments were equal even to Sheri- 
 dan, who was confessedly inferior as a speaker to 
 both Fox and Pitt. My own Whig principles, 
 and the politics of my family naturally biassed me 
 towards Fox, but I think that Pitt was the greater 
 orator. At all events, I have certainly never heard 
 any one who surpassed Pitt. What struck me 
 most was the union of so much force with such 
 high finish. He left a grand classical impression 
 on the mind, which I have derived from no other 
 public speaker, not even from Canning." Another 
 witness — a Queen's Counsel — who played himself 
 a conspicuous part in public life, and who was a 
 personal friend of Fox, has said to me, " I think 
 that Fox and Pitt were the greatest orators that 
 I ever heard. They had a power of dealing with 
 a great variety of subjects, and treating the most 
 opposite kind of questions in a masterly manner. 
 I admired and sometimes wondered at the gifts 
 of Canning, Brougham and Copley, but none of 
 their speeches ever left behind the sense of great- 
 ness which one had after hearing Fox and Pitt. 
 The most perfect orations that I ever heard were 
 
92 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 those of Lord Plunket on the Catholic Question ; 
 they were magnificent in every respect, but he was 
 master of that one question, while Fox and Pitt 
 gave you the idea, that from the first to the last 
 day of the year, they were ready to deal with 
 every question of the time. Each was so different, 
 that I do not think fair criticism could solve the 
 question of relative superiority between them. I 
 believe them both to have been the greatest and 
 most effective political orators of modern times." 
 How powerful was the sensation left by them upon 
 their own generation may be seen in the testimony 
 of Byron and Scott. The former, in his " Monody 
 on Sheridan," alludes to " the wondrous three," 
 Fox, Pitt and Burke, 
 
 " Whose words were sparks of immortality." 
 
 And elsewhere he has written : 
 
 " We, we have seen the intellectual race 
 Of giants stand like Titans face to face, 
 Athos and Ida with a dashing sea 
 Of eloquence, between which flowed all free. 
 As the deep billows of the JEgeaa roar 
 Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore."* 
 
 And the beautiful tribute of Sir Walter Scott 
 * "Age of Bronze." 
 
A DAY WITH PITT. 93 
 
 would have read as a rhapsody, if the powers of 
 the men whom he celebrated had not been of a 
 transcendent kind. 
 
 "With more than wonted powers endowed 
 How high they soared ahove the crowd ! 
 Theirs was no common party race 
 Josthng hy dark intrigue for place — 
 Like fabled gods their mighty war 
 Shook realms and nations in its roar. 
 Beneath each banner proud to stand, 
 Look'd up the noblest in the land. 
 
 To conclude, as Chiefs of a Party, Sir Robert 
 Walpole and William Pitt the younger, were the 
 most successful examples of Party Chiefs since 
 Parliamentary Government was permanently es- 
 tablished amongst us. Towards Crown, Parlia- 
 ment and Country, they conducted themselves 
 with more sustained and measured wisdom than 
 other Prime Ministers. They were first-class 
 agencies in the historical progress of their own 
 times, and events would have been greatly different 
 without their presence. Walpole secured Parlia- 
 mentary Government, and reconciled its existence 
 with a peaceful policy, and with the balance of 
 power in Europe. The younger Pitt identified his 
 name with the enlargement of the English Empire, 
 while in the domestic politics of Party his memory 
 
94 CHIEFS OF PAE-TIES. 
 
 must ever be associated with National Toryism. 
 Under his auspices, the Court and the mercantile 
 interests and the country party united their powers, 
 and the middle classes revolting from Fox and 
 the Whig leaders, trooped after Pitt, and cheered 
 his Imperial watchword of " Ships, Colonies, and 
 Commerce." 
 
THE GKENVILLES. 95 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GRENVILLES. 
 
 In a long continuance of political power no 
 parliamentary connection since the Revolution could 
 vie with the GrenvUles. The list of the offices 
 filled by them records their influence. Twice 
 within half a century they gave Prime Ministers 
 to England (1763-5 and 1806-7). George Gren- 
 ville led the House of Commons ; his nephew, 
 Lord Grenville, in the next generation, led the 
 House of Peers. In a stormy time, Earl Temple, 
 the ally and brother-in-law of the " great com- 
 moner," and the patron of Wilkes, was a for- 
 midable chief of Opposition, and in dogged 
 pertinacity and self-asssertion, he far outstripped 
 the Rockinghams, the Townshends, and the New- 
 castles. His nephew, the first Marquis of 
 Buckingham, filled the post of Irish viceroy at 
 
96 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 a season of Imminent peril, broke to pieces the 
 factious opposition of the Whigs in Ireland, and 
 rendered vast services to his King and country by 
 the bold part "he took in daunting the coalition of 
 Fox and North. In Lord Grenville the House of 
 Commons found one of its ablest Speakers, and the 
 House of Lords one of its wisest and most 
 statesmanlike guides. Two Premierships, a Chan- 
 cellorship of the Exchequer, the Viceroyalty of 
 Ireland, the Speakership of the Commons, and 
 Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, and the Chan- 
 cellorship of the University of Oxford, held by 
 two generations in one family, suggest of them- 
 selves the degree of energy and knowledge, of 
 political acceptance and public authority, which 
 this ereat connection had obtained. In addition 
 to their own power, the Grenvilles associated their 
 history with the fame of the Pitts, and in later 
 times they blended their fortunes with the as- 
 cendancy of Mr. Fox. Surpassing other great 
 families in the continuance of their personal 
 influence, the contrasts in " the story of their 
 house" are not less strange. Thus it can truly be 
 said that, while the Crown found its most resolute 
 supporters in the Grenvilles at the eras of the 
 American war and the French Revolution, it also 
 met in the family some of its most embarrassing 
 
THE GRENVILLES. 97 
 
 opponents. Lord Temple's alliance with the elder 
 Pitt, and his nephew's jiinction with Fox, with his 
 vigorous support of the Whig party, are amongst 
 the most remarkable passages in the history of 
 " Opposition." It happens, also, that, while the 
 Grenvilles have been accused of a guilty knowledge 
 of " Junius," the sanction of their great name was 
 invoked in after times for " the agitation" of the 
 Irish Catholics. Thus for two generations, ia a 
 period of commotion and peril, the Executive 
 counted the Grenvilles amongst the first of its 
 ad'^ersaries or its allies. 
 
 It is evident that the sway of such a connec- 
 tion cannot be traced merely to titles of honour, 
 or broad domains. Those may have been aids, 
 but they could not have been the supports of such 
 continued power. In the character of the Gren- 
 villes may be seen the source of their authority. 
 Though no one of their family rose to the his- 
 torical renown of Walpole or either of the Pitts, 
 in resolute ambition, conjoined with great capacity 
 for affairs and unwearied energy, none other of the 
 great families approached even to faint rivalry 
 with the Grenvilles. They relied ia the main 
 upon their courage and capacity. In the days of 
 the elder Pitt, the King, when surveying the 
 parliamentary connections from which he had to 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 choose, beheld the Legislature divided between the 
 Bedfords, the Newcastles, and the Grenvilles. Of 
 these the Bedfords worked by the spell of a great 
 (though rather overrated) name, and by their 
 stereotyped formula of men " who bled with 
 Hampden in the field, and died with Sydney on 
 the scaffold," they drew their moral influence 
 from the traditions of the Revolution, from the 
 memory of blood unjustly shed, from companion- 
 ship with " the great Deliverer." Their vast 
 possessions, of course, added to their influence. 
 The Newcastles relied on their boroughs, their 
 electioneering resources, and on their acknow- 
 ledged leadership of the " great Whig families" 
 of Cavendish, Lennox, Fitzroy, Bentinck, Manners, 
 Conway, and Wentworth.* The greatness of the 
 Grenvilles is visible in the fact that, without the 
 historical pretensions of the Bedfords or (what one 
 may call the clan of the Newcastles), they chal- 
 lenged comparison with them both, and conquered 
 them in turn. To the traditions associated with 
 the name of Russell they opposed their talent for 
 
 * Of the seven " great Whig famUies" mentioned above, 
 as follovring the Newcastle connection in the last century, it 
 is remarkable that in our times not less than four are ranged 
 under the banner of Lord Derby — viz.: Lennox, Manners, 
 Bentinck, and Seymour Conway (Marquis of Hertford). 
 
THE GllENVILLES. 99 
 
 affairs, and abilities which required no ancestral 
 pedigree for the enhancement of their lustre. 
 Against the confederacy of the Newcastles, they 
 presented high personal capacity for office, an 
 industry that never flagged, and entire freedom 
 from that absurd masquerade of leadership, that 
 burlesque upon power, which used to be seen in 
 the big house at the north-west corner of Lincoln's 
 Inn-fields, and which has been so well painted by 
 Smollett as to give that humourist a claim to be 
 counted amongst historical novelists. The Gren- 
 villes were not the mere mouth-pieces of a knoj 
 of factious families ; they were not the spokesmen 
 for a clique of disappointed nobles afraid to venture 
 out in debate, unequal to the toils of politics. 
 They were not compelled, like the Rockinghams, 
 to pump the brains of a man of genius like Burke, 
 to use his tongue in debate, and to rely upon his 
 pen for advocating their principles. They mainly 
 depended on themselves, and with an industry that 
 might have shamed the bar, and with a courage 
 that would have won glory in the camp, the 
 Grenvilles undertook the burden and courted the 
 hazards of political war, and encountered great 
 responsibilities with their own energy, and eminent 
 endowments. This is their real glory — this is 
 their claim to permanent renown. 
 
 H 3 
 
100 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 There is in our days, no connection in politics 
 which equals the personal influence of the Gren- 
 villes during the reign of George the Third. The 
 Greys have had a more extensive train of kindred, 
 but they had not a gorgeous show-house like the 
 princely Stowe, or a grand mansion in town like 
 Buckingham House. Through the Temples, the 
 Grenvilles could trace their political story to the 
 seventeenth century, but the Greys are purely a 
 modern and recent connection, and at no time of 
 his honourable career did Charles Earl Grey attain 
 to the weighty power which the Grenvilles wielded 
 during two generations. The Stafford House 
 Whigs in our own time have possessed great 
 official authority, but fashion, the charms of fair 
 women, and the smiles of the Sovereign have 
 given a lustre to that connection, while political 
 power, springing from their own consideration, 
 was the main resource of the Grenvilles. Nor 
 have the Stafford House Whigs ever had one 
 man in the Lower House of Parliament equal to 
 George Grenville or to William Wyndham Gren- 
 ville. Without talent, and extraordinary industry, 
 and unrivalled knowledge of political affairs, the 
 Grenvilles never could have built up their political 
 power. 
 
 " But there never was a man of genius in the 
 
THE GUENVILLES. 101 
 
 Grenvilles." True ; yet in our English political 
 system, we are rather distrustful of mere genius. 
 We dislike dictatorship, and genius is apt to be 
 arrogant and overbearing. " Were Hampden, or 
 Pym, or Lord WiUiara Russell, men of genius ?" 
 Supposing that question were answered in the 
 negative, it would be no detraction from their 
 patriotic fame. They were men of spirit, with a 
 strong sense of what was due to England's cause, 
 and, without bravado or bluster, they were ready 
 to die in that cause. They represented some of 
 the best qualities, which were shown by the gentle- 
 men of England during the troubles of the seven- 
 teenth century, and in their continuous energy, 
 their unfaltering ambition, and the solid cast of 
 mind, one can easily discern great English qualities 
 in the Grenvilles. There were many other families 
 which overtopped them in aristocratic rank, and 
 which could show vaster rent-rolls. But the 
 Grenvilles represented more strongly than any 
 other family some of the chief quahties which 
 mark the highest kind of patrician ambition in 
 our limited monarchy. 
 
 That they had great personal pride, considerable 
 selfishness, and eagerness for power, cannot 
 be denied ; but their records show that along with 
 their egotism was blended a large amount of 
 
102 CHIEFS OF PAUTIES. 
 
 sturdy British spirit. They were not ready to 
 cringe to the Court, nor did they cower before 
 popular clamour. They were as much opposed to 
 royal absolutism, as to unbalanced democracy. 
 They were pompous, fond of parading their con- 
 sequence, heavy and formal in manners, and their 
 stateliness had a stilted appearance ; but they were 
 steady foes, and sincere friends. Their ambition 
 was not the worship of gold. 
 
 Unlike Walpole, or Henry Fox, (the first Lord 
 Holland), the Grenvilles did not make large for- 
 tunes out of office. They started with their own 
 money and estates, and the great following which 
 they gained in the public departments, (in which 
 they had so many friends and secret allies) was as 
 much the result of the opinion formed of their 
 capacity for affairs, as for favours conferred, or 
 benefits to be expected. 
 
 Though there was not a man of genius in the 
 Grenvilles, it cannot be denied that Lord Gren- 
 ville excelled as an administrator of a department. 
 His information was solid, he reasoned with great 
 ability on facts, and he could conduct an argument 
 through a long chain of scientific logic. His 
 State papers and his political letters, are amongst 
 the best left as models for English statesmen. 
 He had a speciality in balancing evidence, and he 
 
THE GEENVILLES. 103 
 
 had great fairness in statement, and closeness of 
 observation. As head of a department, Lord 
 Grenville was in his proper place, but he could not 
 manage men as well as things ; with his cold pride 
 of character he often chilled his friends, and he 
 had no powers of popular effect. His balanced 
 intellect, his clear logic, his perfect scholarship, 
 the academic finish of his style, and the serene 
 gravity of his nature, marked him specially 
 amongst his contemporaries. He had no divining 
 sagacity, nor had he that lively sympathy with the 
 people at large, which is the best substitute for 
 political inspiration ; but his statuesque repose, 
 and classical completeness of accomplishment, will 
 always arrest the historical observer. 
 
 It was eminently characteristic of the abilities of 
 theGrenvilles, that the distributive virtue of economy 
 was, for eighty years, shown in the management 
 of their estates. The world was always deceived 
 as to the extent of their pecuniary resources. It 
 is difficult, from existing data, now to calculate 
 how much was their landed estate, but it was far 
 inferior to the properties possessed by the families 
 of Cavendish, Russell, Percy, and some others. 
 
 It has been computed by one competent to 
 form an opinion on the question, that from the 
 
104 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 days of the first Earl Temple, to the time of the 
 dukedom of Buckingham, (1822) about sixty thou- 
 sand pounds per annum was all that the Grenvilles 
 had to maintain their superb state, and to keep 
 up their heavy political expenditure. 
 
 I cannot affirm or contradict that calculation, 
 but social traditions, as well as their published re- 
 cords, show that the Grenvilles had much method 
 in their outlays. On all grand occasions when 
 the public eye was turned upon them, and when 
 royal personages v/ere to be received, they spent 
 splendidly, but not recklessly — until our own time, 
 when they literally seem to have lost their " head." 
 Their splendour was, occasionally, most dazzling, 
 but they by no means kept up that constant dis- 
 bursement, which has been witnessed in the cases 
 of other great families. 
 
 While other aristocratic chiefs have quietly sent 
 for professional undertakers to arrange their ban- 
 quets and receptions, the Grenvilles took much of 
 that trouble upon their own shoulders, and after a 
 year of profusion they lived with comparative 
 economy afterwards. They were not gamblers, 
 they had no troops of younger sons, and reckless 
 young men of pleasure about town. They had 
 some race-horses, but the turf was only an occa- 
 
THE GRENVILLES. 105 
 
 sional pastime, and never a passion with them. 
 They were not men of licentious lives. 
 
 Calculation, industry, eyes wide awake to the 
 passing life, and minds constantly thinking on 
 politics, and on the relation of their own family to 
 the court, to parliament, and to public opinion out of 
 doors, were marked traits in their character. 
 
 The Grenvilles never could be classified with 
 Whigs, or Tories. They did not fall into the su- 
 perstitious idolatry which has been offered to the 
 memory of " The Great Deliverer." They thought 
 more of the King than of the Court, more of 
 parliament, than of " party," more of the nation 
 than of the " people." Their tone upon religion 
 was English and Protestant in the best sense, and 
 uncoloured hy the idolisms which rise from the 
 fumes of fanaticism, real or affected. 
 
 But this great family, with all its proud me- 
 mories, its unrivalled influence, its blaze of great 
 names, its recollections of party leadership, its 
 traditions of power, and all its outward state and 
 lordly splendour has fallen in our own time. The 
 tesselated corridors, and stately staircases, and vast 
 palatial chambers of Stowe are no longer trodden 
 by princely personages, by beauties famed in every 
 European court, or by statesmen and orators 
 wielding mighty power. Buckingham House is 
 
106 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 leased out as a public office, and the statues carved 
 by illustrious artists, the rare pictures, the precious 
 jewels, the massive plate, the costly furniture, and 
 all that large heap of stupendous splendour in 
 which a capital had been sunk, are scattered and 
 dispersed. 
 
 In the senate, the Grenvilles are nothing but 
 a memory. A little after the commencement of 
 the present century began their ruin. They com- 
 menced then a course of continuous display, and 
 in their outlay there was no cessation. Vast sums 
 of money were spent by them upon their yeo- 
 manry corps ; their habits of personal expenditure 
 were increased, and being deprived of office, they 
 had to satisfy their dependants out of their own 
 "purses. After Fox and Pitt were in their graves, 
 and after Mr. Perceval was killed, the Grenvilles 
 thought that the Court could not possibly do with- 
 out them, but they were mistaken. The Court 
 found in Lord Castlereagh a man who could 
 manage its affairs, and lead the House of Commons, 
 and the ascendancy of Castlereagh was, at a most 
 critical period, deeply injurious to the public in- 
 fluence of their connection. If the Grenvilles had 
 for the second time sent out an expedition to 
 Spain to struggle against Napoleon, if they had 
 chosen a young General and supported him 
 
TEE GRENVILLES. 107 
 
 against the criticism of opposition and the ignorant 
 clamour of the hour, if they had greatly aided 
 in driving the French across the Pyrenees, and in 
 finally hurling Napoleon from his throne, and 
 closing the long revolutionary war, if, I say, the 
 Grenvilles had done all that, how far higher cow 
 would be their posthumous glory ! Bat they 
 never calculated that Lord Castlereagh would be 
 able to lead the House of Commons, and they 
 did not discern the military genius of " the Duke," 
 nor did they give the Government adequate sup- 
 port when the Whig Opposition assailed Welles- 
 ^ey in the height of his difficulties. 
 
 After the war terminated, when prices fell, and 
 there was confusion and distress in the community, 
 the Grenvilles then came to the support of the Liver- 
 pool-Castlereagh Ministry, and broke away from 
 their Whig allies, and in latter years they openly 
 and avowedly joined the Tory party. The Duke- 
 dom for which they had so long toiled, was given 
 them in 1822, and it had been expected to have 
 been received during the second Pitt's Ministry, 
 though he seems not to have countenanced the 
 ambition of the Marquis of Buckingham, with 
 whom for several years he was not on friendly 
 terms. In the present century, it is worth remark- 
 ing that only four dukedoms have been given by the 
 
108 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Crown, viz., Wellington, Buckingham, Sutherland, 
 and Cleveland. Reform was at hand, and the 
 parliamentary power of the Grenvilles was under- 
 mined. They had drawn heavily upon their 
 family resources ; their recent chiefs were ambitious, 
 but weak, shortsighted and vain, with the activity 
 that often mischievously counterfeits political 
 ability, but without the sense and hard knowledge 
 of men and things absolutely required by politicians. 
 If the Grenvilles could have succeeded in getting 
 the Viceroyalty of India for a prolonged term of 
 eight years — or had they boldly reduced their esta- 
 blishment, and put their estates to nurse, they 
 might have tided over their difSculties. But the 
 country was on the eve of a Whig turn of power, 
 and as their star paled, and as fortune scowled, the 
 Grenvilles became headstrong and wild. They 
 sought to retrieve themselves by speculations ; they 
 raised money at ruinous prices, they gambled in land, 
 and they played a demented game of hazard against 
 Hebrew usurers, " City" schemes, and cunning 
 bill-brokers. Their hour was at hand, their proud 
 house fell, and the knell of their glory was heard 
 far and wide through the realm. And it was not 
 without some secret gratulation on the part of 
 certain great families that the Grenvilles were 
 prostrate. The highest circles in the aristocracy 
 
THE GRENVILLES. 109 
 
 had long felt that the Grenvilles had taken 
 up a position, to which they were not entitled 
 by the resources at their command, and the des- 
 cendants of Lord Cobham had sunk to being 
 pitied. 
 
 An interesting question now arises. " Whether, 
 in the tremulous oscillation that has taken place 
 in our recent parliamentary politics, it would not 
 be of great advantage if the Crown could have 
 recourse to the occasional assistance of a great 
 political connection like the Grenvilles, with lofty 
 social position?" For about eighty years the 
 Grenvilles were, indubitably, an independent in- 
 fluence, and at no time were they ever irrevocably 
 connected either to Whigs or Tories. On every 
 successive dispensation in politics, the Grenvilles 
 raised the question. " What course should we 
 take now ?" By having recourse to such a 
 connection, the Sovereign could at times steady 
 the action of Parliament, give strength to a 
 waning Ministry, or defeat a greedy and factious 
 Opposition. But the greatness of the Grenville 
 family in its better days is seen in the circum- 
 stance, that it would be impossible now-a-days to 
 discover any one connection like them. To make 
 up such an influence, there must be high social 
 position, an old English name, along with sense 
 
110 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 and industry, joined to the active personal ambi 
 tion that will court and create a following. 
 
 The use of a " connection" in politics, as distinc 
 from " party" may be stated in the following way 
 
 The real evil of Party is most seen when thi 
 minds of citizens out of doors are inflamec 
 against each other. For many years subsequen 
 to the Reform Bill, the country at large wa 
 divided into huge hostile camps, and armies o 
 politicians encountered each other. It even be 
 came a question of which party could show thi 
 most superior organisation, and corruption anc 
 intimidation were reduced to a system. Principle 
 consistency and rectitude were neglected. 
 
 A wise Sovereign will not like to place hi 
 power entirely within the grasp of one of th 
 hereditary parties. As matters now stand, th 
 Cavendishes, Russells, Howards, and other familie 
 are always Whigs, and the Mannerses, Percies 
 Cecils, &c., are expected to be Tories. Londoi 
 was surprised to see a Protestant Duke of Norfoll 
 in the last century ; it would be equally astonishei 
 in our times if it were to behold a Tory Duke o 
 Bedford, or a Whig Duke of Rutland. But 
 connection like what the Grenvilles were, rich 
 high-born, bold, energetic, and looking more b 
 solid power, and the sway of Parliament, than t 
 
THE GRENVILLES. Ill 
 
 the titular chieftainship of Party, such an influence 
 could, at critical times, be of the greatest use to 
 the Crown, to Parliament, and to the Country. It 
 was supposed in political circles that the Peehtes 
 at one time could have wielded an influence like 
 the Grenvilles ; they had one brilliant orator, the 
 memory of a great name, and experience of oflice ; 
 but when the pressure came, the Peelites did not 
 show the strenuous qualities of the Grenvilles. 
 
 It added something to the vogue of the Gren- 
 villes, that it was always supposed that they could 
 reveal " who was Junius ?" It was said that they 
 had the secret, and it was thought upon the death 
 of Lord . Granville, a curious revelation would be 
 given to the world. But there is not a trace of 
 evidence of any kind, to show that the Grenvilles 
 at any time had any more knowledge of who was 
 " Junius" than any one else. 
 
 The revival of the " Junius" controversy is one 
 of the most remarkable facts in contemporary lite- 
 rature. 
 
 Twelve years ago, there was a very general 
 disposition amongst literary circles to acquiesce in 
 the conclusion, that Sir Philip Francis was the 
 Man in the Mask. Since that time, the contro- 
 versy, so far from becoming torpid, has shown 
 more vitahty than at any former period. The 
 
112 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 eminent natural philosopher, Sir David Brewster, 
 has applied his scientific intellect to the support of 
 the claims of Lachlan Maclean. A writer in the 
 " Quarterly Review," with much original know- 
 ledge, and considerable ingenuity, contends that 
 " Junius" was Thomas (alias " the wicked") Lord 
 Lyttleton. Mr. Smith, formerly librarian at 
 Stowe, and editor of " The Grenville Papers," 
 believes in Earl Temple ; while Mr. Britton, the 
 late learned antiquary, argued, with no small 
 force, that it was Colonel Barre. The " Athe- 
 naeum," has devoted a great portion of its space, 
 and displayed original ability, disputing the Fran- 
 ciscan theory. On the other hand. Lord Mahon, 
 Lord Campbell, and Lord Macaulay, amongst 
 living celebrities, concur with the late Mr. Canning 
 and Sir James Mackintosh in holding that Francis 
 was " Junius," a conclusion opposed to the opinions 
 of the late Lord Stowell, Mr. Charles Butler, Sir 
 Egerton Brydges, Doctor Parr, Mr. Wilson Croker, 
 and Lord Brougham, who has published his con- 
 clusion that it is " most reasonable and charitable" 
 to rest in the supposition that " Francis had a 
 knowledge of the secret, and may have been en- 
 gaged in the copying of the letters, without being 
 their author." I do not concur with those who 
 flippantly assume that the enquiry after " Junius" is 
 
THE GRENVILLES. 113 
 
 trivial and without use. There are three reasons 
 why questions relating to " Junius" must be of lite- 
 rary interest. Firstly, the prodigious effect of these 
 letters is matter of history, and can never be 
 passed over, even in the most cursory narrative of 
 the reign of George the Third. Secondly, their 
 intrinsic literary ability will always command the 
 attention of critics and the admiration of readers. 
 Thirdly, the mystery of the authorship can never 
 be without its charms. Seldom in human life 
 have the real and the marvellous been more closely 
 joined than in the history of " Junius." A writer 
 was found who showed intimate knowledge of Court 
 secrets, yet the occupants of the King's palace 
 could not detect him. He exhibited rare powers 
 of argument on public questions, a special research 
 that must have taken time and trouble, and a 
 peculiar originality of mind ; yet senators, authors, 
 lawyers, journalists, knew him not. How a man 
 could have had his particularity of knowledge, 
 and published it to the world without immediate 
 detection, would appear to us perfectly contrary to 
 " the course of nature" if we did not know that the 
 miracle was matter of historical fact. There is 
 not a more romantic chapter in the history of 
 letters than the mystery of " Junius ;" and, until the 
 truth be positively known, we may anticipate that 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 curiosity about the mighty shadow will never 
 cease. 
 
 The literary ability of the letters has been dis- 
 paraged by several persons — by Charles Fox and 
 Lord Brougham amongst others. "Junius," cer- 
 tainly, never could be placed as a writer on a level 
 with Lord Bohngbroke and Burke. He wants the 
 majestic flow, the harmonious variety, and com- 
 mand of the English tongue displayed by the 
 fascinating St. John. The " Reflections on the 
 French Revolution," and " Letter to a Noble 
 Lord," are masterpieces as far beyond the powers 
 of " Junius" as the greatest dramas of Shakespeare, 
 with their inspiration and pathos, are above the 
 cold correctness and glittering rhetoric of the 
 tragedies of Voltaire. His excellence consists in 
 his being able to associate in composition the 
 condensed and the popular to a degree that no 
 other writer, addressing the public, has ever at- 
 tained. How difficult it is for any author to 
 display those talents which, in dazzling the vulgar 
 crowd, can also delight the critical readers of the 
 closet ! Still more difficult is it to achieve such 
 triumphs on ephemeral topics, and to win upon 
 fugitive themes literary laurels whose brightness 
 cannot fade. One might suppose that Coleridge, 
 with his nebulous philosophy and vague trans- 
 
THE GRENVILLES. 115 
 
 cendentalisra, would have been likely to under-rate 
 so showy and popular a writer as " Junius ;" yet 
 some of the finest criticism on "Junius" has come 
 from his pen. I will cite his remarks as they are 
 not well known : — 
 
 " It is impossible to detract from the merit of these letters : 
 they are suited to their purpose, and perfect in their kind. 
 They impel to action, not thought. Had they been pro- 
 found or subtle in thought, or majestic and sweeping in 
 composition, they would have been adapted for the closet 
 of a Sidney ; or for a House of Lords, such as it was in 
 the time of Lord Bacon ; but they are plain and sensible 
 whenever the author is in the right ; and whether right 
 or wrong, always shrewd and epigrammatic : and fitted 
 for the coffee-house, the Exchange, the lobby of the 
 House of Commons, and to be read aloud at a public 
 
 meeting. 
 
 ****** 
 
 " Perhaps the fair way of considering these letters would 
 be as a kind of satirical poem ; the short and for ever- 
 balanced sentences constitute a true metre ; and the con- 
 nection is that of satiric poetry, a witty logic, an association 
 of thoughts by amusing semblances of cause and effect, 
 the sophistry of which the reader has an interest in, not 
 stopping to detect, for it flatters his love of mischief and 
 makes the sport." 
 
 The whole of Coleridge's elaborate criticism on 
 " Junius" is worthy of the mind to which we owe 
 
116 CHIEl'S OF PAKTIES. 
 
 the best English analysis of the character q{ Ham- 
 let. A critic of another stamp paid that indirect 
 homage to " Junius" in private which he denied to 
 him in public. " I know no one but 'Mun 
 Burke capable of writing those letters," said 
 Samuel Johnson. 
 
 Of the recent writings upon " Junius," the most 
 important are the ' Introductory Notes" by Mr. 
 Smith to the third and fourth volumes of the 
 " Grenville Papers," the ingenious article in the 
 "Quarterly Review" for December, 1851, and, 
 still better, the masterly articles by the editor of 
 the " Athenaeum." Mr. Smith has devoted two 
 hundred and thirty pages to maintaining the 
 theory that Earl Temple was " Junius," while the 
 Quarterly Reviewer occupies some seventy pages 
 to bring forward Lord (Thomas) Lyttleton's 
 claims. These two writers concur in the rejection 
 of the claims of Francis. The Quarterly Reviewer 
 has opened up entirely new matter, and has ex- 
 cavated a forgotten character in Thomas Lord 
 Lyttleton, whom he has re-clothed in his political 
 garments, and presented to our view as a brilliant 
 libertine, a bold bad man, with gross vices, but 
 great genius,, with much that was dazzling, and 
 still more that was daring in his melancholy 
 mixture of the aspiring and the grovelling. Mr, 
 
THE GUENVILLES. 117 
 
 Smith has also revealed Lord Temple to the 
 world in a plainer hght than he stood previously. 
 Lord Temple was certainly underrated in his own 
 days as well as with posterity. He had several 
 friends, like Wilkes and others, who did no credit 
 to his choice ; and he had enemies, like Horace 
 Walpole, who took care that the world should not 
 forget his unfavourable features. But I cannot 
 concur in the view of Mr. Smith that the brilliant 
 and impassioned " Junius" was the lordly proprietor 
 of Stowe. I will present his theory in his own 
 words : — ■ 
 
 " Upon the supposition that Lord Temple was the author 
 of Junius, I believe that Lady Temple was the amanuensis, 
 by whose hand all the writing part of the correspondence 
 was executed. Lord Temple's autograph was evidently not 
 capable of being adapted to the handwriting of Junius ; he 
 wrote with difficulty; the letters are large and badly 
 formed, and the whole appearance of it such as his person 
 is described to have been, awkward and ungainly. 
 
 " Lady Temple, on the contrary, had very considerable 
 facility in the use of the pen. In her handwriting, at 
 several periods of her life, are to be found many of the 
 characteristics of the writings of Junius." 
 
 I must he excused for disbelieving that a 
 woman had had aught to do with the secret of 
 " Junius." But the whole theory is unsound. There 
 
lis CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 is not a single page of Lord Temple's many 
 speeches and pamphlets inspired with the fire of 
 genius. Lord Temple was a man with a talent 
 for things, not for style, and by his own pen he 
 has refuted the notion that he was " Junius." As 
 for the handwriting, it can scarcely be taken into 
 account in examining this problem. 
 
 The three letters of " Junius" published in the 
 " Grenville Papers," in my opinion, completely 
 overturn the theory of Mr. Smith. 
 
 On the hypothesis that Lord Temple was 
 " Junius," one can scarcely conceive of a more truly 
 ridiculous thing than for him to have written 
 such letters to his own brother ! If he wished 
 to have great value placed on his secret commu- 
 nications, were those the style of documents which 
 a peer of the realm, with a princely estate, would 
 have written to a proud, formal, and rather 
 pompous parliamentary leader like George Gren- 
 ville ? This point will be seen in a plain light 
 on perusing the second letter, which is extremely 
 remarkable. It is as follows : — 
 
 c. [the author of Junius] to mk. grenville. 
 
 London, 3rd. September, 1768. 
 
 Sir. — It may not be improper you should know that 
 the publick is entirely mistaken with respect to the Author 
 
THE. GRENVILLES. 119 
 
 of some late publications in the Newspapers. Be assured 
 that lie is a man quite unknown and unconnected. 
 He has attached himself to your cause and to you alone, 
 upon motives, which, if he were of Consequence enough 
 to give weight to his Judgment, would he thought as 
 honou.rable to you, as they are truly satisfactory to himself. 
 At the proper time he will solicit the honour of being 
 known to you; he has present important reasons for 
 wishing to be concealed. 
 
 Some late papers, in which the cause of this country, 
 and the defence of your Character and measures have 
 been thought not ill maintained ; — others, signed Lucius, 
 and one or two upon the new Commission of trade, with 
 a multitude of others, came from this hand. They have 
 been taken notice of by the Publick. 
 
 May I plead it as a merit with you. Sir, that no motives 
 of vanity shall ever discover the author of this Letter. 
 If an earnest wish to serve you gives me any claim, let 
 me entreat you not to suffer a hint of this Communication 
 to escape you to any body. 
 
 Surely Lord Temple would never tell his o^vn 
 brother that the writer of the letters was " a man 
 quite unknown and unconnected." But, further- 
 more, would Lady Temple, if she had been the 
 amanuensis, have ventured to write, even though 
 in a feigned hand, to George Grenville ? I can 
 suppose the case, however extravagant, of Lady 
 Temple having been employed to copy the manu- 
 scripts forwarded to Woodfall; but there is 
 something too absurd for belief in the idea that 
 
120 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 the sister-in-law would be engaged to write an 
 anonymous letter to her husband's brother ! 
 
 But leaving Mr. Smith's theory, let me direct 
 notice to the important facts revealed in this 
 second letter. The distinct admission of " Junius" 
 that he was also " Lucius," and the writer of " a 
 multitude of others," is of considerable importance 
 in debating the claims of Francis. It has always 
 been contended by the anti-Franciscans, and with 
 eminent ability by the " Athenaeum," that a clerk 
 in the War-office could never have even found 
 the time necessary for the prodigious labour bes- 
 towed on these celebrated compositions, which were 
 evidently " tormented with the file." Persons with 
 the greatest experience in literary life, and with 
 the most extensive knowledge of celebrated authors 
 and their habits, have declared that it was a phy- 
 sical impossibility that one engaged in official 
 drudgery could have ever exhibited the sustained 
 energy required for " Junius." They have said that 
 the mechanical routine of office would have robbed 
 his fancy of his bloom, and palsied his elastic 
 versatility. Let the facts on this point be closely 
 considered, and if ever it shall be proved that 
 Francis was "Junius," we shall have cause for 
 amazement at his prodigious energy. To have 
 been " Junius," under any circumstances, would 
 
THE GRENVILLES. 121 
 
 have tasked a man's powers ; but to have elaborated 
 ail those compositions — found the matter for 
 them — discussed the gravest constitutional ques- 
 tions — exhibited laborious research on complicated 
 laws — argued with consummate ability against 
 Lord Mansfield and Home Tooke — ascertained 
 the truth of his innumerable facts before risking 
 his reputation for authenticity in promulgating 
 them — carried on a prolonged secret correspon- 
 dence with Wilkes, besides another with Woodfall 
 — and last, not least, to have secured the disguise 
 of the handwriting, and the secrecy of his com- 
 munications with the publisher — to have accom- 
 plished all those arduous toils, while the writer 
 was drudging for several hours every day as a 
 clerk in the War-office, would make the perform- 
 ances of Francis truly marvellous, and leave him 
 unrivalled, except by the Hercules of mythology ! 
 
 And it is this point of view which has not been 
 sufficiently attended to by Lord Macaulay and 
 other positive Franciscans. They have concentrated 
 their attention too much on the mental relationship 
 between " Junius" and Francis, to the neglect of the 
 more vulgar question which common sense sug- 
 gests, whether the labours of " Junius," along with 
 those of a hard-worked official, were within the 
 bounds of physical possibility ? 
 
122 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 One thing, however, is certain, that if the 
 Grenvilles knew who was " Junius," they did not 
 transmit it as a family secret. The late Duke of 
 Sussex, on the last occasion when he dined with 
 Queen Charlotte, asked his royal mother " whether 
 King George ever knew who had been his ma- 
 ligner ?" and the Queen said that neither the 
 King, nor any of his Ministers, could discover 
 who was " Junius ;" and that all attempts to 
 identify him had proved utterly fruitless. 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 123 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 
 
 At that momentous crisis in the annals of 
 party when Fox and Pitt were removed from the 
 scenes of their strife, a reflecting politician might 
 have been perplexed by the question — " Who will 
 be the Chiefs of the next generation ?" The 
 names of many men of marked abilities would 
 have at once occurred to him, but have been dis- 
 missed as soon as suggested. He would have alter- 
 nately praised and blamed their various qualities ; he 
 might have recollected how the excessive subtlety of 
 Windham detracted from his statesmanship, and 
 how the eminent debating powers of Lord Howick 
 were counteracted by his querulous deportment. 
 Nor would he have forgotten that Lord Grenville, 
 excelling in sense, was deficient in command over 
 others ; and that Lord Melville, in consequence of 
 
124 CHIEFS OE PARTIES. 
 
 the impeachment, was incapacitated for leadership. 
 Two other names might have presented themselves 
 — those of the Marquis Wellesley and Mr. Can- 
 ning ; but he would have remembered what 
 oiFence had been given by the first, in the volup- 
 tuous licence of a life fit only for a " sultanised 
 Englishman ;" and how the arrogance of genius 
 and a propensity to intrigue* diminished the 
 moral weight of the Senate's most accomplished 
 orator in those days (1806-9) when Sheridan was 
 but the wreck of his former self, before Mr. 
 Brougham and Mr. Plunket had appeared to dis- 
 pute the palm of superior eloquence. 
 
 Yet there were then sitting in the House of 
 Commons two men who, more than any others of 
 their contemporaries, were destined to guide the 
 events of the next generation. They were them- 
 selves little conscious of the careers in reserve for 
 them, and they would, perhaps, have been as 
 much surprised as others if they had been told 
 how important were their lives for the public weal. 
 They were often to be seen side by side, and even a 
 stranger might have noted by their manners that 
 they were intimate friends. They used often to 
 walk into the House together, and sometimes they 
 
 * See Lord Malmesbury's Diary. 
 
COKSIDEHATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 125 
 
 would be seen pacing thoughtfully the footway of 
 St. James's Square. One was a reserved- looking 
 man, apparently past forty, with a thin, spare 
 figure, and a countenance then so attenuated as to 
 be suggestive of macerating disease. The expres- 
 sion of his countenance was stiff and wooden,* 
 and the nose had an ungainly' prominence, which 
 was forgotten as you looked at those great eyes — 
 those vast orbs — that burned brightly under his 
 brow, and announced the empire of a great soul. 
 His friend and companion looked several years 
 younger, and his appearance was, even at a passing 
 glance, sure to interest an observer. To a light and 
 manly form he united the charm of a face which, 
 for regular features and grace of expression, could 
 scarcely be met with even amongst the most bril- 
 liant of the favourites of Courts, and the admired 
 of the fair. There was stamped upon his whole 
 person the " not transferable" air of a gentleman 
 — using that abused word, not in its degenerated 
 sense, but as a term fit for describing a being of 
 high aspiration and of manly bearing, tempered by 
 a courteous consideration of others. His smile 
 was exquisitely sweet, and the more interesting 
 from a shade of pensive langour that sometimes 
 
 * " Aad his wooden face," — Lord Byron. 
 
126 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 would steal over his nobly patrician face, which a 
 single sentiment of vulgar passion never disturbed 
 from the serene air of slumbering energy, which a 
 famous painter in vain attempted to transfer to the 
 portraiture of the finest subject of the male sex 
 that ever invited his pencil.* These are the figures 
 of two men who made events. But ah ! reader, 
 in one you behold the favourite of history, upon 
 whom eulogies have been heaped, and in the other 
 you have the outline of the least- requited states- 
 man, the most unjustly- treated character, whom 
 the annals of party record. The first was Arthur 
 Wellesley, then member for Newport, fresh from 
 his Indian triumphs, and apparently a severe suf- 
 ferer from the Oriental climate ; the other was one 
 who played a first-rate part in the Era of Empire 
 — the man who divided with Mr. Pitt the fame of 
 carrying the Irish Union — who forced a wavering 
 Cabinet to send Wellesley a second time to Spain 
 — who in gloomy times never despaired, and, in 
 the face of great difficulties, successfully led the 
 Commons and ruled the Cabinet for ten trying 
 years, when faction's voice was loudest, and the 
 Opposition unscrupulous beyond parallel. 
 
 Robert Stewart, second Marquis of London- 
 
 * Lawrence. 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 127 
 
 derry, the Castlereagh of European history, was 
 the son of a wealthy Irish Peer, who had been 
 first ennobled in 1789. Like other celebrities, 
 Castlereagh was indebted to the mother's side for 
 those quahties which raised him to the first class of 
 public men. That graceful presence, those cour- 
 teous manners, for which he was so admired, 
 descended from the Seymours.* Long meditating 
 upon a Union with Ireland, Mr. Pitt doubted 
 whether he could find the means requisite for 
 carrying such a measure ; the fury of Irish factions 
 in that day with the intemperance of popularity- 
 hunting Whigs, combined to make the scheme 
 of Union almost a hopeless one. 
 
 In achieving that great measure. Lord Castle- 
 reagh proudly associated his name with Imperial 
 History. Compelled to endure the invectives of 
 Grattan, Plunket, and Bushe, he exhibited under 
 arduous circumstances a calm self-reliance ; to the 
 vehemence of Irish eloquence he opposed steady 
 sense, and a resolute heart ; and, when Mr. 
 George Ponsonby assailed him with reckless inso- 
 lence, Lord Castlereagh, in the face of a fierce and 
 passionate Opposition, inflicted on his assailant so 
 severe a castigation, that for the remainder of his 
 
 * His mother was Lady Sarah Seymour Conway, second 
 daughter of Francis, first Earl of Henford. 
 
128 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 life he was safe from any assault from that quarter. 
 Without the Union, Ireland would have been given 
 up to an alliance with the French, or to an ascen- 
 dancy of the Catholics ; — without Lord Castlereagh 
 no Union could have been carried. In Irish as in 
 Imperial politics afterwards, he gained ascendant 
 influence by a firmness that did not falter, and a 
 love of toil that did not tire. At College Green, 
 as in St. Stephen's in later days, browbeaters were 
 daunted by the calmness of a man insensible to 
 fear, and generous adversaries were charmed by 
 the courtesy of his ingratiating manners. 
 
 The services rendered by Lord Castlereagh in 
 carrying the difficult measure of the Union with 
 Ireland were of the greatest importance, and with- 
 out his aid, Mr. Pitt would not have been able to 
 pass that great Imperial scheme. Mr. Pitt, in 
 the first instance, had contemplated bringing in a 
 plan, by which the CathoHcs would have been 
 emancipated simultaneously with the event of 
 Union; but there was so much anti-English 
 feeling in the popular party of Ireland, and such 
 intense anti-Catholic feeling amongst the majority 
 of the Irish Houses of Parliament, that any 
 scheme for emancipation, if prematurely divulged, 
 would have caused the plan to have miscarried. 
 
 The point of view taken by Lord Castlereagh 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLERBAGH. 129 
 
 was this : — he recommended Mr. Pitt to defer 
 emancipating the Catholics until after the Union, 
 but at the same time he proposed entering into 
 arrangements with the leaders of the Roman 
 Catholics in Ireland, so as to obtain support from 
 their body. He carried out his designs ably ; he 
 did win over several of the leading prelates of the 
 Catholic body, and at that time a great part of the 
 active commercial interest in Ireland, at Cork and 
 elsewhere, was in the hands of the Catholics. 
 The temper, address, and firmness of purpose 
 manifested by Lord Castlereagh through all these 
 arduous arrangements, did great honour to his 
 abilities. He had to treat with the English 
 government, with the Irish Parliament, with the 
 leading influences of the Irish aristocracy, and with 
 the chief persons of the Catholic body. Foes 
 had to be daunted or disarmed, and the wavering 
 were to be confirmed. 
 
 King George the Third had his doubts about 
 the Union. " What does the King think about 
 Pitt's Irish Union ?" asked Wilberforce of Mr. 
 George Bankes, who was occasionally a sort of 
 conscience-keeper to the King. " If it will be for 
 the good of the Church, the King is for it," said 
 Mr. Bankes, " but if it will injure the Church, 
 the King will be against it." It cannot be denied 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
130 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 that there was some practical sagacity and shrewd 
 sense in the doubts of the King, as to the religious 
 effect of a union with a country in which the 
 Catholic religion was professed by the majority, 
 and in point of fact it cannot be denied that the 
 Catholics did obtain a locus standi in the English 
 Imperial system in consequence of the Irish Union. 
 "A man who dreads Popery now-a-days, would 
 roar fire in the deluge," said Johnson, long before 
 the scheme of Irish Union was proposed, and 
 many staunch English Protestants in our time 
 think that an extravagant price was paid for the 
 Union in the advantages given to the Catholics. 
 
 That question is open to discussion, but without 
 debating it here, the records of Parliament, and the 
 confessions of all the leading persons of those days at 
 both sides prove, beyond doubt, that no other course 
 but that followed by Lord Castlereagh could have 
 eventuated in carrying the Union. The firmness, 
 suavity of temper, and adroitness in dealing with 
 individuals, shown by Castlereagh at that time 
 have never since been rivalled by any statesman 
 in the management of Irish affairs. Such qualities, 
 great in any one, appear still more admirable when 
 we recollect that Lord Castlereagh was only about 
 thirty years of age, while in the face of difficulties 
 that would have overcome almost any other man, 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 131 
 
 he persevered. The first plan for the Union, was 
 rejected, and there was a general feeling that the 
 measure should be withdrawn or postponed ; but 
 Castlereagh persisted, as in after years he per- 
 sisted in again sending an expedition to Spain, 
 after the first had proved unsuccessful, and in 
 again and again making fresh alliances against 
 Napoleon, until at last he was able to conduct 
 aiFairs to his final downfall. 
 
 It deserves, also, to be noticed that, of the 
 celebrities of the Irish Parliament, Castlereagh 
 was the only one who appears to have increased 
 his reputation in the English Senate. Mr. 
 Grattan was revered for his virtues, and ad- 
 mired for his genius; but he never became a 
 leader of the English Parliament. Mr. Foster 
 (Lord Oriel) was most able and influential in the 
 Irish House of Commons, but he took up no 
 great position in the English Parliament, though 
 he had a powerful connection to his back. Mr. 
 George Ponsonby, owing to family influence, was 
 nominated to the leadership of the Whig Oppo- 
 sition ; but he was weak and inefficient. Plunket, 
 indeed, more than surpassed all the expectations 
 formed of him as an admirable orator; but he 
 was not a practical statesman, and he signalized 
 himself chiefly on the Catholic question. But 
 
 K 2 
 
132 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Castlereagh rose as a man of affairs, and after 
 many . obstacles cast across his patii, he led the 
 House of Commons for ten years, and was the 
 chief minister virtually in the Liverpool Cabinet. 
 
 It has been ignorantly said that the Court 
 influence, through the Seymour connection, helped 
 Castlereagh to power; but as an experienced ex- 
 cfficial, who had reason to know Castlereagh's 
 position well, once said to me, " So far from the 
 Hertford House clique being an aid to him in his 
 run up the ladder, it was a weight upon his back." 
 In his struggle with Canning, it has, also, been 
 heedlessly observed that Castlereagh had the ad- 
 vantage by being an aristocrat by birth. But in 
 status, the two rivals were more nearly on a par 
 than was supposed. What did the House of 
 Commons, with its scions of great patrician houses, 
 Howards, Russells, Cavendishes, Cecils, Mannerses, 
 Stanleys — with its proud English commoners with 
 pedigrees as old as the oaks in their parks — with 
 its merchant princes, and its leaders of the Bar ; — 
 what could such an assembly have cared for the 
 titular superiority of Lord Castlereagh (the first 
 wearer of that new title) over Mr. Canning ? Be- 
 sides, the Marquis of Titchfield, heir to the Duke of 
 Portland, was brother-in-law to Mr. Canning, and 
 the English House of Commons had longer expe- 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 133 
 
 rience of Mr. Canning, who was much earlier intro- 
 duced to Mr. Pitt's notice than Lord Castlereagb. 
 Transferred from provincial to Imperial politics, 
 he did not at first realise the expectations of his 
 party. To a debater as to a writer thorough, 
 knowledge of his subject is absolutely necessary, 
 and years elapsed before Lord Castlereagb was at 
 home upon English topics. The strong quahties 
 of personal ascendancy which had been so in- 
 valuable in the turmoil at College-green were not 
 enough of themselves to secure eminence at St. 
 Stephen's in the days of Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, Lord 
 Howick, Tierney, and many others. It was always 
 a defect in the system of Lord Castlereagb to rely 
 too much on official authority, on party organisa- 
 tion, and on mere parliamentary power. He did 
 not sufficiently understand that momentous truth, 
 so clearly stated by the philosophic Hume, "That 
 all power, even the most despotic, rests ultimately 
 on Opinion." This mistake is one that is com- 
 mon to many men of action. But it was not any 
 speculative error of his policy that brought upon 
 him the slanderous malignity of faction's tongue. 
 There were peculiar causes at work to give deli- 
 berate purpose to the venom with which the 
 libelling pens of the Holland House scribes vilified 
 Lord Castlereagb. 
 
134 CHIEFS OF PAUTIES. 
 
 Between the "Whigs and Carlton House there 
 was a deadly feud in those days. The Regent at once 
 dishked and dreaded the coalition of Lords Gren- 
 ville and Grey. He was in difficulties of various 
 kinds ; he had at the same time to encounter 
 Napoleon abroad — popular discontent at home — 
 and, worst of all, such a wife as — ahem ! — Lord 
 Malmesbury's Diary describes ! The great Whig 
 families wanted political capital, for the Catholic 
 claims had proved a fatal investment; they took 
 up the cause of the Princess of Wales, and came 
 to the resolution that for the edification of Eng- 
 land the soiled linen of Royalty should be publicly 
 washed before the world. The Opposition resolved 
 to live upon the individual scandals of the 
 Court — to blast the Regent's character, if they 
 could not scale his Cabinet. 
 
 By family ties Lord Castlereagh was connected 
 with the Hertford House, interest. The Court 
 party, in that hour of trial, committed its defence 
 to Lord Castlereagh, and he at once became the 
 target for missiles of all kinds, from cartloads of 
 abuse shot upon him by Cobbett, to the melo- 
 dious malignity of Tom Moore, and the poisonous 
 nosegays of Cockney satirists like the Hunts. 
 It was vain to frighten their brave enemy ; with 
 the contempt of a man of courage, he had 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLE [lEAGH. 135 
 
 sneered at those who were fond of picking " House 
 of Commons' quarrels," and the sneer was re- 
 membered. He had brought the haughty and 
 intrepid Canning to an account for his conduct, 
 and in daring his personal hostility, he had also 
 showed that resolute spirit which never shrank 
 before any foe. Both of them, indeed, in their 
 duel exhibited dauntless nerve. Though Lord 
 Yarmouth (afterwards Marquis of Hertford), 
 acting for Castlereagh, and Mr. Ellis (Lord Sea- 
 ford), the friend of Canning, tried to accommo- 
 date matters after the first fire, the combatants 
 were inexorable, and a fierce spirit prevailed on 
 both sides, very unlike that of the despicable 
 scene between Jeffrey and Moore, described by 
 the latter. At the second fire the button in the 
 lapel of Lord Castlereagh's coat was shot off, and 
 Canning was wounded in the thigh. Nor did 
 he then flinch, being ready for a third shot, 
 when Lord Yarmouth saw the blood pouring 
 down his nankeen trowsers, and the affair 
 was stopped. They fought at Putney-heath, 
 within sight of the windows of the house where 
 Pitt, their friend and patron, had breathed his 
 last. 
 
 As it was evident to the world that Lord 
 Castlereagh would permit no adversary worthy of 
 
136 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 notice to assail him with impunity, anonymous 
 attacks were, therefore, had recourse to, and never 
 was any man more vilified or foully slandered. 
 Unable to assail his private character, his enemies 
 accused him of having " sold his country." Driven 
 from attacking him in Parliament, the press was 
 used against him in order to supply the dema- 
 gogues with matter, true or false, to use inces- 
 santly ; and Lord Castlereagh's character was 
 written down accordingly. 
 
 There is not, probably, in our Parliamentary 
 History another similar case of a man so foully 
 and falsely written down as Lord Castlereagh. 
 Holland House was then in the full exercise of its 
 active powers of colloquial detraction. The public 
 press, in those times, was coarse and truculent in 
 its personality. There was also a Government 
 journalism, which worked only tolerably well for 
 its employers ; but there were several special 
 causes which combined to render Lord Castlereagh 
 obnoxious. From the time of the quarrel with 
 Canning, Lord Castlereagh was exposed to the 
 following hostile influences : 
 
 1. The Whig writers in the "Edinburgh 
 Review," and the Liberal organs which followed 
 in its wake. 
 
 2. Cobbett and the Radical declaimers. 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 137 
 
 3. The pamphleteers who were attached to the 
 tail of the Grenvilles. 
 
 4. The satire of the Canning clique ; and the 
 " Quarterly Review" kept silent upon the merits 
 of Lord Castlereagh, in those days, as Canning 
 had so much influence with the conductors of the 
 " Quarterly." 
 
 5. The brilliant defamation from popular poets 
 then in high fashion, hke Byron and Moore. 
 
 6. The hatred of the Irish Protestant Na- 
 tionalists, who looked upon Castlereagh as one 
 who had sold his country, and who by Emanci- 
 pation was contriving the downfall of their ascen- 
 dancy. 
 
 7. The malignity of the Irish Catholics, who 
 thought that they had been deceived about 
 Emancipation. 
 
 8. The hatred of the survivors of the United 
 Conspirators, "the unexecuted patriots of 1798." 
 
 . 9. The Protestant feeling in England, which 
 did not like to see the Leadership of the House of 
 Commons assigned to a sincere and able advocate 
 of " Catholic Emancipation." 
 
 10. The fact that Lord Castlereagh was an 
 Irishman, and that he was the first Irishman who 
 ever led the House of Commons. 
 
 All these influences were opposed to Castlereagh, 
 
138 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 and most of them were connected with the public 
 press. (1) The hostility of the Whig writers in 
 the " Edinburgh Review," and other organs, was 
 natural enough, and on the whole, it was not 
 carried further than was fair in political war, but 
 (2) the attacks by Cobbett against Castlereagh 
 were extremely effective, because all the patent 
 scandal about the late Lord Hertford's clique, was 
 used hj Cobbett with powerful strength. Long 
 lists of all the places filled by the Seymours, to 
 the third and fourth rank of cousinhood, were 
 printed in the "Register," accompanied by ran- 
 corous comments, and the relationship of Lord 
 Castlereagh to the Seymours was always dinned by 
 the Radical journals into the popular mind. 
 
 (3) The followers of the sulky and disappointed 
 Grenvilles, in various publications, took care to 
 disparage the ability of the politician who was carry- 
 ing on the affairs of the Court without any pre- 
 liminary permission from Stowe, and (4) the 
 poignant comments of the Canning clique were 
 not without much damaging influence. Lord 
 Castlereagh spoke a strange style of dialect, with 
 incongruous metaphors and slipshod rhetoric. 
 The House of Commons had been accustomed 
 for thirty years previously to the debating talents 
 of speakers like Lord North, Fox, Pitt, Burke, 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEHEAGH. 139 
 
 Sheridan, Dunning and many others ; Canning 
 relied chiefly on his abilities for finished speaking, 
 and his friends often iterated the damaging question 
 — " Was it possible that Lord Castlereagh could 
 lead the House of Commons?" The " Quarterly 
 Review" had been originally started with the 
 cordial approval of Canning, whose personal friends 
 often enriched that distinguished organ with their 
 contributions. After the Duke of Wellington and 
 Sir R. Peel conceded the " Catholic Question" in 
 1829, (and after they had shattered the Tory 
 party by their extraordinary manner of carrying it) 
 the " Quarterly Review" found it necessary to ex- 
 plain the reason why it had always remained neutral 
 on that question, and had excluded any discussion of 
 it from its pages. It then acknowledged that the 
 influence possessed by Mr. Canning over 
 William Gifford was a main cause of that re- 
 luctant neutrality, and of course when the 
 Canning influence was so great in the " Quarterly 
 Review" it could not be expected that its protec- 
 tion would be zealously extended to a rival of Mr. 
 Canning. 
 
 And (5) the virulent verses in which Byron and 
 Moore referred to Lord Castlereagh, not sparing 
 even his grave, had their damaging effect 
 even amongst persons, who were shocked at the 
 impiety of "The Satanic School" and at the 
 
140 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 wanton genius that inspired Thomas Little's erotic 
 lyre. The world, in our time, knows better what 
 estimate to place upon the moral opinions of either 
 of those brilliant bards. 
 
 Besides, (6) the character and reputation of 
 Castlereagh suffered much from the hostility of his 
 Irish fellow subjects. The Protestants of the North 
 of Ireland were in those days divided into aristocratic 
 and democratic parties, and even in the former of 
 these divisons there was a prevalence of anti-British 
 sentiments, and Lord Castlereagh's conduct to the 
 rebels seemed too moderate to many of them. 
 Influential connections in the Irish Peerage, also, 
 were jealous at the degree of consideration so 
 liberally extended to a new patrician family like the 
 Stewarts of Mount Stewart. The Presbyterians 
 of Ulster, also, had strong class feelings, and (most 
 unjustly) they looked upon Lord Castlereagh as 
 the personification of Church and State. On the 
 other hand, (7) a great body of the Irish Catholics 
 thought that they had been deceived in the nego- 
 ciation about the Union, and they held Lord Castle- 
 reagh responsible for the conscientious scruples of 
 George the Third about his Coronation Oath. 
 Scattered over the globe (8) were many of the 
 " unexecuted patriots of 1798," and wherever they 
 went, they used their pens and tongues against the 
 statesman who confounded their politics and 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 141 
 
 carried the Union with England. Many of those 
 rebels were men of parts and spirit ; they trea- 
 sured the recollection of what they deemed their 
 political injuries, they brooded over their failure, 
 and hated the statesman who had most com- 
 pletely vanquished them. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten, (9) that the Protest-' 
 ant sentiment in England was alarmed at the Chief- 
 ship of the Tory Party being given to Lord Castle- 
 reagh, an advocate for the Emancipation of the 
 Irish Catholics, and the zealous adviser of Pitt in 
 his lofty project of securing Civil and Religious 
 Liberty for all the Irish subjects of the Crown. 
 The existence of that sentiment was so strong, that 
 the late Sir Robert Peel was eagerly hailed by 
 large classes of the people in England when he 
 joined the anti-Catholic side in politics, and that 
 eminent man could not have at once secured so 
 strong a position in Parliament if he had not sup- 
 ported the Protestant Party. 
 
 Lastly, (10) the feeling between England and 
 Ireland was then more distant and estranged then 
 in our days. The Union had only just taken 
 place, and it was matter for doubt how it would 
 work in Imperial results. Castlereagh was an 
 Irishman ; his English and Irish enemies reiter- 
 ated the fact ; he was not an Irish orator, or wit, 
 
142 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 and he had not the faculties for speaking, which 
 distinguished many of the pubhc men of Ireland. 
 He was a new man in the Peerage, yet he was 
 raised over several Englishmen, he was petted by 
 Pitt, patronised by the Court, and he was the first 
 Irishman who potently influenced the counsels of 
 the English Tories. The first Marquis of Lans- 
 downe was an Irishman, and had been Premier in 
 1783, but Lord Lansdowne had inherited the 
 leadership of the Chatham Whigs, and he was no 
 Tory, though his tone towards the Court was 
 different from that of the Rockingham Whigs. 
 Burke was an Irishman, but he had never been in 
 the Cabinet; and Colonel Barre, though a most 
 effective debater with an excruciating power of 
 sarcasm, had never been a ruler of the connections 
 which he served, while Sheridan was excluded from 
 the Fox-Grenville Cabinet of 1806, mainly through 
 the personal hostility of the Duke of Bedford. But 
 Castlereagh, the Irishman, had gained vast politi- 
 cal power, he was acknowledged as a Chief by the 
 Tory Cabinet and by its supporters, and it was 
 not surprising that his ascendancy should give 
 cause for jealousy. Lord Bute had been vilified 
 as a Scotchman, and Castlereagh was mocked at 
 as an Irishman. 
 
 From these various causes Castlereagh suffered 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEUEAGH. 143 
 
 heavily, and the exaggerations and the falsehoods 
 circulated about his doings at the time of the Irish 
 Rebellion and Union afforded abundance of matter 
 for malignity to work upon. At a grave period 
 of his career, Lord Castlereagh appeared conscious 
 that some means should be taken to counteract the 
 effect of the falsehoods about the Union. He urged 
 one of his ex-private secretaries to undertake a his- 
 tory of the Irish Union. The gentleman thus ad- 
 dressed was the late interesting character, Mr. 
 Alexander Knox, a deep thinker, of great intel- 
 lectual powers, a choice scholar, and a profound 
 theologian,* a man of exalted piety and virtue. The 
 health of Mr. Knox was wretchedly feeble, and he 
 shrank from the task with the desponding ner- 
 vousness of a tremulous valetudinarian. 
 
 The letter written to him by Lord Castlereagh is 
 a most interesting document, and is scarcely known. 
 It was not printed by the Editor of the Collected 
 Despatches and Correspondence ; and I copy it 
 from Mr. Knox's " Literary Remains," where it is 
 printed in a note. 
 
 It must be premised that at the date of this 
 letter. Lord Castlereagh stood in a critical position. 
 It was upon the cards that he might become 
 
 * " That remarkable man — the late Alexander Knox." 
 — Note hy Lord Macaulay in his History of England. 
 
144 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Leader of the House of Commons ; Canning had 
 fallen in public estimation, and it was doubtful 
 whether Perceval would be able to carry on the 
 administration of affairs. Finding that an unscru- 
 pulous system of writing him down with reference to 
 the transactions of the Union was set going. Lord 
 Castlereagh thus wrote to Alexander Knox. 
 
 London, 30th March, 1811. 
 
 " My dear Knox, 
 
 "I suppose it is because I have no defence to oifer, 
 that your reproaches will not allow me to defer, even 
 for a day, thanking you for your letter, and yet I do 
 assure you, that although I have no case externally to 
 acquit me, I have never ceased one moment to feel to- 
 wards you the warmest and most sincere regard. 
 
 "The description you give of Doctor Miller's con- 
 version is very gratifying to me. It is, I trust, the 
 harbinger of that hght which will yet dispel the un- 
 wholesome mists that overhang the Union. I wish it 
 were possible for him, before publication, to revise the 
 introductory chapter. The demons of the present day 
 are at work to make those who carried the Union 
 odious, as first having cruelly oppressed, and then 
 having sold their country. The world's forgetfulness 
 of the events which have a few years gone by, enables 
 them to mislead numbers ; I don't know whether the 
 moment is yet come for giving to the Empire a tem- 
 perate history of both those great events (I mean the Re- 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 145 
 
 bellion and Union), stripped of the virulence which 
 characterises Musgrave and Duigenan on one side, and 
 Plowden and Barrington on the other. Such a work 
 would accelerate all the good effects of the measure, 
 and would perpetuate the literary fame of the indivi- 
 dual who executed it. 
 
 " I wish you would turn this suggestion in your 
 mind. I know no person so equal to it as yourself. 
 You have been not only the eye-witness of both tran- 
 sactions, but have reflected deeply, and written ably 
 on them in their progress. You were, besides, in 
 close habits of confidence with the surviving actors in 
 both those events. The private papers, the official 
 correspondence — in short, all those sources which the 
 future historian will look for in vain, would be opened 
 to you without reserve. My own stock is great. 
 Lord Camden and Lord Cornwallis, Cooke and other 
 friends could supply ample materials, and the latter 
 would, I have no doubt, both animate and assist you 
 in your labours." 
 
 Gibbon, in his earliest work, Essai sur la Lit- 
 te'rature, has remarked, " Malheureux sort de I'his- 
 toire ! Les spectateurs sont trop peu instruits, et 
 les acteurs sont trop interesses," and Lord Castle- 
 reagh testifies to the truth of that remark, when 
 he alludes, in the foregoing passage, to " the 
 world's forgetfulness of the events which have a 
 few years gone by." This " forgetfulness" is partly 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 the result of ignorance, for who would dare to 
 write contemporary history with naked truth ? 
 A Parliamentary struggle takes place, characters 
 are assailed, scandals are ventilated, parties and 
 their leaders are damaged, and finally the question 
 is hastily compromised, while the public presses 
 on to new objects of excitement. Ten years 
 elapse, and one wishes to refer to the contest, but 
 where is he to look for the exact facts ? He can 
 only turn to files of the Times, to prohx de- 
 bates in Hansard, or to the contradictory recol- 
 lections of individuals, and he finds that it 
 would be a work of research for him to inquire 
 farther. 
 
 The tone in which Lord Castlereagh refers to 
 " the virulence" of Musgrave and Duigenan 
 (zealots of the Ascendancy), shows the impartiahty 
 of his mind, and his opposition to extreme views. 
 It is very singular that Lord Castlereagh should 
 have anticipated what has actually occurred with 
 reference to the data for writing a History of the 
 Irish Union. Nearly all the persons engaged in 
 carrying the Union burnt their papers, and the 
 late Marquis (Charles William) of Londonderry, 
 stated in the Introduction to the " Castlereagh 
 Despatches" that private materials for the biogra- 
 phy of his brother had been sent to India to Dr. 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEIIEAGH. 147 
 
 Turner (the Bishop of Calcutta), but the ship 
 foundered on her voyage. 
 
 Lord Castlereagh then proceeds addressing 
 Alexander Knox : — 
 
 " Such a work is essential to the public interest — I 
 had almost said the public safety. And I really think it 
 would come with great advantage before the world in 
 your nanie^ as you are known to be incapable of stating 
 what you do not believe to be true, while the confi- 
 dential relations in which you stood towards those in 
 government at that period, must have afforded you an 
 Opportunity of knowing more than any of those who 
 have professed to inform, but who have, in fact, deceived 
 the nation upon the true spirit and character of that 
 interesting epoch to Ireland. 
 
 " The perversion of truth and the party colouring 
 which so obviously belong to every publication hitherto 
 given to the public, would furnish the intelligible mo- 
 tive for a candid exposition. Your sentiments upon 
 the religious branch of the subject (I mean the secta- 
 rian politics of the country), singularly qualify you to 
 write, not only impartially, but to speak prospectively 
 the language of peace and conciliation to all. It is a 
 great work, but it is worthy of your exertions. I need 
 not add how truly happy I should be to aid you with 
 any lights I possess ; and if you will, when engaged in 
 it, pass occasionally, as you used to do, a few weeks in 
 my family, (an invitation in which Lady C. most 
 warmly joins), I think we should, by conversing to- 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 gether, be able to recall those impressions, wbich have 
 become indistinct from lapse of time." 
 
 In the foregoing passage it will be observed 
 how Lord Castlereagh particularised that "every" 
 publication about the Union had been disfigured 
 by " the perversion of truth" and by " party 
 colouring." He then concludes this remarkable 
 letter in the following words : — 
 
 "I feel confident that the intentions of theGovernment 
 for the people's good at that time 'will bear the strictest 
 scrutiny. There is nothing in the subsequent history 
 of the principal actors, that can throw a shade of sus- 
 picion around them. For myself, I can at least state 
 that neither in my own person, nor in that of any of 
 my family, do I at this moment enjoy any favours from 
 the Crown, conferred subsequent to my being first 
 employed in the public service in 1798, neither 
 honorary nor pecuniary. I believe those measures, 
 when fairly explained, will stand equally the test of 
 criticism, and that they will be shown to have com- 
 bined humanity with vigour of administration, when 
 they had to watch over the preservation of the State, 
 while in the conduct of the Union, they pursued honestly 
 the interests of Ireland, yielding not more to private 
 interest than was requisite to disarm so mighty a 
 change of any convulsive character. 
 
 "If Defoe's History of the Scottish Union re- 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 149 
 
 mains an interesting feature in every library, narrating, 
 as it does calmly, transactions comparatively of such 
 small import, how much would a temperate history of 
 Ireland for the last twenty years attract the notice 
 of mankind, both now and hereafter ! You have an 
 instance in Hardy's Life of Charlemont. It is here 
 read with avidity, defective as it is as a comprehensive 
 ■work. 
 
 " Ponder over, my dear Knox, what I have said. 
 Don't take counsel from your nerves, but your prin- 
 ciples, in weighing the suggestions, and let me hear 
 the result. 
 
 "Your Irish priest has said everything I have felt 
 upon sectarian regulations. The insensible operation 
 of power is the only resource to manage heterogeneous 
 masses. See what it has done in the Synod of Ulster, 
 and judge what salutary influence it would have upon 
 Catholic miuds, more prone to bend to authority than 
 the Presbyterians. 
 
 " Yours, my dear Knox, 
 
 " Ever very sincerely, 
 " C." 
 
 That letter clearly records how great was the 
 injury done to Lord Castlereagh's contemporary 
 reputation by the exaggerations and malignant 
 detraction which he had to endure, in consequence 
 of the part taken by him at the time of the Re- 
 bellion of 1798, and of the Union with Ireland. 
 
150 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 We cannot, however, be surprised that in such 
 violent times enmity should have been intensely 
 excited against him, and the masses of scandal 
 detailed in the Castlereagh and in the Cornwallis 
 Papers suggest reasons why no small obloquy 
 should (according to the usual course of things), 
 have been heaped upon Castlereagh. Nor can we 
 be much surprised at the destruction of papers 
 attendant upon carrying the Irish Union. 
 
 Lord Clare, (the Irish Chancellor), Mr. King, 
 Mr. Wickham, Sir Herbert Taylor, Sir Edward 
 Littlehales, Mr. Marsden, and other subordinates 
 of the Ministry, all destroyed their confi- 
 dential papers relating to the Union transac- 
 tions. It is even stated that those records 
 " which might have thrown additional light on 
 the history of those times had been purposely 
 destroyed."* 
 
 It is singular, too, that Lord Plunket, a for- 
 midable opponent of Lord Castlereagh at the time 
 of the Union is reported to have burned his 
 political papers.f 
 
 * Mr. Charles Ross's Introduction to the Cornwallis 
 Correspondence. 
 
 f Recollecting the fierce invectives delivered by Lord 
 Plunket against Castlereagh in the Irish House of Com- 
 mous, it is strange to find him writing in 1823—" His 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 151 
 
 The posthumous reputation of Castlereagh for 
 political ability is raised by the publication of the 
 " Cornwallis Correspondence," for it is therein re- 
 corded that Lord Cornwallis often wavered and 
 doubted of ultimate success, but Castlereagh never 
 faltered, and persevered. Born in 1769, he was 
 only in early manhood at the time when he had to 
 act as leader of the Irish House of Commons, 
 while he had to discharge the administrative 
 duties of Chief Secretary at a time of unaparalleled 
 difficulty and danger. His spirits seem never to 
 have deserted him, though some of the other 
 officials broke down under pressure of the time. 
 " His courage," as Sir Walter Scott truly observed 
 of him, " was not merely that of a soldier who 
 mounts the breach, but that of a General who 
 greatly dares, of the statesman who nobly en- 
 dures. . . . When the resolution of the bravest hearts 
 
 (Lord Castlereagh' s) friendsMp and confidence were the 
 principal causes which induced His Majesty's Government 
 to desire my services, and I can truly add that my unre- 
 served reliance on the cordiality of his feelings towards 
 me, joined to my perfect knowledge of the wisdom and 
 liberality of all his piihlic objects and opinions were the 
 principal causes which influenced me to accept the honour 
 which was proposed to me." — Castlereagh Correspon- 
 dence. First Series, Vol, I. p. 138, 
 
152 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 in Europe was failing under the responsibility of the 
 last throw of the conflict, he nobly stood forth, 
 and by his single effort mainly brought about the 
 bold determination which hurled Napoleon from 
 his throne." In estimating the resolution and 
 readiness displayed by him in the final struggle 
 against Napoleon, it is necessary to recollect that 
 he was the Leader of the House of Commons, and 
 that his rival Mr. Canning was not a member of 
 the Cabinet from the time of their quarrel and 
 duel until after the battle of Waterloo had been 
 fought, and the fate of Europe decisively 
 settled. 
 
 The great energy shewn by Lord Castlereagh 
 in conducting political affairs, the vigour with 
 which he urged upon a reluctant Cabinet the 
 project of a second expedition to Spain, the dis- 
 cretion with which he first selected and the zeal 
 with which he supported the Duke of Wellington, 
 redounded greatly to his credit, and no malicious de- 
 traction can deprive him of the honour due to un- 
 ceasing labour in bringing about the overthrow of 
 Napoleon, It was the fashion for a long time to 
 blame Lord Castlereagh for the' disaster of Wal- 
 cheren, but the failure in that case was plainly 
 attributable to the military and naval authorities 
 not having done their duty. The House of Com- 
 
COKSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 153 
 
 raons absolved Lord Castlereagh personally from 
 all blame, and after his speech at the time, he sat 
 down amidst a burst of general applause. The 
 extraordinary celerity which Lord Castlereagh 
 showed in meeting the mighty crisis produced 
 by Napoleon's return from Elba is not generally 
 known, and deserves to be recorded. 
 
 On the 9th of March 1815, it was announced 
 that Napoleon having left Elba had landed at the 
 Bay of Juan near Antibes in France, attended by 
 General Cambronne and a few officers. The 
 escape was alarming, and there was considerable 
 excitement in the pubhc mind. Lord Castlereagh 
 exhibited no hesitation, but met the case with 
 the greatest resolution. Parliament was then 
 sitting, and there was at Vienna a congress of 
 Plenipotentiaries for the purpose of arranging 
 such matters as had not been settled by the Treaty 
 of Paris, 
 
 The circumstances of the crisis were peculiarly 
 critical, on account of the unsettled state of our 
 American relations, and the deeply discontented, 
 if not disaffected state of the Irish Catholics. 
 If Napoleon got any standing again in France, 
 and became its chief ruler, it was obvious that the 
 Americans would rise in their demands ; and at 
 that time, a large number of transports, with a 
 
154 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 quantity of troops, were ready for sailing for 
 America at immediate notice. The landing of 
 Napoleon in France was known in London on the 
 8th of March, in the evening, and by the 10th, 
 the fact was admitted by Ministers in Parliament. 
 
 But although the surprise of the public was 
 very great on the intelligence of Napoleon's 
 escape, it was infinitely greater when it was 
 announced on the 13th of March, only three clear 
 days after the events in the Bay of Juan were 
 known, that a declaration had been signed at 
 Vienna by the representatives of all the Powers, 
 including Great Britain, the purport of which was 
 to outlaw Napoleon, and to declare that there 
 could be neither peace nor truce with him — in 
 short, a declaration of war against Napoleon, until 
 he should be completely put down. 
 
 On the 16th of March there was unexpectedly 
 laid on the table of the House of Commons a 
 Treaty of Peace with the United States of America. 
 This reconciliation was unlocked for at the time, 
 and the adroitness and admirable address of Castle- 
 reagh greatly contributed to that timely arrange- 
 ment, by which the Government immediately got 
 the full use of such troops as were destined for 
 the American service, and cleared the stage for 
 the final struggle with Napoleon. 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 155 
 
 When one reflects that the troops thus set free 
 formed a main part of the army that fought and 
 won the battle of Waterloo, it will be seen how 
 much depended on the presence of mind and 
 enterprising spirit of the English minister at the 
 time. Lord Eldon, shrewd and sagacious, was 
 well justified in his remark, " I do not believe 
 that any man in England but Castlereagh could 
 have wrought these results." 
 
 Management of men was the master-faculty by 
 which Lord Castlereagh rose to such great dis- 
 tinction and power. His manners were soft, in- 
 sinuating, and gracious, and it is an error to sup- 
 pose that he inspired distrust. On the contrary, 
 he conciliated esteem by the frankness with which 
 he dealt with individuals at a difficult crisis. His 
 temper was excellent, and with abundant firmness, 
 he never was heated or splenetic. His capacity 
 for affairs was vast, and he possessed some of the 
 highest quahties of a diplomatist and an official 
 administrator. 
 
 The most faulty part of his career was at the 
 period intervening between Waterloo and his 
 decease. The times were extremely difficult, for 
 the domestic questions in England assumed most 
 grave aspects. The Queen's Trial, the Six Acts, 
 and the resistance to R.eform, swelled the dis- 
 
156 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 content of the nation. The change from war to 
 peace prices, the fluctuations of the currency, the 
 superficial and vacillating mode in which the prin- 
 ciples of pohtical economy were applied to the 
 emergencies of the day, produced great distress 
 and grave apprehension. Foreign affairs were, 
 also, in a critical stale, but there is no proof to 
 show that Lord Castlereagh deliberately truckled 
 to the wishes of the Holy Alliance, though it is 
 certain that the tone taken by England was not 
 suited to her position in Europe. It was in rapid 
 action, when sudden emergencies occur, that Lord 
 Castlereagh's ready, versatile, and adroit nature 
 appeared to most advantage. He was not equal 
 to laying down a national policy, though he was 
 singularly shrewd, and rapid in perception. Like 
 many of his colleagues, also, Lord Castlereagh 
 wanted general knowledge as to the state of 
 opinion in many countries of Europe, and on the 
 true nature of their interests, and their social 
 aspirations. 
 
 The traditions of Lord Castlereagh in the public 
 offices are to his advantage as a ruler of great 
 capacity. He left in Downing Street the memory 
 of one with extraordinary quickness, and tact, and 
 rare skill in managing men and things. In distri- 
 buting his time between the various subjects that 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 157 
 
 solicited his attentioiij he was judicious, and the 
 official belief is that no public man in the present 
 century ever got through such an enormous 
 quantity of various work. It must, however, be 
 recollected that he carried too far his favourite 
 habit of arranging matters by conversations. He 
 did not excel in writing, but with his graceful 
 manners and cordial tone, he was eminently 
 effective in private intercourse. Lord Castlereagh 
 really loved public business, and there was no part 
 of it which suited his powers better than that in 
 which he had to convert adversaries into friends, 
 or to coax reluctant supporters into loyal adherents 
 to their party. 
 
 Of late years, in political circles of all sides, 
 there has been a decided rise of Lord Castlereagh's 
 ■ reputation. His services at the Union, in the 
 Peninsular War, and in conducting the final 
 struggle against Napoleon, are freely admitted. It 
 is now perceived that in his view of affairs, he was 
 not that absolutist or ultraist that he was supposed 
 to have been by those who took their impressions 
 of him from the pamphleteers of his times. He 
 was in some respects like a Walpolian Tory (if 
 we may fancy such a character), averse to violent 
 social extremes, cautious and compromising, yet 
 firm and persevering ; a man of rare insinuation, 
 
158 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 and much insight into men, courageous in danger, 
 and fertile in resources, and exhibiting such an 
 assemblage of qualities, personal and public, as 
 justified the Duke of Wellington in the admiration 
 which his Grace never concealed for the character 
 and achievements of Castlereagh. 
 
 On the whole, the weighty and carefully 
 chosen words of the late Sir Robert Peel, are 
 the finest and fairest tribute ever paid to the ser- 
 vices of Castlereagh. " I doubt whether any 
 public man (with the exception of the Duke of 
 Wellington), who has appeared within the.last half 
 century, possessed that combination of qualities, 
 which would have enabled him to effect under the 
 same circumstances, what Lord Londonderry 
 (Castlereagh) did effect with regard to the Union 
 with Ireland, and the great political transactions of 
 1813-14-15. To do these things required a rare 
 union of high and generous feelings, courteous 
 and prepossessing manners, a warm heart and a 
 cool head, great temper, great industry, great for- 
 titude, great courage, moral and personal, that 
 command and influence which makes other men 
 willing instruments, and all those objects combined 
 with disdain of low objects of ambition, and with 
 spotless integrity."* 
 
 * Castlereagh Correspondence, vol. i., p. 131. 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 159 
 
 From amongst several curious particulars in my 
 possession, illustrative of tlie concluding portions 
 of Lord Castlereagh's career, T select one record- 
 ing the way in which the Thistlewood Conspiracy 
 was first discovered. This anecdote was related 
 to me by the late Mr. WiUiam Henry Curran,* 
 an intimate friend and staunch political ally of the 
 Marquis of Anglesey, from whose lips Mr. Curran 
 heard it. I relate it almost in the very words 
 used by Mr. Curran, and its preface is not without 
 interest. 
 
 In the autumn of 1832, Ireland was in an ex- 
 tremely disturbed state. The Repeal Agitation, 
 and the Anti-Tithe War were furiously raging, 
 and agrarian disturbances had broken out with 
 great violence. The social state of the island 
 presented so dangerous an aspect that the Reform 
 Ministry thought it right to introduce a Coercion 
 Bill of extreme severity. At that time, Mr. 
 O'Connell assailed the moderate Whigs and Libe- 
 rals with invectives of almost unexampled viru- 
 
 * Author of " Sketches of the Irish Bar," " Life of 
 Curran," &c., and mentioned in Lord Cloncurry's Auto- 
 biography as one of those who, with the present Earl of 
 Clarendon, the late Right Honorable Antony Blake, and 
 Lord Cloncurry himself formed an inner cabinet in Ire- 
 land for the Marquis of Anglesey. 
 
160 CHIEFS OP PARTIES. 
 
 lence, and aided by the circumstances, the great 
 Agitator succeeded in depriving the leading Irish 
 Whigs of the popularity which they had long 
 enjoyed. Amongst those who regretted the loss 
 of popular applause was the late Lord Cloncurry, 
 a well meaning, though rather weak-minded po- 
 litician. 
 
 For a long time Lord Cloncurry had been wor- 
 ship'ped as an idol, and extolled as a m.odel of a 
 true Irishman, but chiefly on account of the 
 zealous support which his Lordship gave to the 
 Marquis of Anglesey (then Lord Lieutenant). 
 Mr. O'Connell held him up to ridicule, and 
 satirised him with such poignancy of deri- 
 sion, and acrimony of insinuation, that Lord 
 Cloncurry suffered in mind and body, and com- 
 pletely lost his spirits. The patrician, who makes 
 the securing of plebeian applause a leading 
 object, droops when his favourite stimulant is 
 withdrawn. 
 
 Lord Anglesey was at first hurt by the abuse 
 poured out on him, but afterwards, the gallant 
 Marquis only laughed at the inconstancy of the 
 multitude, who hooted him as recklessly as they 
 had cheered him three years before. " Come," 
 said he one day to Mr. W. H. Curran, " let us go 
 down and dine next Sunday with Lord Cloncurry, 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 161 
 
 he is in wretched spirits, and a visit from us will 
 cheer him up." 
 
 Just at that time Lord Cloncurry had been 
 menaced with most particular marks of popular 
 displeasure, if he dared to pay tithes to the Pro- 
 testant clergyman of his parish, who was a mem- 
 ber of the Langrishe family identified with the 
 early struggles in the Irish Parliament for " Ca- 
 tholic Emancipation." 
 
 It was arranged accordingly that Lord Anglesey, 
 Mr. W. H. Curran, and an aide-de-camp should 
 go down and spend the day at Lyons — the country 
 residence of Lord Cloncurry in Kildare. Lord 
 Anglesey was advised to take an escort with him. 
 " Something unpleasant might happen ; he might, 
 perhaps, be insulted, if not assailed ; the peasantry 
 and the agitators had become so violent that 
 something audacious might be done," &c., &c. 
 But Lord Anglesey mocked at such advice, and 
 greatly against the wishes of some of their friends, 
 he and his companions went to Lyons without 
 any escort. 
 
 The party passed some agreeable hours, walked 
 around the demesne, and had an early dinner. 
 The carriage was ordered soon after, for Lord An- 
 glesey agreed that it was as well not to be late on 
 the road, and even at that visit fresh details of acts 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
162 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 of excessive violence were communicated by Lord 
 CJoncurry to Lord Anglesey. The time for 
 departure was at hand, and farewell was 
 being spoken, but Lord Anglesey's walking-stick 
 could not be found. It was not in the hall-stand, 
 or in any of the rooms in which he had been stay- 
 ing. " It must be got," said Lord Anglesey, 
 " for go I will not, and cannot, until the stick be 
 found." Nobody had particularly remarked the 
 Lord Lieutenant's stick, though they remembered 
 having seen him leaning on one as he walked 
 about the grounds. Time wore on, and the 
 shades of evening were closing around, but Lord 
 Anglesey would not enter the carriage " without 
 his stick." 
 
 At last it was found. It had been left in a 
 summer-house in the remotest extremity of the 
 grounds of Lyons, where they had been sitting for 
 some time in the afternoon. 
 
 When the carriage had moved away from the 
 house, Lord Anglesey leaned back, and pointing 
 his stick as if it had been a sword, he exclaimed, 
 " I would be sorry to leave to-night for town with- 
 out the company of another faithful friend upoa 
 whom I have great rehance." And Lord Anglesey 
 suddenly pressed with his thumb upon a me- 
 chanical spring ; the " stick " flew right and 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEEEAGH. 163 
 
 left by means of a most ingenious mechanical 
 contrivance, and where the " stick" had been, the 
 eye beheld a most formidable rapier. Simulta- 
 neously with the glancing forth of the rapier, a 
 small pocket pistol had also popped out of the 
 handle portion of " the stick," into which was also 
 inserted transversely a dagger-shaped blade, 
 pointing four or five inches at either side, the 
 whole being covered with a guard to protect the 
 hand. The " stick" was so prepared that its holder 
 could not only thrust with the lunge forwards, but 
 could also hit right and left at close quarters in 
 a crowd. 
 
 " With this stick," said Lord Anglesey, smiling, 
 " I should not care if any half dozen fellows were 
 to attack my carriage. I would give them as 
 warm a reception, though in another fashion, as 
 we just got from our good friend Cloncurry." 
 
 And with his flashing eyes, and eager, animated 
 expression, he gave one a notion of what he 
 looked like, when, at the final charge at Waterloo, 
 he rode down the line shouting, " Now for the 
 honour of the Household Troops !" He then 
 related the following curious history of " the 
 stick." 
 
 " In a couple of years after the Battle of Water- 
 loo, Lord Anglesey was staying at his seat of Beau- 
 
 M 2 
 
164 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 desert. It chanced to be a Sunday in July, and 
 the weather was extremely warm. He was in his 
 library by himself, when a servant came in to say 
 that two men were outside in the courtyard who 
 would take it as a great favour, if his Lordship 
 would be kind enough to give them an audience. 
 It appeared that they were Methodists and field 
 preachers. Lord Anglesey consented to see them, 
 and they were accordingly shown in to him. 
 
 " They were both sanctimonious in aspect, with 
 long black hair combed straight down, and they 
 looked like ordinary field preachers of the Metho- 
 dist persuasion, such as one often sees in country 
 districts engaged in psalm-singing and exhortation. 
 When asked what they wanted, they replied by 
 seeking from Lord Anglesey the allotment of a 
 piece of ground for them to build a chapel upon. 
 To this request, Lord Anglesey answered by saying, 
 that he had no wish to introduce sectarianism 
 amongst his tenantry and neighbours, and that he 
 thought the clergy of the Established Church were 
 sufficiently active. 
 
 " The strangers, however, were so very perse- 
 vering in their request for hberty to build a chapel, 
 that Lord Anglesey said he would refer their ap- 
 plication to the Bishop of the Diocese, and that if 
 the Bishop saw no objection, that he (Lord Angle- 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 165 
 
 sey) would grant their request. Observing that 
 the two men were fatigued, and suffered from the 
 heat, Lord Anglesey kindly ordered them refresh- 
 ments ; and he heard no more about them at the 
 time, or of any subsequent application for a 
 chapel. 
 
 " After the Six Acts had been passed, and the 
 popular mind had been excited by the proceedings 
 relating to Queen Caroline, it was thought proper 
 to appoint Lord Anglesey to the command of the 
 troops in London, and for some time he was ex- 
 tremely unpopular with the lower classes. 
 
 " One morning he was seated at his breakfast 
 in Uxbridge House, and he had a habit of break- 
 fasting in the long low room on the ground floor, 
 looking towards the back of Burlington Gardens. 
 His confidential valet came into the room sud- 
 denly, and the expression of his face told Lord 
 Anglesey that the servant had something serious 
 and important to say. 
 
 " ' My Lord,' said the servant, ' there's a person 
 outside in the hall who wants to see your Lord- 
 ship most particularly. He seems very poor, and 
 he appears also in distress of mind. The porter 
 tried to send him away, but he would not go.' 
 ' Oh ! I suppose,' said Lord Anglesey, ' it's the 
 case of a man wanting charity.' ' No, my Lord, 
 
166 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 it is not so, he wants to see you.' ' Oh ! go out 
 and say that I cannot see him, unless he has some 
 letter of introduction.' 
 
 " The servant went and soon returned. ' My 
 Lord, he says that he must see you, and that your 
 Lordship will at once know him as one of two 
 men whom you saw down at Beaudesert nearly 
 three years ago, in relation to building a chapel.' ■ 
 
 " Lord Anglesey paused for a while. The times 
 were troubled, and some violent deeds had been 
 recently done in various parts of the country. He 
 just for a moment thought it possible that some 
 infuriate Radical meant to do some violence to his 
 person, but soon he desired the servant to show 
 the man in, and Lord Anglesey at the same time 
 advanced along the length of the room, and pre- 
 pared to stand close to the incoming person. The 
 door opened, and in came a miserable object, with 
 grizzled, unkempt locks, and haggard aspect. 
 
 " ' Well,' said Lord Anglesey, ' what do you 
 want of me? You told my servant that I had 
 seen you before, and I never saw you anywhere !' 
 ' So you did, my Lord — ' ' I tell you no,' said 
 Lord Anglesey, and he spoke with the confidence 
 of a military man accustomed to inspection of 
 regiments. ' I was one of two men who waited 
 on your Lordship three years ago at Beaudesert on 
 
CONSIDERATIONS ON CASTLEREAGH. 167 
 
 a Sunday, to ask you for a piece of land to build 
 a small chajiel upon.' ' No,' replied Lord Angle- 
 sey, ' you were not one of those men. They had 
 black hair, and yours is grey.' ' Ah ! my Lord,' 
 replied the man, ' I have led a life since then that 
 might well change my appearance,' and he then 
 descrihed the company that he had fallen into, 
 and how he had gradually been led along with 
 others, into a conspiracy to murder the Ministers. 
 
 " Lord Anglesey, at first, was utterly incredulous 
 as to the man's tale, and treated it as an imposi- 
 tion. But there were so many precise particulars 
 given, that he began to think that the man was 
 telling truth. 
 
 " ' Well,' said he, ' why did you come to me ? 
 I am not one of the Ministers ; you should go to 
 Downing Street, and give information there.' 
 'Downing Street is watched, my Lord,' replied 
 the man, ' and I should be assassinated by some 
 of the confederates if I were seen in its neighbour- 
 hood ;' and after some investigation. Lord Anglesey 
 told him to communicate his knowledge to Lord 
 Harrowby, with whom, on that identical day, Lord 
 Anglesey was going to dine, and the informer fol- 
 lowed the advice given him by Lord Anglesey. 
 
 " During the alarm caused by the discovery of 
 the Thistlewood Conspiracy, and the trial of the 
 
168 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 gang, the Duke of York applied his attention to 
 the construction of formidable weapons for per- 
 sonal defence against deadly assaults ; and His 
 Royal Highness got manufactured from twenty to 
 thirty of the ' sticks' of the kind above described, 
 and presented them to the chief ministers, and to 
 some of his immediate friends."* 
 
 * In the Report of the Thistlewood case in the State 
 Trials it may be seen that the counsel for the accused 
 bitterly complained that one of the chief informers was 
 not produced against them. Lord Harrowby was exa- 
 mined as a witness, and he narrated how he had been 
 stopped in the Park by a man handing him a letter with 
 information of the plot. At the close of last year (1858), 
 a little volume was published, " Sixty Years Gleanings 
 from Life's Harvest" (Willis and Sotheran) containing re- 
 miniscences of a billiard keeper at Cambridge, and amongst 
 various characters described by him, he mentions the 
 case of a man, then living, who imposed upon the pious by 
 an affectation of religion, and who had been one of the in- 
 formers in the Thistlewood case. He was, doubtless, the 
 same person mentioned by Lord Anglesey. 
 
EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 169 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 
 
 On the 26th of June, 1830, King George the 
 Fourth died. 
 
 The state of England at that time was extremely 
 alarming, and wise men looked forward with fear 
 to the coming reign. The country had for a 
 season lost its " old good humour," and the tem- 
 per of the public mind was captious and angry. 
 There had been many causes at work to produce 
 the deep discontent which prevailed throughout 
 the realm. The high, middle, and lower classes, 
 had their special grievances, over which they 
 gloomily brooded. A large portion of the Tory 
 nobility and landed gentry were incensed with the 
 conduct of the Duke of Wellington in conceding 
 the Catholic Question, and deserting the principles 
 
170 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 which had governed the Cabinets of Mr. Perceval 
 and Lord Liverpool. The liberal portion of the 
 Tory aristocracy disliked the peremptory Horse 
 Guards' style of statesmanship then adopted by the 
 Duke ; and the leader of the House of Commons 
 Sir Robert Peel, was hated as a political apostate, 
 while his personal position as a wealthy and power- 
 ful 'parvenu, made him regarded with feelings of 
 real envy and pretended contempt. The Whig 
 aristocracy, on the other hand, had for the two 
 past generations been in fierce opposition to the 
 Court, and not over scrupulous in aiming at popu- 
 larity, it had laboured at all hazards to discredit the 
 King's Government. They looked upon the 
 settlement of the Catholic Question by a Tory Mi- 
 nistry, as unfair towards the party that for thirty 
 years had identified itself with the interests of the 
 Catholics and Protestant Dissenters. Thus in the 
 aristocracy the prejudices of the Tories had been 
 trampled upon, and the ambition of the Whigs 
 had been baffled. In a word, both the factions in 
 the Legislature chafed with irritation. 
 
 Since the close of the revolutionary war, the 
 middle classes had gradually become alienated 
 from the Court and Government. The Whig 
 party had for the most part from the Revolution of 
 1688 been supported by the middle classes,. until 
 
EVE OP THE REFORM ERA. 171 
 
 1688 been supported by the middle classes, until 
 the time when the coalition of Fox and North 
 shook the national confidence in the character of 
 public men and large bodies had gone over to Mr. 
 Pitt and Toryism. That great Minister based his 
 power upon the commercial interests, and by aug- 
 menting the Peerage he had swamped the ole- 
 garchy of the Whigs in the House of Lords. 
 During the panic of the French Revolution, the 
 middle classes supported Government with zeal ; 
 but after the peace of 1815, the fall of prices and 
 the efifects of social changes thereupon embittered 
 many a domestic circle, reduced the affluent to 
 need, and the humble to pauperism. With the 
 decline of commercial prosperity, the middle 
 classes became discontented with the Constitution, 
 and they called for a new order of things. They 
 recollected that Lord Chatham had said, " if Re- 
 form does not come from within, it will come 
 with a vengeance from without." Nor did they 
 forget that in his earlier days, the younger Pitt had 
 given Parliamentary Reform his heartiest support. 
 Roused by the invectives of Whig orators and ex- 
 cited by the reasonings of the Whig publicists, the 
 middle classes became zealous for Parliamentary 
 Reform in proportion as they saw the courtiers and 
 the adherents of the King's Government obstinately 
 
172 CHIErS OP PARTIES. 
 
 resist all political change in the Constitution of the 
 Legislature. 
 
 The working people suffering from constant 
 alternations in their wages, and often times sud- 
 denly ousted from employment by the first effects 
 of new machinery, were inflamed with virulent ran- 
 cour against constituted authority. They had 
 enough of political knowledge to understand that 
 the bread of their wives and little ones was made 
 dearer by the Corn Laws. They looked upon the 
 Aristocracy as a great social enormity devouring the 
 substance of the humble and the lowly. Parlia- 
 ment, they said, was made up of Lords and Squires, 
 who passed laws to increase the rentals of the rich, 
 and diminish the frugal meals of the poor. Their 
 favourite political literature was that which told them 
 that they were utterly undone, and false sympathy 
 from the tongue of a demagogue, or the pen of "i 
 libeller, charmed them more than the calm demon- 
 strations of intellectual and passionless minds like 
 Adam Smith or Ricardo. They readily gave 
 their attention to the arithmetical exaggerations of 
 Joseph Hume, the humorous calumnies of Cob- 
 bett, and the rabid rants of Henry Hunt. 
 
 In an age of transition, the popular imagination 
 becomes morbidly fanciful and credulous of pro- 
 digies. The Court of England had much to 
 
EVE OF THE KEFORM ERA. 173 
 
 answer for from the vices of some, and follies of 
 other members of the Royal family. The scandal 
 of Windsor Castle was greedily fastened on by thou- 
 sands of democratic partizans. The King's ca- 
 prices, his associates, his toyings with Peeresses 
 of light purses and loose morals, the expenses of 
 his household, the places given to his favourite's 
 favourites, and all the jobbing of Downing Street, 
 from the selection of a new bishop to the salarying 
 of an old servant, were dwelt upon at great length 
 and with a petty circumstantiality that showed how 
 anxious the public was for the details of the diffuse 
 expenditure of the Civil List. To a people ac- 
 customed to a free press, political gossip about 
 great personages is always interesting ; and since 
 Charles the Second sauntered out his reign, no 
 monarch ever furnished more materials for idle 
 talking than George the Fourth. His own charac- 
 ter and that of his Court seriously affected the 
 public feeling on political questions. 
 
 George the Fourth illustrated the saying of Dr. 
 Johnson " that no man can be written down except 
 by himself" It was not the acrimonious and 
 malignant writing in the public journals, nor 
 the innumerable oblique attacks made upon him by 
 public men that made such masses of his subjects 
 turn from him in aversion. His habitual self- 
 
174 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 indulgence alienated from him the regard of all 
 the powerful interest connected with the Church 
 and the higher nobility — classes which instinctively 
 feel that notorious and flagrant immorality de- 
 grades the proudest personage in popular estima- 
 tion. He had turned his back upon all the early 
 friends of his youth, and lived to be afraid of them, 
 dreading beyond any public event the advent of 
 Earl Grey as a Cabinet Minister. He had still 
 the resentful passions which had burned so fiercely 
 in more than one of his ancestors ; he detested the 
 Whig leaders, who were by no means so indiffer- 
 ent to his animosity as they pretended, and the 
 Tory party, deeply interested in order and conciliat- 
 ing public opinion towards the existing state of 
 things, felt his personal character a burthen upon 
 their influence. The profligacy of his Hfe was cast 
 upon him by those who forgot in what company 
 he had first been lured to voluptuous immorahty, 
 and those who would have pardoned the young 
 Prince dazzled by the witchery of the beauties who 
 shone at Devonshire House, could not so readily 
 tolerate the pranks of an aged hbertine. The 
 people had made an idol of Caroline of Brunswick, 
 and supported her to spite her royal husband, and 
 thus from the highest to the lowest, his faithlessness 
 to old friends, his indolence and love of selfish plea- 
 
EVE OF THE KEFORM ERA. 175 
 
 sure, his extravagance of expenditure, were the 
 themes of constant discussion. Add to all this 
 that he shrank from contact with all public exhi- 
 bitions in his later days, that instead of courting 
 the popular salutation, he loved to roll along in his 
 phaeton amongst the most secluded avenues of his 
 royal parks ; and there is presented a character 
 materially damaging to the popular respect for 
 power in an age when Wellington — victor of 
 Waterloo — had been compelled to yield before 
 O'Connell marshalling a Celtic people on the hills 
 of Clare, when the pens of half-a-dozen ambitious 
 journalists in Paris were causing the elder 
 Bourbons to totter to their fall. 
 
 It was, indeed, a time of which the general 
 spirit had been well divined by Canning, when 
 he foretold " the war of opinion ;" a phrase used 
 by the brilliant orator, when he perhaps had 
 in his recollection the profound remark of Napoleon 
 that " even in war moral power is to physical as 
 three parts out of four." 
 
 The public of England were in universal dis- 
 content, and it would not answer any longer to 
 scare them the love of Reform by ringing changes 
 on the old alarm bell of the French Revolution. 
 The cause of Reform had become gradually more 
 powerful, and it was felt that it should be made a 
 
176 cHiErs or parties. 
 
 Cabinet question without delay. It was at such 
 a time that William the Fourth ascended the 
 throne, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, when 
 his health was broken down, and little suited 
 to the arduous reign upon which he was to enter. 
 The character of his predecessor was a foil to 
 the new Sovereign, bringing out in prominent 
 relief his kindly and cordial qualities, his bluff, 
 rough bearing, racy of his early profession, so 
 endeared to English minds. The Queen was 
 known to be a woman endowed with the chief 
 virtues of the female sex, free from pride, and 
 fond of the retirement, required by her feeble con- 
 stitution. The world of fashion was rejoiced at 
 the prospect of a Court to be presided over by an 
 amiable Queen. The public generally were well 
 disposed to treat with loyalty and respect a 
 Sovereign, who though without abilities, had been 
 popular as Duke of Clarence. The late King 
 had talents without virtues, his successor virtues 
 without talents. 
 
 Between King "William and the Prime Minister, 
 the Duke of Wellington, there had been coolness 
 and misunderstanding. The notoriety of that 
 fact further disposed people to beheve in the rapid 
 accession of the Whigs to power. The King, 
 while Duke of Clarence, had given a general 
 
EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 177 
 
 support to the Whig party, and his name had 
 often heen toasted with " Catholic Emancipation/' 
 and " Civil and Religious Liberty." If he had 
 succeeded to the Throne in 1826, the Catholic 
 Question would at once have been settled, and 
 O'Connell deprived of the renown of having 
 defeated the King's Government, after having 
 repeatedly insulted the King's power. A main 
 obstacle to the concession of the Catholic Question, 
 had been King George the Fourth. 
 
 " If," wrote the Duke of Wellington, to Dr. 
 Curtis, the Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland, 
 " the question could be buried for two 
 years, I should not despair of its settlement;" 
 a remark which caused much pr'eplexity at the 
 time, but which can be thoroughly understood 
 when it is known that the Duke had then secret 
 information from an eminent physician, (still 
 living), that George the Fourth had cataract 
 of the eyes, and enlarged valves in the heart, 
 and that his life could not last beyond two years 
 at farthest. The physician who gave the Duke 
 that information had been most secretly con- 
 sulted.* 
 
 The manner in which the Duke had been 
 
 * Special information. 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 CHIEFS OF PABTXES. 
 
 obliged to carry the Catholic Question, proved 
 the truth of Burke's maxim, " that early reform 
 is an arrangement with a friend, late reform 
 concession to a foe." The measure which had 
 for thirty years been recommended by the ablest 
 statesmen of the Empire, was at last given up 
 to O'Connell and his Catholic Association. The 
 Irish Democracy with its sacerdotal leaders, in- 
 ferred that more was conceded to the clamour of 
 the Catholics than to the justice of their cause, 
 and the Duke alienated the High Tories 
 without achieving personal popularity. At that 
 time, the political ally upon whose support and 
 confidence he most reckoned, was Sir R,obert 
 Peel, whose character was singularly destined 
 to be moulded by the extraordinary positions in 
 which he was placed. 
 
 Peel— a man whose name has become largely 
 historical, was in his own person an admirable 
 representative of the new rich men of England. 
 Educated at Oxford, his early associations gave 
 him some aristocratic prejudices. His father 
 had proudly exulted in the influence which he 
 possessed with the old Tory Government, and 
 having become powerful and prosperous under 
 Toryism, the sire was thoroughly Tory in his 
 prejudices ; and the son placed by the personal 
 
EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. • 179 
 
 influence of the father in close relation to the 
 Minister, had found eiScient patronage under 
 the leaders of the Tories. One of the arts by 
 which Mr. Pitt had rallied opinion to his aid 
 against the Whig aristocracy, was by employing 
 talent, without looking to its purse or its pedigree. 
 He had taken Canning from the Temple to 
 support him by his tongue, and he had not 
 disdained to have Cobbett at his dinner table ; 
 nor had he turned with arrogance from Price, 
 the Unitarian clergyman, with his financial 
 projects. In rewarding Parliamentary talent, the 
 Tories have always been more generous than the 
 Whigs; and yoUng Peel, with all his aptitude 
 for business and debate, could never have been 
 Secretary for State in the thirty-fourth year of 
 his age, if he had been serving his first cam- 
 paigns under " the cold shade of (Whig) aristo- 
 cracy." The strong partiality of his father and 
 friends, hailed him as a second Pitt, and his 
 talents as shown in the Chief Secretaryship for 
 Ireland, and as chairman of the Currency 
 Committee, gave proofs that his capacity for 
 affairs was great. From 1810 to 1822, he 
 had gradually trained himself into official habits, 
 acquired the art of methodising details, and 
 balancing conflicting statements, and learned to 
 
 N 2 
 
180 CHIEFS OF PAUTIES. 
 
 know men as they live. Official experience gives 
 rapid insight into motives, and high rank under 
 the Crown places a new man upon a level with 
 the patrician. From 1822 to the death of 
 George the Fourth, Peel had been striving to 
 acquire the great master talent of a statesman — 
 power over others — that moral ascendancy by 
 which a man can gain allies, and crush foes. 
 His position as a new rich man exposed him 
 to a double portion of envy, from aristocrats 
 for his want of blood, from plebeian malignity for 
 his great wealth. Men like to see Cannings and 
 Sheridans rise without wealth to world wide renown. 
 Genius, without a guinea, excites more sympathy 
 in its success than great talent aided with twenty 
 thousand a year, acquired by plodding industry. 
 
 The secrets of official life in England can be 
 learned from the slow career of Sir Robert Peel. 
 "With only five hundred pounds in his pocket, 
 he could more easily have made his way to the 
 Chancellorship than to the Premiership with the 
 disadvantage of being a rich and ambitious 
 parvenu. In the first years of his life, he took 
 pleasure in aristocratic society ; and v?ith two 
 high Commoners, the Knight of Kerry, and Vesey 
 Fitzgerald he was particularly intimate, and 
 his vanity was pleased by having a long train of 
 
EVE OF THE REFOUJI ERA. 181 
 
 Irish members dangling after him, and hanging 
 on his words. He tired of that, and observing 
 the influence gained by the tongue of Brougham, 
 and the thinking power of Horner, he coveted a 
 higher honour than official power, and his ambi- 
 tion became larger and more intellectual. If Peel 
 was a political genius, it was of that kind which 
 is slow but certain in its growth — which avoids 
 the hazardous, and cautiously aims with certain 
 purpose at the attainable and actual, eschewing 
 whatever is fleeting and visionary. As 
 Secretary of State the sphere of his action had 
 much enlarged, and he had gradually become 
 a part of the system of old Toryism. Without 
 imagination or passion, he regarded new theories 
 with the habitual distrust of an Englishman. 
 To correct the plains, and modify the measures 
 of others, was more suited to his mind than 
 bold and original legislation. Neither in his 
 manner or character was there aught of that 
 enthralHng power, by which Bolingbroke and 
 Chatham took captive the admiration of the 
 senate. He appeared, also, deficient in the fiery 
 enthusiasm with which Charles Fox, Canning, 
 and Brougham had launched into the politics ot 
 Party. Nor had he any pretensions to the pro- 
 found philosophy and original genius of Burke, 
 
182 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 the moral prophet of politics. Between Sir 
 Robert Walpole and Peel there was some re- 
 semblance in their sound sense, perfect talent 
 for ministerial business, calm judgment, and cau- 
 tion never to be lulled. At that time the 
 whole character of Sir Robert Peel was not 
 revealed. He appeared as the mere minister of 
 prudence, searching after the safe, and shrinking 
 from the splendid. Men contrasted to his dis- 
 advantage, the dazzling eloquence of Canning, and 
 the prodigious versatility of Brougham. A 
 debater, not an orator ; an able minister, not a 
 leading statesman ; the representative of the 
 commercial plutocracy, not the man of his age — 
 such did Peel appear in 1830. No one then 
 • anticipated the extraordinary strides with which, 
 in after times, he outmarched all competitors, 
 until he stood at the very summit of renown, and 
 wielding at his will the destiny of the mightiest 
 empire, was hailed the greatest administrative ruler 
 of his age. 
 
 There was then in the House of Commons an 
 extraordinary character, of vehement spirit, and 
 a passionate love of power and fame, whose 
 energy, versatility, and choleric genius, dashed 
 with a certain waywardness, were more in 
 sympathy with the aspirations of the age, than the 
 
EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 183 
 
 quiet counsels and sober aims of Peel. Tliis was 
 Henry Brougham, a prodigy of talent, in whose 
 checquered career it is possible at once to discern 
 the inconstancy of genius to its own inspiration, 
 and the ingratitude of Party to its former idol. 
 Seated face to face against each other, the personal 
 was not greater than the political contrast between 
 Peel and Brougham. The sleek smile of con- 
 tented complacency upon Peel, the Ministerial 
 leader of the House of Commons, was as unlike 
 to the lowering scowl of dissatisfaction darkening 
 the grim quaint face of Brougham, as the non 
 quieta movere politics of the prudent Tory, 
 to the discordant projects and innovating 
 policy of the ardent and ambitious leader of the 
 Opposition. Peel was a new man with 
 a vast fortune ; Brougham inherited an ancient 
 name and small estate. One by his political 
 talents had reached to high ofBce, the other by 
 forensic and parliamentary eloquence had drawn 
 upon him the eyes of the whole country. From 
 his father, Peel inherited and acquired mercantile 
 ideas and knowledge ; from Oxford he brought 
 those mixed views of life essential to an English 
 gentleman, who has to deal with " the great, 
 vulgar and the small ;" from sojourning in Downing 
 Street, he had become habituated to the onerous 
 
184 
 
 CHIEFS OF PAETIES. 
 
 burthen of responsibility, and made vigilant cir- 
 cumspectiveness an actual part of his mind ; from his 
 skilful and specious debating, his smooth and silvery 
 voice, his tact and presence of mind, his retentive 
 memory, and his manly bearing, he exhibited an as- 
 semblage of all the qualities, called " Parliament- 
 ary." On the other hand from his Edinburgh educa- 
 tion. Brougham had learned to look on mankind and 
 political aifairs with a philosophic spirit of analysis 
 and generalisation ; from the cultivation of letters he 
 had acquired the sympathies and tastes then rarely 
 found amongst English barristers ; from inter- 
 course with the chiefs of the Whig nobility, and 
 their clan of aristocratic kindred, he learned the 
 mode of thinking common to patrician circles ; 
 the practice of his profession gave him hardihood 
 of assertion, tact in evasion, and fertility of re- 
 source in disputation ; from traveUing circuit, 
 addressing juries, talking and supping at clubs, 
 and familiarity with the wordy zeal of the philan- 
 thropists of platforms and public meetings, he had 
 acquired an admirable adaptability to all classes ; he 
 could affect insouciance hke a liberal lord, cut up 
 the last author like a professional reviewer, brow- 
 beat an adversary in any rank, and chatter gos- 
 sip of a jovial kind like any half dozen at the Beef- 
 steak Club. In the variety of aspects under which he 
 
EVE OF THE UEPORM ERA. 185 
 
 courted celebrity, envy was fain to detect a 
 charlatanic spirit ; but there was no charlatanism 
 in the energy that knew no fatigue, and craved 
 for further toil — in the ready pen, with forcible and 
 fluent style — in the sharp and scathing repartee to 
 official insolence — in the prodigious force which 
 carried a tail of a hundred senators behind him, 
 supported his policy, and made public opinion 
 look to him as the champion of Utility, and the 
 pride of those who hoped to reconcile order and 
 change. In those days Brougham was well fitted 
 for the advocate of a liberalising aristocracy, for 
 the tribune of an intelligent and high-spirited 
 democracy. 
 
 Such was the man whose onward politics and 
 thundering tongue had done more than any public 
 man then living, to make opinion regard the Whigs 
 and Whiggism with hopeful hearts. Brougham 
 did not preach an obsolete creed, nor decorate his 
 speeches with historical puerilities about " the 
 cause in which Hampden died upon the field, and 
 Sydney on the scaffold." He had nothing of 
 the political cant of oligarchic Whiggism, with 
 its barren formularies of a belief in the super- 
 natural patriotism of beings called Cavendish, and 
 Howard, and the other names of the grandees of 
 Whig aristocracy. Neither did he believe that 
 
186 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 all mankind were to bow before the memory of 
 the " Great Deliverer." He dared to think that many 
 men of more spotless character, and many greater 
 benefactors to mankind were enshrined in History's 
 page than the determined Dutchman, who, with 
 the aid of a plotting nobility and his own valiant 
 resolves, overthrew a guilty and conscience-stricken 
 sovereign conspiring against the laws, the liberties,, 
 and the religion of a free and loyal people. The 
 Revolution of 1688 did not seem to Brougham 
 the greatest event recorded in the world's annals. 
 In short, he had none of that rusty super- 
 stition of Whiggism. with its mouldy credences 
 and moth-eaten memories, behind which some 
 of the cynical coteries of Liberalism entrench 
 themselves and their narrow systems of trans- 
 mitted thought against the advance of the age, 
 the rush of popular discontent, the wail of social 
 grievances, the clashing encounter of religious 
 beliefs, and the ambition of free natures, reluctant 
 to bend before an aristocratic junto, sneering 
 out its supercilious resolves for the edification of 
 the flatterers who cringe before wealth, rank, 
 and power. Brougham was perfectly ready 
 to give a large measure of respect to Whig 
 aristocrats, as peers of Parliament, and men of 
 social rank; but he could never, like servile 
 
EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 187 
 
 Liberals, consent to bow before them as lords 
 of thought. 
 
 The active talent of the country then looked 
 to Brougham as the advocate of its interests, 
 and the expositor of its opinions. The more 
 enterprising portion of the commercial class ; much 
 of the intelligence of the professional community, 
 and no small portion of the rising talent at the 
 Universities regarded Brougham as the leading man 
 of the age. In the metropolis, he was a celebrity 
 of the first class — his person familiarised to the 
 public by his presence at popular meetings, and 
 his appearances in the Courts of Law. His speeches, 
 after Mr. Canning died and Mr. Plunket had 
 been raised to the Upper House, were the most 
 readable and vigorous of all the orations reported 
 in St. Stephens, and when he pealed forth in 
 resounding tones the stirring words, " Field Mar- 
 shal the Duke of Wellington may take the army, 
 he may take the navy, with all the powers of 
 the Executive he may array himself; but 1 fear 
 him not. The school-master is abroad, and I will 
 trust to him armed with his primer, rather than 
 to the soldier with his bayonet," the popular 
 heart palpitated with sympathy, at the vivid 
 utterances of one whom the fond fancy of half 
 a nation regarded as- the true apostle of moral 
 
188 
 
 CHIEFS OF PAUTIES. 
 
 power. In men with the trained talents, and 
 wide accomplishments of Peel and Brougham, 
 there is more true and real representative faculty 
 than in a whole senate of stammering prosers, 
 and wearying mouthers of commonplace and news- 
 paper statistics. 
 
 Along with these two men representing in their 
 own persons, the interests and hopes of vast and 
 powerful classes, there was then sitting in the 
 House of Commons, a public personage in nowise 
 inferior in abilities to the two political chiefs just 
 described, but below them in the practicability 
 of his aims, the worthiness of his means, and 
 the personal dignity of his character. This was 
 Daniel O'Connell, the model Irishman of an 
 age when Ireland and its children were disor- 
 ganised, for thirty years the terror of Irish Pro- 
 testants and torment of English statesmen, figuring 
 in history as the most successful demagogue of 
 ancient or modern times, the only genuine 
 dictator with which Ireland was visited since the 
 time of Cromwell. 
 
 Considered as a representative man, O'Connell 
 was a painfully faithful impersonation of the misruled 
 Irish masses with their myriad grievances inherited 
 from other times. At first a mere agitating noto- 
 riety, O'Connell, by degrees, had swelled into a 
 
EVE 01' THE REFORM ERA. 189 
 
 Celtic Chieftain, and with great histrionic effect 
 he acted the part of a leader of the old Irish people, 
 an oratorical successor to the O'Neils and 
 O'Briens of other days. Unable to cope with 
 English power in a fair field of military exertion, 
 O'Connell avenged himself by the tongue, and for 
 twenty years he talked to his dupes a wonderful 
 mixture of revolutionary principles and Celtic sen- 
 timents, delivered with dramatic manner and rare 
 elocutionary artifices. He charmed the credulity 
 and fascinated the mind of millions of the imag- 
 native and ardent Irish. For the upper portion of 
 the Catholic body he had the fame of his successes 
 during the long struggle of Catholic Emancipation, 
 and the great honour of which no enmity could 
 deprive him of being the very ablest forensic advo- 
 cate that Ireland, fertile in legal orators, produced. 
 But neither his tongue or his training gave him 
 his long continuance of tribunitian authority. 
 The true source of his marvellous influence 
 was to be found in the mighty power of the man 
 himself. Elastic and accommodating, he had the 
 plasticity required for the artistic assumption of a 
 mission as the deliverer of Ireland from British 
 power. With his suppleness was joined an amaz- 
 ing strength of body and will, which enabled him 
 to endure the toils of a master agitator for nearly 
 
190 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 half a century. There was also in his nature that 
 force of resolution, that ascendancy of wUl which 
 makes a man dominate over others and drag people 
 after him as if by a charm ; and lastly, there 
 was in his towering figure and vast girth of person, 
 with his insinuating manners, the outward creden- 
 tials of a lofty spirit born for power, the adver- 
 tisement of one calculated first to awaken, and 
 afterwards to fulfil gigantic expectations. 
 
 With all his errors O'Connell was a towering 
 nature, and he was vastly superior to his 
 countrymen in the sustained intensity and dogged 
 perseverance of his most laborious and enterpris- 
 ing character. He never faltered or wavered in his 
 purpose, that if he could not get the government 
 of Ireland into his own practical control, that he 
 would strive that no one else should. 
 
 Such were the three men, whose talents and 
 characters exercised in the passing generation 
 prodigious influence. Peel represented social order 
 and stabihty. Brougham personified progress and 
 political reform, O'Connell terribly incarnated the 
 frenzied passion and political contortion of Old 
 Ireland, swamping in the tide of modern civilisa- 
 tion. The glory and power of the English people 
 were best personified in the adhesiveness, doughty 
 energy, and masculine simplicity of " The man of 
 
EVE OF THE EEFOUM ERA. ] 91 
 
 men, the Prince of Waterloo !" the invincible 
 Wellington ! 
 
 But where was the master-spirit who repre- 
 sented the masses of the British working people, 
 congregated in the great hives of industry in the 
 North of England ? Brougham did not reach 
 below the middle class, and his system of action 
 was too merely Parliamentary, and too remote 
 from humble modes of thinking. Cobbett was 
 only a writer, and he had outlived his reputation, 
 though he had not lost his abilities. His influ- 
 ence was confined to a few whimsical coteries of 
 half-educated politicians, and the public were only 
 reminded of his existence now and then by some 
 fehcitous nickname, or comical burst from his 
 vituperative pen. " He had no tribunitian faculty — 
 wanting the powers of voice and declamation 
 which please the sensibilities of crowds. Hunt, a 
 demagogue with a fluent tongue and common- 
 place ideas, and no object beyond that of personal 
 notoriety was an object of admiration to thousands. 
 He had a large and lusty frame, always enveloped 
 in fine attire, and he looked like what he was, or 
 wished to be, a dandy demagogue of the upstart 
 sort dressed in his Sunday clothes. There could 
 not be much true discernment of character, or 
 much political knowledge in the working classes 
 
192 CHIEFS OF PAETIES. 
 
 when they made an idol of Hunt, a pattern mob 
 leader of the lowest sort, with nought beyond his 
 coarse and energetic declamation. But the 
 sympathies of the untutored multitude are in all 
 ages won by voices addressed to their unsuspect- 
 ing hearts. Counterfeit patriotism has generally 
 misled the masses in democracies, and proved a 
 potent ally to absolutism and oligarchical ascen- 
 dancy. 
 
 At that time, the great masses of the English 
 working classes, living in the great towns, were 
 divided into the half-educated and the uneducated. 
 The opinion of the former and less numerous class 
 was for " Americanism" in politics. Their idea of 
 perfect government was in the United States, 
 where, as they were wont to say, every man was 
 equal, where there were no lords or squires, or no 
 primogeniture, or no bishops, and where the 
 President had only six thousand a year. America 
 to them was as an Utopian vision. Though revolu- 
 tionary, and averse to aristocratic government, 
 they were neither sanguinary in their ideas, nor 
 licentious in their views. They disliked the spirit 
 of aristocracy in the Church, but they could not 
 be called anti-Christian. Many of them, it is true, 
 were Deists, and thought foolishly and ignorantly 
 that to be a Deist was more intellectual than to 
 
EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 193 
 
 than_tg be a Christian ; but their infidelity was 
 not active, and was not tinged with French fana- 
 ticism. They had many of the errors incidental to 
 their state of life, but their nature was manly and 
 undebauched by demagogues, and they were ma- 
 nageable by right and judicious means. The un- 
 educated were more dangerous — for they were 
 violent, and had a rabid taste for the persons and 
 things that were promising of violence. They had 
 wrong views of wages, entire ignorance of political 
 economy, and a spirit hostile to the rich. 
 
 Above those classes was the lower portion of 
 the middle class, whose faith lay, for the most part, 
 in a free and cheap press, perpetually exposing 
 political jobs, and calling persons in high stations 
 by hard names. The right to abuse public men 
 by wholesale was especially delighted in by this 
 class, who confounded freedom of thinking with 
 licence of vituperation. They liked small, sneak- 
 ing jobs for themselves, and their prurient imagi- 
 nation pictured to them all the officials in 
 Downing Street as engaged from morning's dawn 
 till evening close in manufacturing jobbery. Doing 
 jobs by day, and defending them by night, was 
 the manner in which, according to their notions, 
 the leading legislators were employed. They 
 judged of others by themselves. They sanded 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
194 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 the sugar of their customers, sold sloe-leaves 
 with tea, vended a concocted poison called 
 " British Brandy," were profuse of puffing their 
 wares, and sometimes very thrifty in the weights 
 with which they served the public, and they 
 clamoured loudly against jobbing and jobbers, 
 and were the main force of that pusillanimous 
 portion of the democracy that bawled for the 
 Ballot. They had much of the selfishness attri- 
 buted by them to the aristocracy, without its 
 spirit of honour, and in days of agitation, they 
 were ready to display the unreasoning violence 
 without the homely virtues of the labouring 
 mechanics. That portion of society which rests be- 
 tween the lower tiers of the middle, and the upper 
 of the working classes, is one of the first to go into 
 revolution, and also the first to run from the perils 
 it has invoked. Menaced kings and conspiring 
 traitors should never rely on this portion of society. 
 The feeling of the true middle classes of the 
 country was, on the whole, constitutional and 
 sound. They desired reform, but wished that it 
 should be moderate and progressive. They would 
 gladly have seen some thirty or forty of the 
 decayed boroughs extirpated, and their representa- 
 tion transferred to the great towns. On the whole, 
 they had a doubt of the propriety of ballot, and 
 
EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 195 
 
 their English courage and national pride at once 
 revolted from copying what many of them 
 thought a sneaking custom and foreign invention. 
 Englishmen, they thought, did not want to be 
 taught liberty by other people. The British Con^ 
 stitution presented in their mind a grand historical 
 unity spreading over eight centuries. Its great 
 memories and political glories were endeared to 
 their hearts and imagination. Their minds were 
 considerably influenced by an old national feeling, 
 sure to be developed amongst all Britons who 
 read with honest hearts the history of their race. 
 They too had an ancestral pride, not kindred 
 with the mythological illusion of the Herald's 
 College. They loved to think of the great 
 men of Enghsh story, whose honours were 
 conferred by national acclaim, emblazoned by 
 genius in history's page, and consecrated by the 
 enthusiastic reverence of generations. 
 
 The gentry of the country did not differ much 
 at that time from their traditional character. The 
 Whies amongst them were extremely numerous, 
 and the long absence of the Whig party from 
 power made a large number of the landlords look 
 forward with hopefulness to the downfall of the 
 Tory rule. The Tory aristocracy, on the other 
 hand, was divided. Its faith in the Duke of 
 
196 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Wellington and Peel had been shaken by their 
 opposition to Canning, and their concession to 
 O'Connell. Reform and Revolution were the 
 same things to its apprehension. They snuffed 
 the approach of cheap corn on every breeze of 
 Reform, and clung to the rotten boroughs as 
 bulwarks at once of Britain and the Tory party. 
 Their political passions. and their dogged obstruc- 
 tiveness were not well represented. Lord Eldon 
 was old, and had outUved the homage of his party. 
 The system of party adopted by the Tory chiefs 
 had been too bureaucratic. Authority had been 
 too much centralised in Downing Street to please 
 the territorial magnates of the party. They wanted 
 some gigantic idol around which they could 
 assemble. In the want of some such object, they 
 paid fantastic worship to a mythical memory 
 which they called " Mr. Pitt," apparently un- 
 conscious that the renowned statesman whose 
 name they took in vain, was a disciple of Adam 
 Smith, had been a Parhamentary reformer, and 
 had left ofBce because he could not carry the 
 Catholic Question. 
 
 The ultraism of the retrograde aristocracy was 
 singularly contrasted with the rash and rancorous 
 spirit of ill-considered innovation shown by the 
 leaders of the Radical party. The Utilitarians 
 
EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 197 
 
 worshipped Mr. Bentham with as idle a credulity 
 as the Tories Mr. Pitt. Traditionary feeling was 
 ignored in their creed, along with the generous 
 sensibilities with which Providence has bountifully 
 made human nature amiable. The Utilitarians 
 aspersed the whole polity of England ; they had 
 no genuine English spirit — no homely common 
 sense. They were frigid pieces of mechanism, 
 rather than real human beings of heart and soul. 
 They treated of politics in the didactic spirit of 
 pedagogues, and were the mere parroting pedants 
 of the dogma of Utility. 
 
 Their religion was a dull Deism, that wanted 
 courage to proclaim its unbelief, and brilliancy to 
 mislead the popular mind. They had the flip- 
 pancy, without the fancy of the French Encyclope- 
 dists, all the recklessness of intention, without any 
 of the masculine energy of the levellers of the days 
 of Cromwell. Upon them all history was thrown 
 away. Human nature, the life of man and his des- 
 tiny, the development of empire, presented to them 
 not the most solemn themes for grave study and 
 reverent regard, but subjects for the easy solution 
 and settlement by a phrase, a mere string of words ; 
 " The greatest happiness of the greatest number," 
 giving no test of arriving at either the thing or the 
 number specified by them. All political philoso- 
 phy had, for theno, been written in vain. The 
 
198 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 comprehensive logic of Aristotle ; Machiavelli and 
 Tacitus with their masterly comprehension of 
 human corruption ; the searching sense and mascu- 
 line eloquence of Bacon ; Clarendon, with his dearly- 
 hought experience ; Bolingbroke, with his grasp of 
 the art of politics ; and Burke occupying to political 
 science the relation of Shakspeare to poetry, with 
 sympathies as wide as his omniscience, with imagi- 
 nation kindling his reason ; these, and other great 
 planetary lights of politics, were to pale their fires be- 
 fore the elder Mill, and Bowring, and their school ! 
 
 Their system was a short one. Its first article 
 was " Whatever is, is wrong." Whatever was 
 established they aspersed, and they would have 
 levelled it if their talents had answered their temper. 
 Their second article was " The Greatest Happiness 
 — Principle," as unfolded by Mr. Bentham, whose 
 method of worshipping the Good and the Fair is 
 seen in his book called " Church of Englandism," 
 from the publication of which Romilly sought in 
 vain to dissuade him. The third article was 
 " Believe that Mill, Bowring, and their school are 
 the true apostles of the Gospel of Politics, as re- 
 vealed by Bentham." 
 
 With unlimited faith in their own talents, and 
 in the truth of their system, they set out to intro- 
 duce democracy by wholesale into the English 
 constitution. With their pickaxes and shovels they 
 
EVE OF THE EEFOKM ERA. 199 
 
 sought to tumble the great structure of England. 
 They were scarcely able to knock a stone out of 
 its massive walls. 
 
 For other hands, and by other means it was 
 wisely reserved to alter and amend some crumbling 
 portions of the social structure. The Utilitarian 
 Benthamite Philosophers were doomed to shrink 
 with their marrowless systems, and skeleton 
 schemes of, Reform, before the flesh and blood 
 realities of reformers with common sense. The 
 masses never heeded them ; society at large turned 
 a deaf ear to their spurious philosophy ; and po- 
 litical thinkers looked on them as half-educated 
 serfs, slavishly ridden over by the tyranny of 
 words, not yet emancipated from the bon(^s of 
 system by true philosophy. 
 
 At one end of the political scale were the bo- 
 rough-mongers, and their dogged opposition to all 
 reform ; at the other end were the system- 
 mongers, with their frivolous schemes and flatu- 
 lent teaching. Between both lay the great mass 
 of the public at large, ready to be moulded by 
 whatever party possessed most energy and moral 
 force. Nor can there be any doubt, but that the 
 Whigs were then invested with more moral power 
 than either of the sections of the Tory party. 
 They had a great cry behind them, " Reform ;" 
 
200 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 they had a leader in the House of Commons with 
 a tongue unrivalled for readiness and force, and 
 burning with ambition for power ; and in the 
 Lords they had Earl Grey, with fifty years' consis- 
 tency as a reformer, and with much traditional 
 fame as the friend and companion of Fox. The 
 Peers and the gentry of the Whigs hungered after 
 the official good things, which had been so long in- 
 the custody of their opponents. 
 
 The General Election that took place after the 
 demise of George the Fourth, left parties more 
 numerically equal in the House of Commons than 
 could have been anticipated. But the Tories were 
 more divided than the Whigs and Liberals, and 
 had not the least confidence in their leaders, for 
 many of them still groaned at the apostacy, as 
 they deemed it, of the Duke and Sir Robert Peel 
 in the Catholic Question. Far the most signifi- 
 cant event of the General Election was the return 
 of Mr.' Brougham for Yorkshire. That great 
 constituency has always had a character of its own, 
 and does not servilely follow the rest of the king- 
 dom. It has its own traditions, peculiar local 
 customs, and social manners. Its population is 
 mixed, and partakes at once of country habits, and 
 the sharp intelligence of manufacturing life. It 
 has an opulent and most ancient gentry, and prides 
 
EVE OP THE REFORM ERA. 201 
 
 itself upon its old aristocratic families, and likes to 
 revolve their genealogies, and the long time that 
 they have figured in splendour in the largest and 
 most powerful of all the English shires. It has 
 ancient cities and modern towns ; the Gothic 
 spires tower amidst districts dotted with the stalks 
 of factories ; the plough and the steam engine, 
 and the prosperity attendant upon their most suc- 
 cessful working, rival each other in a population 
 where there is a vast diversity of occupations, and 
 a singular fusion of opposite interests. 
 
 This great constituency chose for one of its 
 members a man unconnected by birth or fortune 
 with itself. It was not because it chose an 
 orator, but that it condescended to look beyond 
 the bounds of proud old Yorkshire for a champion 
 and a leader, that the return of Mr. Brougham 
 was an event of so much significance. In 
 1784, Yorkshire had played the chief part in 
 the rout of the Whigs and the Coalition Cabinet, 
 roused by the eloquence of Wilberforce. It had 
 done much at that momentous time to cast down 
 Fox, and to raise up Pitt. And now Yorkshire 
 pronounced for a Whig and for Whiggism, and 
 called Henry Brougham the Knight of its famed 
 shire. 
 
202 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 
 
 That the Wellington Cabinet was doomed 
 was evident to all men, and the only question 
 about it was as to its mode of falling. The Duke 
 found himself more embarrassed with an unarmed 
 English people, than when he stood with his back 
 to the rocks of Lisbon, and saw before him the 
 whole of subjugated Europe under the power 
 of Napoleon. He had driven the French from 
 Portugal, and finally hurled them across the 
 Pyrenees. Heroically he had grappled with 
 Soult and Massena the doughtiest of the famed 
 Marshals of PVance, and twenty times had they 
 been beaten. Finally, at Waterloo, he defeated 
 the Emperor Napoleon. But how was he to 
 conquer opinion ? How was he to vanquish a fierce 
 Free Press, a clamorous opposition, a sullen and 
 
EVE OP THE KEFOKM ERA. 203 
 
 scarcely obedient Ministerial party ? He was not 
 an orator, and he could not use language to 
 disguise his ideas which were sound at bottom, 
 though the bluntness of his words exaggerated 
 their form. He had lost his popularity with the 
 Tory aristocracy, and the public at large misled 
 by the popular outcry and carried away by their 
 enthusiasm for moral as opposed to merely 
 military power, for a season were oblivious of th§. 
 glory of the greatest of English heroes — that man 
 of all others in history most resembling the 
 sublimely stoical Washington. 
 
 The cry was rising for reform on all sides. 
 The French Revolution of 1830 had told with 
 effect upon the active portion of the country, 
 and it was evident that there should be a Parlia- 
 mentary Reform of some kind. The subject 
 was big with importance, and the difficulties were 
 vast in its undertaking. To construct a new 
 constitution in a new country, or after a triumphant 
 revolution in an old one, is easy enough. The 
 great facts and the circumstances of the case 
 mark out the path in these instances for legislation ; 
 but in an old country, with an ancient and free 
 system, the work of reform is more difficult and 
 complicated. Second rate workmen can make a 
 new steam engine, but it is always allotted to 
 
204 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 the most skilful and ingenious mechanics to attach 
 new improvements to old machines. Repair and 
 amendment in many cases require more de- 
 liberation than original construction. Few have 
 at once the adroit talent and the happy temper 
 in politics, partly to cast down, and partly to 
 rebuild— that is thoroughly to reform. 
 
 There were three ways of dealing with the ques- 
 tion of Parliamentary Reform. First, to follow 
 the example of Mr. Canning, and stand up for 
 the whole existing system as it stood. Secondly, 
 to lay down a principle of progressive Reformj 
 and insensibly modify the crying abuses of the 
 old borough system, and thirdly, to carry out 
 a large and sweeping change, annihilate the rotten 
 boroughs, and enfranchise the larger towns. 
 
 Mr. Canning had exhausted all the resources 
 of his fertile oratorical genius in vindicating the 
 principle of "No Reform," and in identifying 
 Gatton and Sarum with Magna Charta. Able 
 statesmen have confessed that his speeches against 
 Reform kept back the question for at least ten 
 years. Bred up under Mr. Pitt, he had a 
 perfect mastery over those chords of opinion 
 that an eloquent and brilliant alarmist should 
 know to touch. He looked on the subject through 
 his imagination, and even the author of "The 
 
EVE 01' THE REFORM ERA. 205 
 
 Ancient Mariner " was astonished at the variety 
 of fanciful lights with which Canning decorated 
 the school of expiring Toryism. " Canning," 
 said Coleridge, " flashed such light round the 
 constitution, that it was hardly possible to discern 
 its ruins amidst his blaze." The most signal 
 triumphs of that brilliant orator's genius had been 
 achieved in his speeches against Reform. The 
 logic that he employed might have been reduced 
 to this formula. " It will be impossible to prevent 
 Reform from passing into Revolution. Change 
 will unsettle all our Constitution, and it will take 
 ages to resettle it. That Reform must become 
 Revolution may be thus demonstrated — either 
 the new system is to be operative or inefficient, 
 if the latter, then the question has been fruitlessly 
 raised to the detriment of the public peace ; if 
 the former, there must be a reform of the House 
 of Lords, for a House of Hereditary Legislators is 
 incompatible with a reformed House of Com- 
 mons. At present these bodies work harmo- 
 niously, by means of the rotten boroughs giving 
 the Peers an influence in the House of Commons 
 — take away that influence; the connection cea- 
 sing, both branches of the Legislation will stand 
 against each other in adverse principles, and with 
 irreconcileable interests." Then he would artfully 
 
206 CHIEFS OF PARTIES, 
 
 contrast the opinions of different reformers, and 
 dwell with damaging skill on the levelling schemes 
 and extravagant propositions of Burdett and his 
 disciples, and contend that the property of the middle 
 classes would be finally jeopardised by reform. 
 The manner in which the orator contrived to 
 place the counter of the shopkeeper upon the 
 same political level as the castle of the peer was 
 bold and artful, and well calculated for popular 
 effect. With more dubious logic, and with less 
 strong political sense, Mr. Canning always con- 
 tented that if Gatton or old Sariim were abolished 
 — that the fine end of the wedge was inserted, 
 and that the rest of the reform scheme would 
 soon appear. 
 
 It was not difficult to perceive that Mr. Can- 
 ning's mode of looking at the British Constitution 
 was as an oligarchy disguised under popular forms. 
 He seemed to regard it as the despotism of a 
 hereditary aristocracy, tempered by the reign of 
 men of genius like himself— occasionally admitted 
 to supreme authority. His love of rotten boroughs 
 was natural in one who had advanced to favour 
 and power by their means. Canning essentially 
 belonged to a class that found more prizes under 
 the old than the new Parliamentary system. He 
 was one of those brilliant promising young men from 
 
EVE OE THE REEORM ERA. 207 
 
 the Universities, shining amongst Wranglers and 
 Gold Medallists, a'nd sparkhng in the debating halls 
 of Inns of Court. From the time of the Revolu- 
 tion, Parties had always taken clever and spirited 
 recruits from that class. The greatest statesmen 
 and orators of the country, from the first Mr. 
 Pitt to the second Sir Robert Peel, had entered 
 the House of Commons by rotten boroughs ; 
 and their genius had shed such glory on Parlia- 
 ment, that many were prone to say with Canning. 
 " The system may be contrary to sound theory, 
 but in practice it works well." 
 
 But the Catholic Relief Bill of 1829 had 
 utterly shattered to atoms the ingenious theory of 
 Canning. By that bill, the Legislature had 
 vitally affected the conditions under which Parlia- 
 ment existed. It gave representative political power 
 to a class that had been deprived of it since the 
 days of the Stuarts, and it also swept away the 
 forty shilling freeholders of Ireland. Conferring 
 political power upon the Roman Catholics, it 
 had disfranchised the Catholic Democracy of 
 Ireland. Thus the Legislature in the time when 
 Reform was called visionary and dangerous, had 
 by wholesale made and unmade political privileges. 
 " What's fact to day," says Junius, " becomes 
 precedent to-morrow." The Catholic Relief Bill 
 
208 
 
 CHIEFS OIP PARTIES. 
 
 of 1829 was more innovation to the existing 
 relations of political power, than if twenty 
 boroughs had been disfranchised, and as many 
 more endowed with representative privileges. Thus 
 time and circumstances had rendered " Can- 
 ningism " obsolete and untenable. 
 
 The second system of gradually progressive 
 Reform was a favourite with those mawkishly 
 moderate politicians, who can exist only in the 
 confines of neutrality, have no determinate charac- 
 ter, or vigorous prejudices, and who love to take 
 rose-coloured views of life, averse from the sober 
 hues of reality. This plan of progressive reform 
 had little theoretical merits, and still fewer prac- 
 tical ones. It was afterwards branded by Lord 
 Brougham as " bit by bit reform." It would have 
 spread Parliamentary Reform over half a century, 
 doing a little of it every Parliament, extirpating 
 a few very rotten constituencies, and even ventur- 
 ing so far as to extinguish some decayed . 
 boroughs. It would have kept the Constitution in 
 transitu, and the Commons upon a sliding scale, 
 left Conservatives in perpetual disquiet, and 
 Reformers in constant dissatisfaction. Squabbles 
 about change would have been reduced to system — 
 authority would rest upon no positive base, and 
 an irritated and morbid appetite for further 
 
EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 209 
 
 change would bave been whetted. As a cure 
 for pohtical abuses, this slowly progressive system 
 was as absurd as amputation by inches and by days 
 in surgery. Even if it were to work no mischief 
 directly, the results would have been of no avail. 
 As was once well said by Sir James Mackintosh 
 in his more vigorous days, " Slender Reforms lull 
 and amuse the human mind. Error vegetates 
 with more vigour after these gentle prunings." 
 
 Some few there were who thought that political 
 reform could be staved off if there were vigorous 
 administrative reforms, if the Corn Laws were re- 
 pealed, if part of the Pension List was revised and 
 purified, and the rewards of office distributed more 
 impartially ; but these speculators were remote 
 from active life. Those ideas were to be found 
 in some of the higher mercantile ranks dreading 
 revolution as much almost as the boroughmongers, 
 and who felt that at any time they could buy 
 political power and authority for themselves, and 
 who did not regard with social sympathy the 
 interests of classes below them. 
 
 And lastly if this system of slender and pro- 
 gressive reform had been right and proper, what 
 statesmen were ready to undertake it in 1830? 
 Supposing that Sir Robert Peel had then endorsed 
 such a scheme, what must have been the result ? 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
210 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 "You are again," it would have been urged, 
 " acting in power on principles identified with 
 the party out of place." There would have been 
 cutting taunts about nusquam tuta fides, the 
 transitions of Toryism would have been caricatured 
 and mocked at. Even if the Tory Party could 
 be marshalled in support of such a scheme, would 
 not the Whigs immediately bring forward another 
 plan — more consistent, attractive and popular, 
 and out manoeuvre the Ministerialists ? Thus 
 even if the slender and in transitu system of 
 Reform was the right one in theory, there could 
 be no statesman likely to support such a plan. 
 By proposing a slender reform, the Tories would 
 have lost power without gaining popularity, as 
 the "Whigs w^ould have lost popularity without 
 gaining power if they had taken up the bit by bit 
 plan. 
 
 The third plan remained — the strong, large, and 
 bi;oad measure of Reform. Such was the measure 
 which the prejudice of the time, the necessity of 
 the case, and the providence of events prompted 
 to. It should not be specious, showy, and 
 delusive, but honestly conceived, happily executed 
 and given with heartiness of spirit. Reform if 
 then coming from the Tories would have been drop- 
 ped by them with a curse. If coming from the 
 
EVE OF THE UEFORM ERA. 211 
 
 Whigs it would have been given with a blessing. 
 The existing system of things was more than dis- 
 trusted, it was discredited. A new one was abso- 
 lutely necessary. There were many dangers in the 
 path of the Reformer, but still greater ones rising 
 round the anti-Reformer. Opinion was still rapidly 
 running for change, executed in a constitutional 
 spirit. Dammed up and prevented from its flowing 
 course, it would have burst over the land in a 
 revolutionary deluge, whose boisterous waves might 
 ■ have carried fearful danger to patrician privileges, 
 and to mitred dignity. 
 
 What the system should be in scope was 
 evident enough. But doubts were entertained 
 as to the capacity of the Whigs for practical 
 affairs, as to the integrity of their intentions, as to 
 the reality of their schemes of reform, as to their 
 concord amongst themselves and as to their influ- 
 ence at Court, their power amongst the Peerage, 
 their reputation Vvith the Church, and popularity 
 with the people at large. To the expectations 
 entertained about themselves and their measures, 
 let us see how the Whigs rephed ; but first let 
 us mark how the Great Duke fell. More pleasant 
 will it be in after pages to chronicle the resurrec- 
 tion of the hero and patriot statesman, into a 
 popularity without a parallel in any age. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 On the 2nd of November, 1830, the new 
 Parliament was assembled. There was nothing 
 very particular in the speech from the Tiirone. 
 The Civil List was given up to the consideration 
 of Parliament, and a recommendation that a 
 Regency should be appointed in case of the King's 
 demise. In the course of the debate upon the 
 Address, the Duke of Wellington made his ela- 
 borate declaration against Reform, which was the 
 immediate cause of his fall. In his vehement 
 bluntness, he panegyrised the Constitution with 
 extravagance, and took no notice of the fact that 
 its most ardent worshippers had often desired that 
 its theory and its practice should be made more 
 conformable. He treated Reform as if it were 
 Revolution, and drew no distinction between them, 
 and spoke in the forgetfulness of the fact that the 
 Prince of Tory statesmen had been a Reformer, 
 and had swept away the Irish Legislature. 
 
 Upon the very same night that the Duke made 
 that statement, Mr. Brougham, in the Commons, 
 had given notice that he would bring forward in 
 a fortnight the question of Parliamentary Reform. 
 Thus the Ministerial leader of the Lords, and the 
 leader of Opposition in the Lower House, had 
 each announced his policy. Whatever expectation 
 might have been awakened by Mr. Brougham, it 
 
EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 213 
 
 is certain that the announcement of " No Reform" 
 by the Duke, caused a prodigious sensation 
 throughout the country, and roused the public 
 feeling throughout the land, with more effect than 
 the wonted eloquence of the Whig orators could 
 have produced in a session. The country felt 
 itself challenged to the question whether it agreed 
 in opinion with the hero of the age ; and during 
 the next two years, it gave many an emphatic 
 answer to the contrary. 
 
 While the popular ferment excited by the 
 Duke's speech was swelling through the land, 
 the Opposition members in the Commons were 
 not idle, and were braced for a vigorous struggle. 
 There was much doubt, and not a little dismay 
 amongst the Ministerial party. Various attempts 
 were made to explain away the force of the Duke's 
 words. Some said that he was very deaf, and 
 did not hear the opinions of the Peers about him ; 
 others, that he had spoken his own^ and not the 
 opinions of the Cabinet. Sir George Murray, 
 brilliant in the senate and in the field, whose great 
 abilities lost their effect from his conscience being 
 too dexterously accommodating, declared himself 
 for Moderate Reform. Sir Robert Peel felt that 
 his party was in a defile, and muffled himself up 
 in mystery, and would give no pledge either way. 
 
214 CHIEFS OF PAKTTES. 
 
 Lord Winchelsea — leading the ultra Tories in the 
 Lords — gave notice that he would move an address, 
 denouncing to his Majesty the incapacity of his 
 Ministers. Dangers on all sides threatened round 
 the swamping Cabinet. By an odd accident, its 
 fate was rapidly settled. 
 
 The King, the Queen, and the Ministers were 
 to have dined with the Lord Mayor of London 
 (Key) on the 9th of November. On the 6th, 
 the Lord Mayor addressed a letter to the Duke 
 intimating that desperate characters meant to 
 make an attack upon him near Guildhall, and 
 advised that a strong military guard should come 
 with the illustrious guests. Next evening, the 
 Lord Mayor received a letter from Sir Robert 
 Peel, saying that their Majesties would decline 
 visiting the city. The banquet was postponed. 
 The alarm throughout the City, and the astonish- 
 ment of the whole country were intense. 
 
 On Saturday, Sir Robert Peel had written to the 
 Lord Mayor. On the following Monday, the 
 panic-mongers, real and pretended, kept up the 
 clatter of consternation ; the stock-jobbers plied 
 their insidiously mercurial arts ; the journals mag- 
 nified the mysteries of the secret perils, and 
 Consols, before two hours had elapsed, leaped 
 down three and a half. Preparations against a 
 
EVE OF THE REFORM ERA. 215 
 
 dreadful riot and outbreak were made in many 
 quarters. In a few days, the whole town was in 
 a broad grin at the epistolary spectres raised by 
 the timorous Lord Mayor. That functionary 
 expressed his contrition at the mischief he had 
 unwittingly done. There was some desultory 
 rioting in the city. A colourable ground was 
 shown for thinking that the King was not popular. 
 His Ministers were again damaged further. 
 
 On the 15th, Sir Henry Parnell made one of 
 the most memorable motions in Parliament upon 
 the question of the Civil List. In a house of 
 437 members, Ministers were beaten by a majority 
 of 29. On the following day, Ministers an- 
 nounced their resignation. 
 
 Thereupon Lord Althorpe, leader of the Wis- 
 tocratic Whigs in the Lower House, requested 
 Mr. Brougham to defer his motion for Parlia- 
 mentary Reform, as the House could not be 
 expected to debate so important a question while 
 the Cabinet was unsettled. There was some 
 show of hesitation upon the part of Mr. Brougham, 
 who thoroughly understood the critical position in 
 which he was placed. He consented to put off 
 the question until the 25th, affecting great reluct- 
 ance in so doing, and declaring that he would then 
 bring it forward, let the circumstances be as they 
 
216 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 might, and no matter who should be the Ministers 
 — a declaration of opinion at that time like one of 
 those wild and uncontrollable outbursts of wilful- 
 ness that in after times fatally marred his aims, 
 and cast stains upon a splendid reputation. 
 
THE CABINET OF 1S3 1-2-3-4. 317 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 
 
 And now was to commence the greatest Par- 
 liamentary campaign that England had beheld 
 since the stirring days of the ever memorable 
 Long Parliament. 
 
 The King sent for Earl Grey, by itself a signal 
 of great political changes, for Lord Grey was a 
 system in himself, that had struggled for ascen- 
 dancy for fifty years and had failed, but was now 
 to be enthroned in authority, and clothed with 
 power, amidst the acclaim of a whole people. 
 Sprung from an ancient and oft ennobled race, 
 Lord Grey personified, as well as inherited the 
 patrician character. The dignity of his proud and 
 noble bearing made him look handsomer than he 
 was, for there was in his outward aspect all the 
 charms that first attract, and afterwards fasten at- 
 
218 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 tention to the possessor. It was said of him, that 
 " excepting his Radical son-in-law, Lord Durham, 
 Earl Grey was the proudest aristocrat in England," 
 and there was some truth in the remark. His 
 hauteur would have been offensive, but for the 
 grace of his person, and the lofty elegance of his 
 demeanour. 
 
 Not rising to the first rank, either as orator, 
 debater, or statesman. Lord Grey bore himself as 
 a great personage, and wrapped himself in his 
 dignity ; while steady to one set of principles, he 
 looked down on the public mind eddying round in 
 vortices of popular inconstancy. " Grey was great, 
 but he was not an orator," said Lord Byron ; but 
 fifty years of fidehty to a cause which at last be- 
 came popular, a stainless private character, unsul- 
 lied political honour, combined with his person and 
 manners to invest him with an apparent grandeur. 
 As he had been too long neglected, so was he 
 then to be overpraised. Yet there were many 
 blameworthy passages in his career. His parrot- 
 like cry for peace, while Napoleon was exhausting 
 resources to crush England, was the reverse of meri- 
 torious, and the same must he said of his faint- 
 heartedness, when he refused in- 18 15 to join the 
 chorus of orators, who, from all sides, called on 
 England and Europe to unite against the Emperor 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 219 
 
 breaking from Elba, at the last act of his dramatic 
 career. 
 
 The virulence and rancorous personal spirit, 
 with which he had mocked at and insulted Can- 
 ning revealed that beneath his icy smoothness 
 and specious grace of manner, there was a sup- 
 pressed morosity of temper, springing from a 
 baffled career, and the corroding spleen of old 
 age. More than his talents, or his dignity, the 
 reflected lustre of Fox's friendship, and his youth- 
 ful association with the renowned men of a grander 
 age, a Burke, a Windham, a Sheridan, enveloped 
 the new Prime Minister in a hazy glory, amidst 
 which friends and foes alike fancied that they saw 
 one of the great master-spirits, who, from time 
 to time, have made Kings and Parliaments do 
 homage unto the inspiration of their genius. 
 
 Earl Grey was undoubtedly, at that time, the 
 proper man for the chief leadership of the Reform 
 party. It was felt by the nobles of the Liberal 
 cause, that Earl Grey would impart an aristocratic 
 spirit to the counsels of a Reform Cabinet, and the 
 only historical words that ever came from him " I 
 will stand by my order," were a guarantee to the 
 King and the Whig patricians that the balance of 
 the Constitution would be preserved by any mea- 
 sure propounded by the Cabinet of Lord Grey. 
 
320 CHIEFS OP PARTIES. 
 
 Next to the Premiership, the leadership of the 
 House of Commons was the most important post. 
 A favourable choice was made in the selection of 
 Lord Althorpe, the scion of a famous house, a man 
 of great wealth, with all the virtues, and not one 
 of the vices of his rank ; deeply interested in the 
 prosperity of the landed interest, attached to agri- 
 cultural pursuits, and fond of mixing, in a kind 
 and affable manner, with men of intelligence. He 
 had a taste for the sciences, and liked to study the 
 substantial improvements made by advancing 
 knowledge. Heavy and rather sombre in appear- 
 ance, he had not the advantages of a fine exterior, 
 or the charms of attractive eloquence. 
 
 As a speaker, he was stammering, dull, and 
 utterly ineffective, but he was now to show in the 
 most signal manner to an admiring public, how 
 the precious gifts of virtue and common sense, ac- 
 companied with the homely simplicity of a genuine 
 Saxon character, were more potent to rule and 
 conduct the greatest assembly upon earth, than the 
 dazzling fire of genius, or wondrous proficiency in 
 the arts of disputation. 
 
 While the Reform Party remained united, Lord 
 Althorpe did well as Leader of the House of 
 Commons, but when the Whigs and Radicals 
 quarrelled, his want of power as a speaker was 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 221 
 
 felt, and in the Reformed Parliament, the failure 
 of Lord Althorpe as a Leader caused considerable 
 damage to the Whigs, but I will not anticipate. 
 
 After the leadership of the House of Commons, 
 there came another question of the greatest pos- 
 sible interest to the Whig party, and of tenfold 
 importance to the personage concerned. What 
 was to be done with the member for Yorkshire, 
 Henry Brougham ? 
 
 In dealing with the great men of genius con- 
 nected with their party, the Whig Peers have 
 rarely been kindly or considerate. Lord Rocking- 
 ham lent large sums to Burke, and cancelled the 
 bonds by his will. Yet he took care to leave the 
 author of the " Present Discontents" (the Rock- 
 ingham code of politics), out of his Cabinet in 
 1782. Johnson and Gibbon were ardent in their 
 admiration of Burke's extraordinary genius, — the 
 Whigs gave him but a subaltern part in their 
 Ministry. The private errors of Sheridan were 
 alleged as an excuse for leaving him out of the 
 cabinet of "All the Talents," in 1806. The 
 Whig Chiefs appear always to have thought that 
 being permitted to keep political company with 
 such illustrious people as themselves, should be 
 sufficient reward for men of spirit and masculine 
 mind with brilliant parts but brief pedigrees. A 
 
222 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Lord John Cavendish was made Chancellor of 
 Exchequer in 1782, while Burke, the planner of 
 Economical Reform, was made Paymaster of the 
 Forces. So down even to the days we live in, the 
 Family Compact of Aristocratic Whiggery has 
 always given the rewards of power and high place 
 to the grandees of Whig nobility. 
 
 It was supposed by the Grey Whigs, that if 
 Brougham was Leader in the Lower House he 
 would be either their master, or faihng in that, he 
 would be unmanageable by them. He had more 
 physical activity, mental fire, and natural resources 
 than any half-dozen of them all. He shone with 
 meteoric splendour, and while the vulgar herd of 
 politicians gazed on him as a comet, it was felt 
 that the attractive force of his eccentric orbit might 
 disturb the course of luminaries less brilliant but 
 more permanent. What was to be done with him ? 
 It was known by long intercourse with him, that 
 when provoked he could be not merely harsh, or 
 splenetic after the fashion of malevolent medi- 
 ocrity, but that his ire could be leonine and fear- 
 fully lacerating with savage vehemence. It was 
 seen that he was intoxicated with his oratorical 
 fame, and it was felt that he had only just come 
 to the fullness of his powers, and that the Whigs 
 had no man amongst their party who could cow 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 233 
 
 or coerce him. Some, however, proposed that he 
 should be Leader of the House of Commons. The 
 Whig Chiefs thought and said that he had neither 
 the temper or discretion for the post, and pointed 
 to what had occurred when, a few months before, 
 the orator had spoken a tirade against the Wel- 
 lington Cabinet " these fawning sycophants" in 
 whose presence Peel with his calm firmness had 
 made the speaker retract his vituperation. Besides, 
 what weighed more with some of the party was, 
 that making a practising barrister Leader of the 
 Commons would have been contrary to the con- 
 ventions of Whig politics. Charles Fox said that 
 " the House of Commons can never be led except 
 by a gentleman," and in the Whig creed the word 
 " gentleman" by a kind of expansiveness (similar 
 to certain theological developments) comes to 
 mean patrician and grandee. Even the less ex- 
 acting of the Cabinet felt that Brougham had not 
 the qualities required for dealing with the delicate 
 questions that hourly arise between the Leader of 
 a House of Commons and his supporters. What 
 then could they do ? 
 
 Could they give him the Chancellorship ? 
 What ! In the face of the known facts that he 
 was a very moderately learned lawyer {in illo tem- 
 pore), that his practice lay not in the Court of 
 
224 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Equity, that his talent was essentially that of an 
 advocate, and in that of the inveighing rather 
 than the subtle kind. Could they place Harry 
 Brougham in the seat for ever venerable, while 
 jurisprudence shall be studied, by the wisdom and 
 learning of a Hardwlcke and Eldon ? There were 
 some lively hints about Erskine and " the apocry- 
 phal Vesey," and in short it was nearly agreed 
 amongst the Whig grandees that Brougham never 
 could be made Chancellor. 
 
 In the meanwhile, his motion for Reform was 
 staring them in the face, and time was pressing. 
 If he would consent to be Attorney-General, 
 happy, thrice happy would have been the Whig 
 Cabinet ; and accordingly they summoned up their 
 courage to offer Brougham the Attorney-General- 
 ship. If Brougham had the moral nature of 
 Romilly, Mackintosh or Horner, he would have 
 accepted the post of Attorney-General with the 
 sober joy of a practical philanthropist, and exulted 
 over the bills of indictment that he would file 
 without delay against those abuses that crumble 
 before an earnest official faster than from the 
 fierce but fickle popular voice. But mingled with 
 the many excellent qualities of Brougham, there 
 were an acquired spirit of political gladiatorship, of 
 thirst for personal pre-eminence, and of desire to 
 
THE CABINET OP 1831-2-3-4. 335 
 
 bound over the heads of rivals, who hated the 
 genius that scorned them. He felt that the Seals 
 were in his reach, and have at them he would, or 
 woe to the withholding Cabinet, whom he would 
 
 Enough. The Seals were given him. 
 
 The Tribune of the People was no more. The 
 bold assailant of power squeezed a Baron's little 
 coronet upon his brow. He fell up-stairs into 
 the Upper House. " Ah," said his aged mother, 
 who looked upon the world with the stoical spirit of 
 her kinsman, the historian of Scotland ; " ah ! he 
 was great as Henry Brougham, but as Lord 
 Brougham he'll be nothing to what he was." 
 
 Much of the tortuous conduct of Lord Brougham 
 in after years arose from his unnatural position. 
 He did not foresee how enfeebled he must be in 
 an assembly impatient of long speeches, despising 
 the prolix arts of forensic eloquence, and pre- 
 ferring to converse rather than to harangue about 
 public affairs. But the pleasure of promotion over 
 Sir James Scarlett and his other competitors at 
 the Bar, and the gratification of sitting upon the 
 Woolsack in the presence of the astounded Lord 
 Eldon, who for five and twenty years had occu- 
 pied it, were irresistible motives. It would have 
 been only a man of severe virtue and rigid self- 
 denial, that could have resisted the motives urging 
 
 VO];. I. Q 
 
226 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 on the eloquent Member for Yorkshire to seize the 
 seals of the Chancellorship. 
 
 The Tory portion of the community were 
 amazed at the announcement of Brougham be- 
 coming Chancellor. The matter had been can- 
 vassed for some days before the Whigs reluctantly 
 consented to choose him for their Chancellor. On 
 the 17th of November, while still in the Lower 
 House, Mr. Brougham emphatically and signifi- 
 cantly stated " that he had no connection with the 
 existing Ministers whatever," and speaking on an 
 Election Petition, " surely," he cried, " we can get 
 on as well without them." Various were the 
 stories told of the coarse contumely with which he 
 had treated the offer of the Attorney-Generalship. 
 He was spoken of in after times by one whose 
 sarcasm was almost as fierce, and far more flash- 
 ing than his own, as " the identical individual who 
 took the offer of the Attorney-Generalship, and 
 held it up to the scorn of the assembled Commons 
 of England, and tore it, and trampled upon it, 
 and spat upon it in their sympathising sight."* 
 
 * See the epistle to Lord Brougham in the " Letters 
 of Runnymede," (Macrone, 1836). The burst of intem- 
 perate scorn alluded to in the text, took place in the lobby 
 of the House of Commons. 
 
THE CABINET 01? 1831-2-3-4. 227 
 
 Oa the •23rd of the month, after Lord Brougham 
 had taken his seat on the Woolsack, Mr. Spring 
 Rice, the Secretary to the Treasury, moved that 
 a new writ should issue for Yorkshire, and there- 
 upon rose a debate which in its rancorous 
 virulence, and intemperate personality, was only a 
 forerunner of still more stormy scenes. The 
 subject of it was too tempting a theme for Oppo- 
 sition to forego — the inconsistency of Lord 
 Brougham in taking the Chancellorship. 
 
 Seated on the bench, usually occupied by the 
 late Member for Yorkshire, was a politician of a 
 very different stamp, the ex-Secretary of the 
 Admiralty, Mr. Wilson Croker. Little did 
 either his political friends or foes foresee the 
 brilliant talent for debate that in the two next 
 years were exhibited by one who, while on the 
 Ministerial Benches, had never risen to the level of 
 his abilities. Hitherto Mr. Croker had been looked 
 upon only as one of the subalterns of the Tory 
 party, and not fitted to play a leading part before 
 the world. Receiving few advantages from birth 
 or fortune, he had employed his pen rather than 
 his tongue to distinguish himself in the world. 
 At the University of Dublin his satires and highly 
 spiced criticism, peppered with galling personalities, 
 had attracted special notice to him, and a brilliant 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 essay, in which the style of Tacitus was imitated 
 with curious felicity obtained deserved applause for 
 its ingenuity and philosophical acumen. From being 
 one of the barristers on the Munster Circuit, then 
 being thronged with a host of versatile and witty 
 advocates of the old school of the Irish Bar, he 
 was suddenly elected a Member of Parliament. 
 The " Edinburgh Review " was in those days 
 swaying opinion with great power, and Mr. 
 Croker's pen in the newly started " Quarterly 
 Review," was a formidable addition to that of the 
 scourging censors who then delighted from behind 
 a screen to hack and lacerate reputations with a 
 malignant severity, of which "Junius " had set 
 the example in style. The poison which was 
 then infused into periodical criticism, tarnished the 
 lustre of English literature, and left foul stains 
 on the memory of the critical bravos who had 
 invented the stiletto style, and used it with 
 ferocity even against persons of the gentler sex. 
 " No one could lash a woman like Rigby," 
 wrote Mr. Disraeli in his picture of a pseudo- 
 reviewer. But those were times when the daily 
 and weekly journals did not occupy the rank in 
 literature which they since have gained, and when 
 the secret despots who ruled opinion, fell into 
 the usual vices of absolutism and irresponsibility. 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 229 
 
 In his attacks on the witnesses in the Duke of 
 York's case, Mr. Croker had shewn the coolness 
 and power ot" cutting dissection of character, on 
 which the practitioners at the Irish Bar prided 
 themselves. Rewarded with the Secretaryship of 
 the Admiralty, he made some clever speeches 
 on the Catholic Question, but he did not put 
 himself prominently foward, while the Tories had 
 Castlereagh, Canning, Peel, and Copley to vindicate 
 their interests. But Opposition was the element 
 in which his natural spirit and acquired powers 
 would come to their full growth, and during the 
 next two years he shone forth a masterly debater, 
 fluent in statement, fierce in attack, and ready 
 in reply. 
 
 The conduct of Brougham upon the Chancellor- 
 ship, was just one of those subjects calculated to 
 excite him. He reminded the House of the 
 emphatic statements which the public prints had 
 attributed to the late member for Yorkshire, and 
 even to what had been said in the House of 
 Commons about his intention of not being con- 
 nected with the new Ministry. He commented 
 in incriminatory style upon the vacillation of pur- 
 pose shown by the Lord Chancellor, and even 
 made it a question of public character. He dwelt 
 with much force on the vast importance of character 
 
230 CHIEFS OF PAETIES. 
 
 to public men, and argued that if words had any 
 meaning, the Chancellor had committed himself 
 to a line of policy completely inconsistent with his 
 present conduct. Alluding to having been a 
 witness of Lord Brougham's eagerness in taking 
 his seat upon the Woolsack, " in that high, and 
 splendid character — I had almost said domino, 
 that he was to appear," he insinuated clearly that 
 Lord Brougham was but a political masque- 
 rader, and then produced the paragraphs of 
 various journals as auxiliary evidence to shew that 
 Brougham had vacillated in his course. 
 
 This subject was intensely personal, and ot 
 more importance to the character of the new Lord 
 Chancellor, than to the Cabinet or the country. 
 Mr. Croker was caustic and damaging, and left a 
 sting behind. Old members of the House looked 
 on it as a Roland for an Oliver, and recalled the 
 censorious manner in which Mr. Brougham had 
 commented upon an item in the estimates upon 
 the increase of Mr. Croker's salary to a war 
 allowance, on account of the Expedition to Algiers. 
 They recollected the way in which Mr. Brougham 
 had asked " is it because Mr. Croker is a poor 
 man, that the country is to be saddled with an 
 augmented salary ?" They remembered the tone 
 of voice and the iteration with which a poor man 
 
THK CABINET OF 183] -2-3-4. 231 
 
 nad been harped upon, a phrase offensive enough 
 in the senate of a country, when according to a 
 shrewd observer (Sydney Smith) " poverty is 
 infamous." 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh, a man with many of 
 the qualities of a political sage, and none of those 
 of a political prize fighter, endeavoured to parry 
 the hard hitting, and ward off the blows of Mr. 
 Croker. He replied by an elaborate panegyric 
 upon the splendid powers and services of the Lord 
 Chancellor. Mackintosh was a man from whom, 
 it was said, the gall bladder had been omitted by 
 nature, and on the present occasion he expressed 
 his belief in the purity and honourable purpose of 
 Mr. Croker, denying that he was authorised in 
 interfering between the Crown and its advisers, 
 and hinting some doubts as to whether the late 
 member for Yorkshire had been rightly understood. 
 But these doubts were immediately removed by 
 Lord F. L. Gower, (Earl of EUesmere) declaring 
 that twice over with his own ears, he had heard 
 the Lord Chancellor say that he should not be 
 connected with the new Ministry. Thereupon 
 Lord Morpeth (Earl of Carlisle) contended that 
 even admitting the facts stated by Lord F. L. 
 Gower, the conduct of the new Lord Chancellor 
 had not been in any wise as inconsistent as that 
 
232 . CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 of the Duke of Wellington, who had made a 
 statement even to the effect that " he should be 
 mad if he were to accept the office of a Prime 
 Minister." This taunt exploded with crushing 
 effect upon the Opposition, and Sir Henry Hard- 
 inge was extremely angered, and jumping up made 
 a hot and hasty atack upon Lord Morpeth, and 
 in his generous warmth for an absent and idolised 
 friend, he transgressed the rules of order, and was 
 obliged to retract some harsh language which in 
 an excited moment fell from his lips. The grace 
 with which he made his retractation marked the 
 man of chivalry and high spirit. Up to this time, 
 the debate had been quite warm enough, and 
 persons noted for suavity had shewn themselves, 
 on either side, to be capable of much severity in a 
 personal matter. Then rose a young member of 
 the House, not to cast oil upon the troubled 
 waters, but rather to increase the ferment. This 
 was Mr. Macaulay, member for the borough of 
 Calne in Wiltshire, introduced to pubhc life 
 under the auspices of Lord Lansdowne. 
 
 At that time, his name was well known as the 
 most picturesque of essayists, and brilliant of re- 
 viewers, and the literary world looked for famous 
 works from a pen exhibiting a rare union of elo- 
 quence with ease, and a junction of fancy and ar- 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 233 
 
 gument rarely found together. The reputation of 
 his speeches at the Cambridge Union Club had 
 preceded him into Parliament, and the Whigs 
 counted on him as one of those who would sustain 
 their cause with triumphant talent. He felt to- 
 wards the new Lord Chancellor, the admiration of 
 a partisan Whig, and of a kindred genius, and 
 seeing before him Mr. Croker, a Quarterly Re- 
 viewer, Mr. Macaulay eagerly rushed into the fray. 
 
 Alluding to the splendid talents which Mr. 
 Brougham had shown when in the House, he 
 made a comparison between his talents and those of 
 the member (Mr. Croker), now sitting in the place 
 vacated by Mr. Brougham. 
 
 The proverbial saying about comparisons was, 
 of course, thought of, but thinking he had not cast 
 sufBcient odium upon Mr. Croker, he proceeded to 
 say " that gentlemen who had attacked the ab- 
 sent Lord Chancellor, would have burned their 
 tongues before they would have ventured on doing 
 so, if that eminent personage were present to de- 
 fend himself." This taunt was felt to be so in- 
 sulting, that Mr. Macaulay was compelled by the 
 House to explain, in the .style that has since been 
 ludicrously painted by a great novelist. Mr. 
 Croker, however, would not allow it to be said 
 that he was afraid of Mr. Brougham, and he de- 
 
234 CHIEFS OF PAUTIES. 
 
 nied that he had ever shrank from encountering 
 him, adding that the warmest argument he ever 
 had with any man living, had been with that very 
 personage. The debate then terminated, Mr. 
 Croker taking care to have the last word. 
 
 This was a fitting prelude to the series of vehe- 
 ment and exciting discussions which, for the next 
 two years, occurred in Parliament. Some damage 
 was done to Lord Brougham's reputation, by at- 
 tention having thus been fixed on his inconstancy. 
 There were not wanting some who saw in his 
 conduct, only a continuation of the zigzag spirit 
 that had pervaded much of his career. They re- 
 called to mind in what a variety of lights he had 
 figured as a Reformer. They remembered his 
 many-sided aspects while he had been unable to 
 procure a seat in the House of Commons. His 
 coquetry with Major Cartwright's party was not 
 forgotten, nor his speech at the City of London 
 Tavern, corrected by himself for publication, in 
 which he said, " We have required that Parliament 
 should be chosen yearly, and that the elective func- 
 tion should be extended to all who pay taxes." 
 
 Harry Brougham, the Radical barrister, was not 
 forgotten by his old friends in Lord Brougham, 
 the Whig Chancellor. Others, however, said that 
 he had as good a right to change his opinions as 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 285 
 
 any one else, and that the very best person to re- 
 fute his old argureients for Radicalisai, would be a 
 convert to more constitutional principles, and these 
 latter persons recollected that in 1817, Mr. 
 Brougham avowed a change of opinion, and had 
 talked of certain Radicals as persons with " big 
 blunders and little nostrunas." Nor did others, 
 however, forget how, upon this latter occasion of 
 his sneering speech. Lord Cochrane had reminded 
 the recanting Radical of 1817 of his former 
 opinions, and how he had even flourished before him 
 the speech of 1814. 
 
 But whatever may be thought of the propriety 
 of the motives which animated Henry Brougham 
 in grasping at the highest legal office, neai'ly all 
 men were agreed that his protracted " Decline and 
 Fall " dates from the hour of his being gazetted as 
 Chancellor. The glare of strong light cast upon 
 him by lofty official pre-eminence painfully re- 
 vealed many imperfections which had escaped 
 notice under the shade of Opposition. 
 
 Upon the whole, the three leading parts of the 
 new Ministry were filled up in a manner calculated 
 to command opinion. Whether Lord Althorpe 
 was peculiarly fit for the office of Chancellor of the 
 . Exchequer, was doubtful, and there were many of 
 the Reformers would have been glad to have seen 
 
236 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 either Sir Henry Parnell, or Mr. Poulett Thomson 
 — both conversant with Political Economy and apt 
 at statistics — appointed to the Exchequer. But 
 Mr. Thomson had not sufficient weight, and Sir 
 Henry Parnell was too sweeping in his views of 
 Financial Reform. 
 
 To the followers of Mr. Canning, who were in- 
 clined to support Reform, there were assigned a 
 large number of important Cabinet offices. To 
 have placed in the Foreign Office a Minister 
 without political experience, would have been in- 
 jurious to the public interests, and Lord Palmer- 
 ston had many qualities which were likely to make 
 him fill the Foreign Department with energy. 
 Popular with both sides of the House of Com- 
 mons, firm without sternness, and with a temper 
 not easily ruffled, he could alternately conciliate 
 or command, as exigencies would require. With 
 all the secondary qualities of long experience, he had 
 also some of the main leading qualities for power. 
 From his Edinburgh education, and from the 
 lessons of Dugald Stewart, he had acquired a cer- 
 tain largeness of thought, making him look be- 
 yond precedents on the official file, and enablijig 
 him to understand those broad social impulses 
 which burst out of traditional routine. He was 
 as fluent in all the cant of diplomacy as if he had 
 
THE CABIlSrET OF 1831-2-3-4. 237 
 
 lisped it from liis cradle, and as a debater, he 
 could sail near the wind without committing him- 
 self to any decided tack, like one who had been 
 bred in the old Pittite school. 
 
 He had been all his life in politics, and yet had 
 been connected with Cabinets that were always in a 
 state of transition. With the Ministries of the 
 Duke of Portland, Mr. Perceval, the Earl of Liver- 
 pool, Mr. Canning, Lord Goderich, and the Duke 
 of Wellington, he had been associated, and his 
 official aptitude was undoubted. He had as 
 much liveliness of fancy as is required for deco- 
 rating a Parliamentary speech, could sparkle with 
 vivacity in a style that scintillated, but never 
 flashed with the fire of genius, and he was conversant 
 with all the arts of compilation and selection neces- 
 sary for manufacturing successful addresses. 
 
 Then his fine presence, his high animal spirits, 
 and cordial affability with the manliness of his 
 frank bearing, excellently sustained his talents for 
 politics. The wear and tear of public life, am- 
 bition with its disappointments and embitterments 
 never soured him into moroseness, or pinched him 
 into a thing of formula, like a mere hardened 
 hunter after power. His ideas on most subjects were 
 those of a conventionalist, his thinking was never 
 original, but he could spice his commoii-places 
 
238 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 with so much piquancy, and dress up parliamen- 
 tary platitudes with so much sounding rhetoric, 
 and then rattle off his concerted pieces in such 
 swashing spirit, that he would almost deceive a 
 careless observer into the idea that he was a genius, 
 and not merely a man of many striking qualities, 
 carefully trained in a life of great experience. 
 
 The Home Secretaryship was given to Lord 
 Melbourne, whose talents were not then so well 
 known to the public as in after times. He also 
 had the advantages of some official experience — 
 and he could take either large or close views of 
 affairs. Apparently a dandy, he was at bottom 
 a man of povyerful intellect^ w'ith the philosophical 
 power of looking serenely at life and its phantasms, 
 that belongs only to minds endowed with some 
 of the elements of genius. Commencing life as 
 a younger son, he had trained himself for the Bar, 
 but being relieved from the necessity of professional 
 exertion, he had found in politics a cause of mental 
 excitement. A slight nervousness of manner, 
 and want of facile utterance marred his effect in 
 the delivery of speeches — racy in language, vigorous 
 in matter, and pertinent with sound reason. A 
 certain sauntering air — an assumption of an easy 
 lackadaisical manner — gave the superficial people 
 who approached him the idea that he was a 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 239 
 
 clever fribble. He was one of those aristocrats 
 who are ashamed at betraying their emotions, 
 and who disguise their earnestness, torturing na- 
 ture to make themselves look Hke the fashionable 
 frigidities of their order. His after career in 
 politics was dashed with many pleasures, and 
 much pain, and it was from his heart he uttered 
 the melancholy repetition of the saying of Presi- 
 dent Jefferson, " that in this world the power of 
 falsehood is an overmatch for that of truth." But 
 time rights many a wrong verdict — only ignorance 
 or malignity could assail the memory of a man, 
 whom the public eulogy of Arthur, Duke of Wel- 
 lington, and the affectionate gratitude of Victoria, 
 Queen of England, have stamped with the 
 noble fame of having been the political educator 
 of the worthiest of English Sovereigns. 
 
 The Colonial Office has for a long succession of 
 time been worse tilled than any other department 
 of the State. In no other office has there been so 
 much political esotericism — so little publicity let 
 in upon its workings, and so much governing 
 by concealed subordinates, who are at once removed 
 « from direct public censure, when their deeds are 
 evil, and whose acts if good, are always appropriated 
 by the Secretary as his own. The centre of the 
 whole Imperial system is placed in the Colonial 
 
240 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Office; and where there ought to be the coolest 
 head, the strongest nerves, and the soundest 
 sense, the Home and Colonial public have been 
 served with feebleness, outraged with harshness, 
 and affronted with acerbity. 
 
 Lord Grey assigned the Colonies to the care of 
 Viscount Goderich, who had previously twice failed 
 in high offices of State, and whose chief want 
 was deficiency to that hardy ascendency of spirit 
 that can master not facts, but men. Mr. Charles 
 Grant was made President of the Board of Con- 
 trol. With a mind of singular elegance, pure 
 character, and elevated tastes, he excelled in that 
 florid style of eloquence of which Canning had 
 been such a master. But Mr. Grant was no- 
 toriously deficient in energy, and his nature was 
 endowed with the sesthetic rather than the active 
 faculties. He had not a talent for things, or a 
 power of dealing with men, and he was unsuited 
 for the struggle of politics. Lord Carhsle as the 
 son of an active Whig, and as being the head 
 of the Protestant Howards received a seat in the 
 Cabinet. So also did Lord Holland — a specimen 
 of a class of Whig now nearly defunct. Fond of 
 carping at all estabhshed things, sneering at 
 Monarchy with all the zest of a speculative Re- 
 publican — covetous of plebeian applause, looking 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 241 
 
 only to one side in the contests between power 
 and the populace, and drawing largely on the 
 old memories of his party — Lord Holland possessed 
 a political reputation far beyond his deserts. He 
 had not the least capacity for affairs ; with all the 
 advantages of leisure and opulence he repeatedly 
 engaged in literary work, and achieved only the 
 reputation of a second-rate translator. Bred up 
 in the loose morals of the Foxite Whigs, his 
 irreligion had some excuses in the defects of his 
 education, and the example of his famous uncle. 
 To. his party, his excellent dinner-table was of 
 more use than his tongue or his pen, for though 
 a third-rate statesman he was a first-rate host, and 
 his periodical assembling of a literary coterie at 
 Holland House, where the wits and writers of 
 the Whigs could have intercourse on tolerably 
 familiar terms with the leaders of the party, was 
 most advantageous to the cause of the Whigs. 
 There the authors of the unacted drama, and 
 the rejected candidates for political power consoled 
 themselves by mutual flatteries and convivial 
 pleasures, and whatever they thought of the tenets 
 of their host on morals or politics, they had never 
 any scepticism- as to the excellence of his viands. 
 Holland House and Lord Holland were a power 
 in the Whig party, and their pens were set to 
 VOL. I. R 
 
343 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 work against Kings, Churches, Aristocracies, and 
 Tories. By a singular retribution, the grand 
 delusion of Holland House was to be exploded 
 by the pen — and that held by the fingers of the 
 noble lord himself. The posthumous publication 
 of his collection of scandalous anecdotes has settled 
 for ever the reputation of one who once ranked 
 high amongst public men. 
 
 The Marquis of Lansdowne was President of 
 the Council. He had been offered the Premiership, 
 but declined on account of his health. The son of 
 that vacillating and intriguing Peer, who quarrelled 
 with the Foxite Whigs, Lord Lansdowne, inherited 
 the fluency of his more ambitous, but not more 
 accomplished sire. He was one of those benig- 
 nant aristocrats who conciliate esteem to their order 
 by virtue and well directed talents. Courteous to 
 his opponents, he was steadily attached to his own 
 party, and steadfast to his principles. Of the 
 grandees of Whig aristocracy, he was decidedly 
 one of the most respected, and deservedly so. A 
 marked contrast to his amenity was to be seen in 
 the new Lord Privy Seal, the atrabilious Lord 
 Durham, a man of ardent temperament, and a 
 spirit rendered more choleric by a hereditary taint 
 of ill health from his long line of ancestors. As 
 Mr. Lambton, in the House of Commons, he had 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 243 
 
 been noted as the rich and resolute Radical, un- 
 sparing in his assaults on the Tory party. He 
 had neither fluency or effect as a speaker, but his 
 wealth, his ancient name, his determined bearing 
 and a certain manliness, though disfigured by the 
 nervousness of disease, gave hira great personal 
 power amongst the mass of the Reformers generally. 
 His talent was considerable, and of a practical 
 character, and if good health had been given to 
 him, he might have been of vast utility. His 
 fortunate marriage with the daughter of Earl Grey 
 brought him somewhat under the control of ex- 
 perience. Subject to paroxysms of spleen, his 
 character, private and public, was often foully 
 libelled. But there were noble qualities in Lord 
 Durham's nature. In downrightness and in 
 steadiness of personal friendship, he was worth a 
 score of the Holland House school of Whigs. 
 The devoted attachment of his beautiful wife, and 
 the love of many private friends were the best 
 refutations of the fierce attacks on his private 
 character. Amongst the whole aristocracy, there 
 was no man more sincerely attached to Reform 
 principles. His politics were not words or 
 phrases, but convictions ; for there was in his 
 nature much of that stern purpose that would not 
 have blenched from the roughest trials of the Long 
 
 K 2 
 
244 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Parliament. His principles were, doubtless, too 
 Radical for the age in which he lived, but while 
 there weye so many cold and timid Whigs insisting 
 that their party should , have the monopoly of 
 leadership, it was of advantage that a bold, hearty- 
 souled Radical should confront some of them in 
 the Cabinet face to face, and carry into the pur- 
 lieus of Downing Street the echoes of the voices 
 that came from the hives of industry in the 
 northern parts of the island. 
 
 Along with them was placed, as First Lord of 
 the Admiralty, a man who was destined on more 
 than one occasion in after times to influence the fate 
 of Parliamentary battles. This was Sir James 
 Graham, the representative of a minor branch of the 
 Grahams. At that time, his character had not deve- 
 loped itself fully. He was known chiefly as one who, 
 on theOpposition benches, could mass together facts 
 with as much industry as Hume and Warburton, 
 mould them into a system and state them in 
 rhetorical language with much of the causticity 
 of Tierney, but with far mere declamatory talent. 
 Not being born into the regular connection of the 
 "Whigs, it was rather wonderful that they admitted 
 him to their Cabinet, but his talents were even 
 then too marked to be passed over with neglect. 
 Very tall in person, with a handsome and intel- 
 
THE CABINET OF 1&31-2-3-4. t 245 
 
 lectual countenance, Sir James Graham possessed 
 great advantages for addressing an aristocratic 
 assembly. His manner, at first, was apparently so 
 mild that in commencing one of his elaborate 
 attacks, the hearer could scarcely conceive how 
 much hoarded ammunition was about to be ex- 
 ploded, with the certainty of doing dreadful 
 damage to his adversaries. When just about to 
 make a spring upon his political foe, there was 
 an air of drawing-room lassitude about the wily 
 descendant of the Graemes that reminded one of 
 his ancestors; sudden in attack, and almost as 
 merciless as sudden. Standing at the table in the 
 calm attitude of a May Fair fine gentleman, who 
 could have expected so much fierceness of nature 
 to dwell within that breast ? Yet so it was. In 
 his party combats there was much of the spirit of a 
 Borderer. His sarcasm was less savage, but 
 more subtle than Lord Brougham's, and he 
 could criticise an old friend or a recent enemy in a 
 a truly damning style of mellifluous irony, in 
 which it was difficult to determine whether the 
 graceful elocution with which bitter things were 
 said, or the polite air he preserved while tortur- 
 ing his wincing victim was most to be re- 
 marked. 
 
 When he chose to prepare himself, no one 
 
246 , CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 could compose a speech more artistically calculated 
 to produce effect upon a large audience of high- 
 bred gentlemen ; and as a mere elocutionist, few 
 approached his clear articulation, modulated voice, 
 and gracefully subdued tones, that never wearied 
 by monotony. He arranged his facts in consecu- 
 tive order, and decked them with the flowers of a 
 graceful rhetoric, that always gave one the idea 
 that the speaker was able to do more, if he but 
 chose. But these talents and qualifications were 
 marred by defects that detracted from his displays. 
 His enemies, and he had a host of them, said that 
 the good qualities of his heart were in the inverse 
 ratio to those of his head, and it was lamented 
 that the sincerity of his character did not equal 
 the strength of his intellect. Others again in- 
 sinuated that at bottom there was an unsoundness 
 in his general ideas, a laxity in his views of party 
 obligations, and a strong taint of recklessness in 
 his character. These latter took special pains in 
 dwelling upon his exercitations in Political Eco- 
 nomy under the pseudonym of " a Cumberland 
 Yeoman," in which he proposed to deal with the 
 National Debt according to Cobbett, and not to 
 Adam Smith. Some, however, made large 
 allowances for an active intellect endeavouring to 
 obtain strong and profound conclusions of duty, 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 247 
 
 and despising that cant of party whicli makes its 
 creatures the idolaters of obsolete systems, and the 
 slaves to factious habits, and augured well of the 
 future career of a statesman who kept his mind 
 open to conviction, and the teachings of free 
 political reasoning. 
 
 The aristocratic nature of the Cabinet was es- 
 pecially remarkable. England had not seen for 
 a long time a Ministry all of whose members, 
 save two, were of the nobility. It was recollected 
 that in the Wellington Cabinet the Leadership of 
 the House of Commons, the Secretaryship for the 
 Home Office, and other great departments, had 
 been filled with Commoners. The aristocratic 
 spirit of the Whig party was shown strongly in 
 these arrangements, and their anxiety to keep 
 power in the hands of the great families. There 
 was some wonder that Lord John Russell was not 
 made a member of the Cabinet, and many noted 
 what a swarm of Greys were quartered in subor- 
 dinate positions upon the public. The spirit that 
 dictated the aristocratic nature of the Ministerial 
 appointments was undoubtedly reprehensibly ex- 
 clusive. Nothing could show this more than the 
 treatment which the wise and virtuous Mackintosh 
 received at the hands of those upon whom he had 
 many claims. He was the sage of Constitutional 
 
248 
 
 CHIEFS OF XAKTIES. 
 
 Whiggism, supplying his party with the moral 
 philosophy of politics, giving them the aid of great 
 constitutional learning, profound thinking, and the 
 lustre of a brilliant reputation. Of the forty-eight 
 controversialists who had entered the lists against 
 Burke on the question of the French Revolution, 
 Mackintosh had been one of the three whose 
 writings exhibited any power of grappling with 
 his antagonist. At six-and-twenty, his " Vindlcise 
 Gallicce" placed him amongst the ablest writers of 
 his age, and won the brilliant compliment of 
 making Charles Fox desist from his Intention of 
 answering Burke's " Reflections." Too candid to 
 persevere in views of politics which the French 
 Republicans refuted by a disastrous chapter in the 
 history of mankind. Mackintosh modified his 
 Whiggism to a more practical and constitutional 
 tone. On his return 'from India in 18 1-2, Mr. 
 Perceval offered him a Commlsslonership and 
 seat in Parliament, and the chances of official 
 preferment, and he could have easily allied himself 
 with Canning, without a desertion of his main 
 opinions ; but he thought the Whigs were right 
 in their general views. He entered into Parliament 
 under their auspices, vindicated with the greatest 
 ability the foreign politics that they professed, and 
 after twenty years working In harness with them, 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 249 
 
 James Mackintosh was offered the identical Corn- 
 missionership that Mr. Perceval had proposed to 
 him at the beginning of his career ; and so little 
 of sentiment did the Whigs feel for the virtues 
 and wisdom of him whom Mr. Canning called in 
 1827 " the greatest ornament of the Whig party," 
 that a subordinate post in a pestiferous climate 
 was the reward vouchsafed to the son of Mack- 
 intosh. 
 
 Errors of the heart revolt, those of the head 
 often have to plead difficulties to excuse them. 
 If a Lord Holland — such a man as we now know 
 him to have been by his own pen, was made a 
 Cabinet Minister out of sentiment for the name 
 of Fox — some feeling of a generous character 
 might have been shown to the stainless mind, 
 the pure zeal, and the elevated character of 
 Mackintosh. It was said in excuse by the Whigs, 
 that Mackintosh was not a man of business. 
 He had at least as much energy as Mr. Grant 
 to whom the Colonies were assigned, and Mr. 
 Canning had wished that Sir James Mackintosh 
 should be one of the four Whigs who should join 
 the Cabinet. In the treatment of the men of 
 mere intellect and mere learning connected with 
 their party, the Whigs have shown a disposition 
 to use them as tools, never as aUies. The Tories 
 
250 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 have often acted more practically, on the principle 
 of la carriere ouverte aux talens. 
 
 A party for fifty years out of office could not 
 at once have had much administrative ability. 
 The official difficulties surrounding the new Cabinet 
 were greater than might have been supposed ; and 
 it was fortunate for it that some of its members, 
 like Lords Melbourne and Palmerston, had been 
 accustomed to office. The Whigs had scarcely got 
 rid of the difficulty raised by Brougham about the 
 Chancellorship, when they were in a dilemma of a 
 similar character about the Irish democratic chiefs. 
 
 O'Connell was a man of that energy, versatility, 
 and habitual violence, whose attacks were to be 
 feared, and of that dangerous reputation, whose 
 intimate support was to be avoided. He was in 
 English politics equally formidable as friend or 
 foe. In the first capacity, the new Cabinet thought 
 he would be an injury to them, and in the latter, 
 that he would be a constant torment. At that 
 time, his character in England stood lower than 
 either before or subsequently. He had vihfied the 
 late Irish Secretary, Sir Henry Hardinge, and he 
 had scandalously shuffled when called to account. 
 He had denounced the Irish Solicitor-General, 
 and he had, after vainly trying to avoid a contest 
 with him, been subjected by that official to a 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 251 
 
 lacerating piece of eloquence, that made the nanae 
 of Doherty detestable to the demagogues. He 
 had, in the opinion of many statesmen, violated 
 the promises of a life, and disappointed the ex- 
 pectation of an Empire, by replunging Ireland into 
 agitation. The closing wounds of his bleeding 
 country, he had torn open, and by the Repeal 
 delusion, he smote the hapless country with fresh 
 agony. The fortune given him by all classes he 
 had squandered, and he demanded an annual 
 tribute, equal to the combined salaries of the 
 the Chancellor and Chief Justice of Ireland. 
 He quarrelled with and assailed every public man 
 who would not truckle to him, attacking allies and 
 adversaries, deriding and denouncing as he pleased 
 Lord Cloncurry, and Shiel, and Lawless, and 
 Purcell O'Gorman, and Sharman Crawford, with 
 so much malignity of language and constancy of 
 vituperation, as if he had been labouring that the 
 picture of him drawn by the pen of scornful 
 genius in " Faction Unmasked,"* should be ac- 
 cepted as a true historical portrait. 
 
 Several of the leading members of the Whig 
 
 aristocracy, upon the entrance of O'Connell into 
 
 the House of Commons, had shunned his society. 
 
 In avoiding his acquaintance, they were only 
 
 * Fide Fagan's Life of O'Connell. 
 
252 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 following the example of some of the Cisalpine 
 Club, composed of English Catholic gentry, who 
 even proposed to exclude the demagogue from 
 their private social intercouse. It so happened 
 that Lord Grey entrusted the Irish arrangements 
 to his kinsman. Lord Duncannon, who for peculiar 
 reasons of a private character, had strong good- 
 will towards O'Connell, and who really wished 
 to serve the great Agitator. There were two 
 vacant Chief Judgeships to be given away, and 
 Lord Duncannon endeavoured that O'Connell 
 should receive official promotion from the Whigs. 
 O'Connell did all that he could to obtain the 
 Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas, vacated 
 by Lord Norbury. Had his wishes been granted, 
 his extinction in a Judgeship (supposing him to 
 have retained it) would have been an act of provi- 
 dential mercy, and saved Ireland from an age of 
 fearful agitation, and of discord reduced to system. 
 But there was a possiblity that after O'Connell 
 had for a couple of years gratified his pride by 
 being received as a judge of the land, he would 
 have pined for his old occupation of storm-raiser 
 to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and quitting 
 the Bench, he would have paraded his act of 
 resignation as a further sacrifice to his dearly- 
 beloved country. The Cabinet was not so far- 
 
THE CABINET OP 1831-2-3-4. 253 
 
 sighted as to have seen the probability of this 
 conduct. It declined having any connection with 
 O'Connell more from aristocratic distaste of his 
 demagogic manners, than from statesman-like 
 distrust of his purposes. Where, however, the 
 Cabinet committed a grievous error, was in 
 adopting no system of politics in Ireland calcu- 
 lated to shield them from the vindictive assaults 
 of the mighty demagogue whom they outraged 
 by neglect, and who had infinitely greater abihties 
 and resources than they supposed. 
 
 Lord Anglesey, a nobleman without the qualities 
 and resources of statesmanship, was sent to govern 
 Ireland. He had left Ireland, covered with 
 popularity on his previous dismissal by the 
 Duke of Wellington. He had many tine qua- 
 lities, but politics was not the branch of public 
 life in which he was well quahfied to shine. He 
 was accompanied by Mr. Stanley, the heir to the 
 proud Earldom of Derby, then in early life, with 
 a reputation for talent, which in the next two 
 years he was to raise to the highest point as an 
 orator. He was amply gifted by nature and 
 fortune with all those qualities that place their 
 possessor at the summit of political celebrity. 
 Endowed with signal abilities, sprung from ^an 
 illustrious ancestry, there was in the bearing of 
 
254 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Mr. Stanley, that which announced the presence 
 of great pretensions grandly supported. Upon 
 his form were stamped the signs of a proud and 
 lofty character, not to be roused into action by the 
 vulgar motives that sway common-place natures. 
 His features were strongly marked, and the face, 
 though impressed with a character partaking of 
 severity, was handsome, in the masculine style of 
 beauty. The outline of the countenance was bold 
 and Norman, but its general cast was Saxon and 
 reflective,'indicative of great depth and inwardness of 
 nature. Over this bold and sternly handsome face, 
 rose a round and massive skull, enclosing a large 
 cerebral development, and there was over the 
 whole man, in his square-built frame and closely- 
 knit form, an air of strength and activity of 
 mental and physical power, ruled by a high and 
 intrepid spirit, which at once assured a careful 
 observer of mankind, while it told to the most 
 indifferent spectator, that the young heir to the 
 long hne of Stanleys was well qualified to im- 
 personate their chivalry and pride. 
 
 Such were the Ministers who had to devise 
 and carry a Reform Bill for England. While the 
 various members of the Cabinet in 1830 were 
 entering upon their special official duties, it was 
 decided that a committee of three should be 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 255 
 
 appointed for arranging the details of the 
 proposed Reform scheme. Lord Durham was 
 nominated by Earl Grey, and the estimation in 
 which the talents of Sir James Graham were 
 held by his colleagues, is shown in the fact that 
 the Ministers were nearly unanimous in wishing 
 that he should be one of the Committee of Three. 
 The new Paymaster of the Forces — Lord John 
 Russell was the third selected. He was not then 
 in the Cabinet, but he headed the important 
 section of the Bedford Whigs, and he was burning 
 with ambition to signalise his name in the history 
 of his country. 
 
 . What the Ministers intended to do (unlike the 
 case of some Cabinets of more recent times (was 
 kept the most profound secret. The Whig whis- 
 perers at Brookes's told so many gwasi-authentic 
 special revelations that they got laughed at, and took 
 refuge in frankly avowed ignorance. For once the 
 quidnuncs were positive that they knew nothing. At 
 the Palace all was mysterious also, and the higher 
 circles of the Tory Aristocracy made light of the Mi- 
 nistry, and scoffed at its schemes, but little did they 
 know what a prodigious engine was in the factory 
 of Downing Street. The new scheme was announced 
 for the 1st of March, 1831, a memorable day in 
 modern history, and a deeply solemn lull came 
 
256 
 
 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 over the public mind, like the sudden hushing 
 that takes place in Nature before the outbreak of 
 the elements. 
 
 How the Whig chiefs conducted themselves 
 in the crisis which ensued ; how the Tory leaders 
 were first enraged, next panic stricken, and finally 
 vanquished ; how the nation heaved and swelled 
 with excitement; how trade was stopped, and 
 capital endangered ; how the solid middle classes 
 became seized as with a revolutionary phrenzy ; how 
 the working men of England marshalled in multi- 
 tudinous array; how the cry rose against the Church; 
 how Bristol was in flames, and a spirit of terrorism 
 prevailed far and wide ; how the House of Lords 
 was conquered and the Court overriden; how Arthur 
 Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, was mobbed in the 
 streets of London upon an 18th of June; how the 
 popular enthusiasm rose into a wild and unreflecting 
 ecstasy ; and how passionately the country shouted 
 for " The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the 
 Bill ;" these things, I say, cannot be dwelt upon 
 here, as I reserve myself for their treatment else- 
 where.* Let us here concentrate our attention on 
 the curious question that arises. " How came it that 
 in two years after 1832, there was so striking a 
 
 * In my " History of Great Public Questions since 
 the close of the American War." 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 257 
 
 reaction, and why was it that the Reform Ministers 
 lost the confidence of the country, and how came it 
 to pass that after a little time they failed in quieting 
 the Reform Movement, and after the success of 
 1831-2, why did the Whigs fall from political power 
 so rapidly, and the Tory party again rise in public 
 estimation?" These questions are in the present 
 time most worthy of examination in detail. 
 
 The composition of the Cabinet which I have 
 described, is a subject to which sufBcient attention 
 has never been given. It was in reahty a sort of 
 Coalition Ministry, and it is the nature of such 
 governments to break up with violence from their 
 own internal elements of discord. The Grey 
 Cabinet was more nominally than really VV^hig. 
 It contained old Whigs and new Whigs, High 
 Church and High Price-of-Corn-Politicians, Can- 
 ningites like Lord Goderich and Palmerston, an 
 anti-Cathohc hke the Duke of Richmond, an 
 extreme Radical like Lord Durham. In the 
 dissimilarity and uncongenial disposition of its 
 individual members there were repugnant materials, 
 and after the first crisis of Reform was passed 
 there was constant discord, and unpleasant 
 feelings at work amongst the Ministers, although 
 they were carefully concealed from the eyes and 
 ears of the public. 
 
 VOL. I. s 
 
258 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 The Reform cause and the administration 
 of the Liberal Party at large, in after years, suf- 
 fered grievously from the composition of that 
 Cabinet. 
 
 1. The Premier, Earl Grey, was not physically 
 equal to the responsibity of contending against 
 such vehement natures as a Brougham, a Palmers- 
 ton, a Durham, and a Graham, with their ex- 
 aggerated personal pretensions. Lord Grey was 
 fastidious in all things, and finical in some ; he 
 was weakly modish in many of his ideas on 
 politics. He was much of a rhetorical actor, and 
 not enough of a political administrator. His health 
 was impaired, and with advancing years he became 
 mentally timid, and physically tremulous. He folded 
 his robe gracefully around him, bore himself loftily, 
 and fancied that he was like Lord Chatham, forget- 
 ting that an hour of Chatham's dazzling and trium- 
 phant energy would have made Lord Brougham 
 behave himself with propriety, or take the conse- 
 quences. Lord Grey looked like a great man, but he 
 was not one. He founded no school in states- 
 manship; there was no creativeness in his brain, and 
 in economic questions his ideas were narrow and 
 antiquated. Amongst the secondary statesmen of 
 England his memory should be preserved, but the 
 flattery would be fatuous which would attempt to 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 259 
 
 classify his name with Walpole, Bolingbroke, the 
 Pitts, or Fox, or Burke. 
 
 2. Lord Brougham, during the Reform Cabinet, 
 played the part of a stunning browbeater. He 
 had dexterously frightened the Whig grandees 
 into making him their Chancellor, and he made 
 them feel almost as uncomfortable as if the mob 
 had been let into the Ministry, or as .if Downing 
 Street had been within ear-shot of a deafeninp- 
 and never stopping paper-mill. The English 
 aristocracy may be selfish in its aims, but it is 
 amply endowed with three qualities required for 
 political government, sagacity, courage, and man- 
 ners. The great public man should be an adept 
 in dealing with individuals ; but Lord Chancellor 
 Brougham forgot himself, and was oblivious of 
 the respect due to others. He, too, must be 
 added to the long list of historical celebrities who 
 grew giddy by sudden elevation. His colleagues 
 were his inferiors in versatile intellect, but they 
 had as much practical sagacity in managing men 
 as Brougham, and two of them — Lords Palmerston 
 and Durham had more personal courage than 
 ever the Mr. Brougham of Westminster Hall 
 pretended to, and all of them remembered how 
 rapidly, under the pressure of Sir Robert Peel, 
 he had swallowed every word of his invective about 
 
 s 2 
 
260 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 " fawning parasites." Lord Brougham wished to 
 be the man of the Reform Party, and his col- 
 leagues, some for personal, and others for pa- 
 triotic purposes, thought that there should be two 
 words to that. He supposed that whether his 
 colleagues liked or not, he might be the political 
 dictator of his time, and those colleagues with 
 dry irony, practically said to him by their acts, 
 " Try !" and he did try, and he failed, as they 
 sagaciously foresaw. Lord Brougham thought 
 that he could play as ruling a part as Lord 
 Chatham, who had broken the Whig confederacy, 
 and carried the Court and Commons with him, 
 but in Chatham there was much that was really 
 sublime, and he had pure inspirations of. pa- 
 triotism. 
 
 The Whig Grandees could much easier bear the 
 sway of a mighty original nature like Chatham, 
 with his moody, melancholy bursts of rage, his 
 oscillations of conduct, and his morbid excitability — 
 than suffer monthly, weekly, daily annoyance from 
 the hard, harsh, and incessant predominance of 
 a professional politician, with the grim gaze and 
 lacerating lips of a forensic browbeater. Besides, 
 as Lord Chancellor, Brougham had fallen in the 
 opinion of his Whig colleagues. They knew of 
 his affected independance on the Eve of the 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 261 
 
 Reform Era, and they saw how high place had 
 mollified the irascible tribune. They did not 
 think him more honest, and they knew him not 
 to be more courageous than themselves ; they saw 
 through him, and they treated him accordingly ; 
 and down he came in 1834, and great and most 
 exemplary was the fall of that overweeningly am- 
 bitious and vanity-stricken nature, which had 
 become utterly insatiable in its cormorant appetite 
 for praise, popularity, and power. 
 
 3. Another source of discord in the Cabinet 
 was the jealousy entertained by the Whigs of 
 those luke-warm Liberals and reluctant Reformers 
 of the last moment, like Lords Palmerston, Mel- 
 bourne, and Ripon who held such important 
 offices in the Cabinet. It was not forgotten 
 that Lord Palmerston had steadily clung to place 
 under the Duke of Portland and Mr. Perceval, 
 and under all the internal changes of the Liver- 
 pool Cabinet. The Whigs did not forget how 
 the gay Viscount joined Sir Robert Peel and Mr. 
 Wilson Croker in mocking at the Liberal Opposi- 
 tion in "The New Whig Guide," in the days 
 of the " Six Acts ;" and what was called " The 
 Peterloo Massacre," and that in the time when Wil- 
 berforce and Brougham appealed against the Slave 
 Trade, and while Ireland groaned under the Protest- 
 
262 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 ant Ascendancy, Lord Palmerston was a joyous and 
 mocking placeman, deriding the aims and eiforts 
 of the Whig Party. Forty-six years of age (after 
 being in office for twenty years) was a ripe 
 period for the noble Viscount to come forth as 
 a budding Whig. After being so long excluded 
 from Downing Street, the Whigs (or at least 
 some of them) thought that far too much power 
 had been allowed to Lord Palmerston, and Lord 
 Melbourne, and Lord Ripon. 
 
 4. The presence of Lord Durham in the Cab- 
 inet did not help to cement the Ministerial con- 
 nection. He had great pretensions, his wealth 
 was large, and from the circumstances of his pro- 
 perty, he had considerable influence in the North 
 of England where the tide of Liberalism was then 
 running with flowing force. Was it surprising 
 that a man so ardent and ambitious in nature, and 
 with an impetuous temper should not have 
 worked well in harness with the mettlesome team 
 to which he was yoked ? 
 
 5. Lord John Russell had not at first a seat in 
 the Grey Cabinet, but he was selected for the 
 conducting of the Reform Bill through the House, 
 of Commons, and he afterwards was placed in the 
 Ministry. And as his whole career has shown 
 there was not in that Ministry any one so perfectly 
 
THE CABINET OE 1831-2-3-4. 263 
 
 competent " to upset the political coach." Else- 
 where his striking career will be subjected to com- 
 ment. It is enough to say here, that Lord John 
 Russell was of no use in 1834 in keeping the 
 Reform Bill Whigs together. 
 
 6. Lastly, the extraordinary attitude held by Mr. 
 O'Connell, and the entirely unprecedented nature 
 of his influence which was composed of first class 
 forensic accomplishments, unrivalled experience as 
 a tribune, a special gift for organising and main- 
 taining agitation, and something of the half real, half 
 mystical romance of Celtic chieftaincy, completely 
 bewildered the Ministry of 1831-2-3-4. At first, 
 O'Connell had been thought a failure in the House 
 of Commons, but the moment that Parliament 
 heaved and became convulsed with the Reform 
 excitement, O'Connell's genius became manifested 
 with all its faults and all its wondrous faculty for 
 fascination. By one single effort he set up his 
 reputation in the House of Commons. His speech 
 in favour of the Reform Bill was broad, luminous, 
 and brilliantly effective, and was deservedly hailed 
 as a great success. His surprising gifts for public 
 speaking were in the next four years seen to their 
 full advantage. Lord Jeffrey has recorded his 
 amazement at his oratorical talents ; but the power 
 with which O'Connell mastered popular opinion in 
 
264 CHIEFS OP PARTIES. 
 
 Ireland, knocked down every platform but his own, 
 collected around him a Parliamentary party, 
 dazzled his followers, intimidated his enemies, 
 and alternately swayed, disturbed, and ruled 
 opinion was of a far higher kind than belongs to 
 mere oratorical genius. 
 
 If O'Connell had been opposed in Ireland by 
 any ordinary Chief Secretary of the common-place 
 type, it might have fared better, perhaps, with the 
 Reform Bill Whigs ; but Mr. Stanley (the Earl of 
 Derby) was gifted with a talent for readiness of 
 reply, equal to O'Connell's own, and he made it 
 matter of personal pride to show that an English- 
 man and an aristocrat would not yield in volu- 
 bility, and virulence, and poignancy of sarcasm to 
 any Irish agitator. The Chief Secretaryship of 
 Mr. Stanley was a prolonged gladiatorial encounter 
 with the Irish popular leader, and no one of the 
 present generation knows what ready debating 
 means, who did not witness the nightly encounters 
 between the Irish Minister and the Irish Agitator. 
 Theoratorical abilities displayed by Mr. Stanley were 
 truly admirable, but he neglected to conciliate opi- 
 nion. The Ministerial Party suffered heavily from his 
 long struggle with the Agitator, and it is probable 
 that if Mr. Stanley had never been sent to Ireland, 
 he would not have been compelled to sever himself 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 265 
 
 from the Reform Ministers. The fatal split of 
 1834 is chiefly to be attributed to the state of the 
 Irish difficulty, increased as it was by the unpar- 
 alleled personal conflict between the heir of the 
 house of Derby, and the mightiest tribune since 
 Mirabeau. 
 
 Much of these serious difficulties, let it be re- 
 membered, arose from the construction of the 
 Cabinet, and the waat of ruling command over its 
 diverse elements. Lord Grey as a Premier was 
 admired but not deferred to by his colleagues. 
 Lord Brougham was neither liked nor respected by 
 them, and his eccentricities were to the mass of the 
 public, almost as wonderful as his intractable 
 talents. Can it be cause for surprise that when 
 the Cabinet of 1831-2-3-4 could not govern itself, 
 that it could not govern the country ? It broke 
 up after having lost the friendship of its supporters 
 and the confidence of the public. It contained 
 splendid eloquence, considerable capacity for affairs, 
 vast wealth, patrician pretensions of the highest 
 order, and it appealed to historic sentiments and 
 to current passions ; but it was ruined for want of 
 a head to keep every body in his proper place. It 
 lay like a rudderless frigate in the Bay of Biscay, 
 the sport of the public storm, washed over by 
 every wave of opinion, until at last it foundered 
 
266 CHIEFS OF PAKTIES. 
 
 while its officers and crew were in a state of 
 mutiny. 
 
 But the Grey Cabinet, also, wanted that indis- 
 pensable necessity for the rulers of a Party, which 
 strives to hold opinion for a long time in England. 
 It had no able financier. Even in 1833, while 
 the Whigs had an immense majority in the House 
 of Commons, the " City" capitalists were often 
 pondering on what chance there was of having Sir 
 Robert Peel in power, and many of them, for 
 commercial reasons, ardently longed that he might 
 be wafted into office. The real political faith of 
 the Whigs was in the Whig Peers, and orators, 
 and brilliant essays, and dashing leading articles 
 written to order, and sounding their praises in the 
 public ear. They thought that their reign would 
 last for ever, and they never calculated that the 
 public would tire of oratorical turmoil. The reali- 
 ties of the financial system were not understood by 
 them, and they showed that they were entirely 
 ignorant of the fact, that leading statesmen in 
 England must pay as constant and close attention 
 to the Money Interest, as to the hazy political 
 Deity called Public Opinion. The Whigs since 
 the days of Walpole, never had a Financier, and the 
 Money Interest in modern times has a conviction 
 that, somehow or other, it is more thought about and 
 
THE CABINET OP 1831-2-3-4. 267 
 
 looked after better by a Tory than by a Whig 
 Party. 
 
 The masterly manner in which Peel, in 1835, 
 (during his first Ministry), expounded all the great 
 " city questions," contrasted brilliantly with the 
 uncertain mode in which Finance had been han- 
 dled by the Whig Ministers. It is plain that the 
 Whigs did not, unhke Pitt and Peel, understand 
 how the fears and hopes of the Money Interest 
 flash through the length and breadth of English 
 society, and rapidly pass into political convictions 
 which guide elettive power. Tiie Whigs had the 
 cry of the country in their favour, the progress of 
 events was also with them, and after King WiUiam 
 died, the Court was cordially on their side, and 
 yet they could not retain ofBce ! 
 
 In 1841, they fell from power through sheer 
 financial incapacity. They had allowed the pe- 
 cuniary interests of the country to fall out of order, 
 and by their feeble and clumsy attempts to put 
 the finances right, they reminded one of a bench 
 of carpenters trying to repair a time-piece. 
 
 Clamour and display formed much too large a 
 part of the resources upon which th«! Whig Party 
 relied. If they had paid more attention to steady 
 administration, and if real solid knowledge of the 
 substance of political science had been studied by 
 
268 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 them in preference to the system of lecturing de 
 omnibus rebus — in the flaunting style of which, 
 Lord Brougham and the Scotch-bred Whigs were 
 the great exemplars — their reign of power would 
 have been more firm. 
 
 When one recollects how many personal defects 
 there were in Sir Robert Peel, how often he wa- 
 vered, and how slow he was to perceive a great 
 truth, and how little of prescient sagacity there was 
 in his intensely practical mind, and how little hold 
 he had on the affections of his followers, and how 
 widely reprobated by popular classes were many of 
 his political associates ; I say, when one thinks of 
 these things, the enormous error of the Reform 
 Bill Whigs, in neglecting the Money Interest, and 
 thereby forcing the country, from the necessity of 
 the case, to fall again into the hands of the chief 
 of the Tories, does seem most censurable. The 
 Whigs knew the England of the public platform, but 
 they knew little of the England that stands behind 
 the counter, and thinks oftener of the Ledger than 
 of Magna Charta. The Whig rulers thought that 
 everything great and grand is to be done for the 
 sons of men by " cheers," " loud cheers," " waving 
 of handkerchiefs." They were infected, uncon- 
 sciously, with tribunitian vices, and their system 
 of government became tainted with the inherent 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 269 
 
 unsoundness that must come from the organization 
 of a platform, and the consequent disparagement 
 of the Grand Institutions of the Realm. 
 
 Can it, therefore, be matter of wonder that 
 seeing what the composition of the Cabinet of 
 1831-2-3-4 was, that the Reform Bill, produced by 
 a Coalition Cabinet christened as " Whig," should 
 have failed to give satisfaction ? In twenty years 
 afterwards, a great part of the work has to be done 
 all over again. But it is a greater reproach to the 
 maladroit statesmen, who mismanaged the affairs 
 of the Liberal Party, that they lost the confidence 
 and control of the Reform Movement, though cir- 
 cumstances were entirely in their favour, and 
 the Tory Party was under a dark shadow of grave 
 unpopularity. 
 
 A long arrear of social and administrative Re- 
 form is still due, and that must be adjourned over 
 till the electoral Constitution of the country is 
 settled, and until Parliament and the People have 
 decided whether the charm-bearing word of "pro- 
 gress" is to be interpreted in a French, or German, 
 or American, or English sense ? Are we to have 
 a British Constitution in the meaning in which 
 that great political entity has been understood by 
 the Parliamentary statesmen since the Revolution, 
 or is the working of our institutions to be adapted 
 
270 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 to a system of bureaucracy in politics, and theo- 
 cracy in religion, or again to a system by which 
 the multitude is to be armed with power of domi- 
 nation over the superior classes ? " National feel- 
 ing," said Canning, with perfect truth, " is prior 
 to and paramount over all desire of political ameli- 
 oration,"* and it is sincerely to be hoped that in 
 any fresh constitutional changes, the Legislature 
 will recollect what is due to the hereditary national 
 character of England, with its sober distrust of 
 extremes, and its sagacious appreciation of whole- 
 some compromise between opposite theories. 
 
 This chapter supplies abundant reasons for an 
 Englishman not liking to see his countrymen put- 
 ting a blind faith in any school or connection of 
 statesmen whatsoever. He may well be sceptical 
 of Doctors of the State in presence of the patent 
 fact, that the Whigs mismanaged the Reform 
 Movement almost as much as the Tories did the 
 Catholic Question. But though statesmen may 
 fail, and though the public speaker may mislead ; 
 though a House of Commons may be lured by 
 
 * In one of tis speeches during the early portion of 
 the Peninsular War, when he was replying to the yiews 
 of some (" French") Whigs in the House of Commons, 
 who contended that Napoleon would govern Spain hetter 
 than the Spaniards could of themselves. 
 
THE CABINET OF 1831-2-3-4. 271 
 
 faction, or misguided by heated ambition ; though 
 the selfishness of an oligarchy in one direction 
 and the clamour of a multitude in another strew 
 obstacles in the path of the Reformer ; in spite of 
 chicane, and intrigue, and interested passions, and 
 ignorant credulity, the great heart of England will 
 beat with calm vigour and brave confidence, for 
 its destiny is to be unshackled by the tyranny, 
 either of a despot or a system ; its People inherit 
 chartered franchises, won before the names of Whig 
 or Tory were invented, and they will not degenerate 
 from the examples of their free-born forefathers, 
 who established that Liberty of the Land for which 
 so many illustrious intellects have laboured, and so 
 many immortal patriots have died. 
 
272 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PEEL, OR THE GREAT AMBIGUITY. 
 
 At the western end of Cheapside stands the 
 colossal statue of Sir Robert Peel. Few, indeed, 
 amidst the roar of the unceasing multitude, can 
 stop to meditate on the countless thoughts sug- 
 gested by the figure of the Great Ambiguity of 
 our modern legislature. Yet none can deny that 
 the effigy of Peel is happily placed, looking 
 towards the Bank and the "City," with whose 
 secrets he was so profoundly familiar, and where 
 his name often acted like a talisman. He forbad 
 a public funeral in Westminster Abbey ; but I 
 never pass his statue without feeling something 
 of the solemnity of treading near an historical 
 grave. He was not suited by his character or his 
 powers for ruling over an aristocracy or a demo- 
 cracy ; but he had special fitness for guiding the 
 
PEEL, OR THE GREAT AMBIGUITY. 273 
 
 affairs of " a plutocracy ;" and nowhere could his 
 effigy be better placed, than where the merchant 
 princes day after day roll by intent on golden 
 enterprises, busy in schemes of conquering Gol- 
 condas for themselves. 
 
 Of the myriads that pass under his statue at 
 Cheapside, the overwhelming majority, if inter- 
 rogated, would pronounce in favour of Sir Robert 
 Peel. But if the selecter portion of the throng 
 were questioned, we should hear the praises 
 craftily qualified, and we might, perhaps, have to 
 listen to some severe strictures on his conduct. 
 It is not possible to deny that there are grave 
 grounds for doubting whether his public reputa- 
 tion will stand at its present exaggerated height 
 before the severe scrutiny of posterity. Assum- 
 ing that his actions are to be viewed in the most 
 favorable light, there still remains the fact that 
 Sir Robert Peel's policy deranged the working of 
 the legislature, destroyed English parties, created 
 none, and diminished faith in Parliament and 
 public men. Even if approval be given to his 
 conduct in 1846, there is the previous question as 
 to his equivocal behaviour in 1829, not to speak 
 of several other strange chapters in his life, which 
 puzzled every body, and none more than himself, 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 ■ CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 if we believe the posthumous productions from 
 his own pen. 
 
 I have some special reasons for being more 
 familiar than most persons with the history and 
 public career of Sir Robert Peel. To me that 
 eminent person was often like a living enigma ; 
 and it is my firm conviction, until the whole of 
 his private life and his personal peculiarities be 
 painted out in Boswellian detail, that people will 
 be as far off as ever from understanding the com- 
 plexities of Sir Robert Peel's intricate and con- 
 tradictory character. Much light cannot be 
 thrown on his life by his " State Papers," on 
 questions which may be raised by reflective 
 minds. What was the Man himself? Was he 
 firm or wavering ? Had he heroic nature, or was 
 he only of that moral stature which may be found 
 in the front ranks of the professions ? Was he 
 as strong an Englishman as Sir Robert Walpole ? 
 Could he have, single-handed, ruled England for 
 seventeen years, like the younger Pitt ? These 
 are questions which raise the enquiry as to the 
 magnitude of his abilities. When those are 
 satisfactorily settled, there then remain the other 
 inquiries, as to whether his public conduct, from 
 first to last, was guided by moral principle, 
 and v\hether his personal example deserves to be 
 
PEEL, OR THE GREAT AMBIGUITY. 275 
 
 held up to the admiration of mankind ? T fear 
 that, until the oldest of my readers are no mor e 
 politicians will find that there are two sides to the 
 whole suhject of " Peel," and that the immortality 
 in history of the great Parliamentary leader will be 
 best seen in the eternity of the debate on his 
 demerits or deserts. Panegyric and invective 
 have not even yet wreaked their worst on the fame 
 of that most memorable personage. 
 
 For my own part, I cannot contemplate his 
 personal story without feeling some emotion. I 
 shall, however, take an opportunity of drawing 
 from my own resources a portrait of Peel, and 
 describing faithfully the general impression left on 
 my memory by the hfe and deeds, the shortcom- 
 ings and the successes of a man, on whom whole- 
 sale eulogy or censure could never be given by 
 either a patriot or a philosopher. 
 
 To intellectual powers, wide in their range, 
 though neither original nor profound, Sir Robert 
 Peel united an untiring industry, which was the 
 faithful servitor of an equally indefatigable ambi- 
 tion. " Bob — you dog ! . I'll disinherit you if 
 you do not some day become prime minister," was 
 the saying of his sire ; and, from first to last, Peel 
 always worked for double honours — in Science 
 and Classics at Oxford — for Power and Fame in 
 
 T 2 
 
376 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 the Senate. He came from the University at a 
 period when the House of Commons swarmed 
 with young men of promise, many of whom 
 were afterwards his rivals in the race. Politicians then 
 remembered the extraordinary spectacle of the boy- 
 premier in 1784, who overthrew the coalition, 
 and senators of old experience talked of the 
 splendid dawn of Fox's manhood. Canning 
 still nobly sustained the great traditions of the 
 House of Commons ; and occasionally, flashes of 
 extraordinary splendour came from Grattan, 
 though in decay — and from Sheridan, though in 
 ruin. 
 
 Amongst the clever young men of that day, 
 Peel stood conspicuous. Few now living recollect 
 his personal appearance ; and in my own obser- 
 vation of life I never saw any man upon whom 
 each seven years so distinctly laid a marked im- 
 press as on Sir Robert Peel. In 1810 his figure 
 was lean and lathy, and he presented an appearance 
 as if he were not built to last. His complexion 
 was extremely florid, and his hair exceedingly 
 yellow, while his cheeks had the sunken impress 
 that marks a student. His shoulders were 
 slio-htly stooped to the true official curve, and he 
 walked with a loose and uncertain gait. In those 
 days his whole appearance was so peculiar, the 
 
PEEL, OR THE GREA.T AMBIGUITY. 277 
 
 strangers often looked at the young gentleman 
 walking down Parliament Street to the House of 
 Commons. Nor can it be denied that young 
 Peel had many qualities to awaken much interest. 
 When he spoke in Parliament, his fluency, his 
 shrewd common-sense, and the well-acted modesty 
 of his demeanour, were calculated to bias power- 
 fully. William Lambe (afterwards Lord Mel- 
 bourne) had much refined sense and philosophy, 
 but as a speaker he stammered awkwardly. Lord 
 Palmerston was in those days a lively joyous 
 young nobleman, who troubled himself little about 
 politics except to keep his place, which might 
 serve for official training. John William Ward 
 (afterwards Lord Dudley) spoke brilliant essays with 
 icy wit and frigid fancy, his ideas smelling of the 
 lamp. Frederick Robinson (the late Earl of 
 Ripon), was tame, decorous, and eminently respect- 
 able. But young Peel was plausible, smooth, and 
 industrious. There was a practical look about 
 him calculated to attract a prosaic assembly like the 
 House of Commons. He had no flights of fancy, 
 no poetical apostrophes ; but he had an unvarying 
 stream of harmonious common sense, which was 
 eminently effective upon the senate. His elocu- 
 tionary artifices were above the average of speakers. 
 He was never grand, but he was very seldom 
 
278 CHIEFS OP PARTIES. 
 
 theatrical; and, although he was often artificial, 
 he was never modish or finical; his voice was 
 lute-like and pleasing, while occasionally it 
 was resonant, and swelled to masculine into- 
 nations. His face was comely in its features, 
 though ordinary in its expression ; yet it was 
 redeemed from the commonplace by the ra- 
 diant expression which lightened over his brow, 
 and which sometimes, though at rare intervals, 
 imparted to his aspect something of the fire of 
 genius. 
 
 From the time when (1812) Peel was made 
 Chief Secretary of Ireland, his career might be 
 considered in three parts. I. From 1812, when 
 he went over to Dublin Castle under the Duke 
 of Richmond as Viceroy, and committed himself 
 to the Protestant side of what was called " The 
 Catholic Question," down to the passing of the 
 Reform Bill. II. From the enactment of the 
 Reform Bill to 1841, when he became Premier. 
 III. His Premiership and final fall from power, 
 and his ascent or descent (for it is a matter of 
 opinion) to " popularity." 
 
 I. In the first of these periods, Peel was under- 
 going an apprenticeship to politics. The Irish 
 Secretaryship gave him a position in the House 
 of Commons ; and it is certain that Peel, like a 
 
PEEL, OR THE GEEAT AMBIGUITY. 279 
 
 new man, enjoyed it for a time, and took a pleasure 
 in having lords and dandies, and Irish commoners 
 of great pretensions dangling after him. In those 
 days, the Irish representation was different from 
 what it seems now. Men of noble birth, vast 
 estate, and patrician dignity figured in the Irish 
 interest ; and Peel, the rich manufacturer's son, 
 enjoyed* with the zest of novelty the personal 
 importance given to him by official connection 
 with Ireland. He improved the Irish police, and 
 he did much to invigorate the Executive ; on ques- 
 tions of detail and official practice in the Irish 
 offices he was prompt and practical. But he 
 showed no signs of genius. He did not discern 
 the inevitability of the concession of the " Catholic 
 claims ;" he was blind to the destiny assigned to 
 Ireland by William Pitt; he did not conceive 
 grandly of " The English Empire ;" and he failed 
 to perceive how necessary the bone and sinew of 
 Catholic and Gaelic population were to our main- 
 tenance of India, and the colonies wrested from 
 France in the Revolutionary War. 
 
 Nor can it be said, on this portion of his career, 
 that Peel went wrong from taking a religious view 
 of the "Catholic Question." The contrary is 
 exactly the case. Whatever there was of the 
 semblance of originality, or of healthy individual- 
 
280 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 ism, in his opposition to the " Catholic Claims," 
 was to be found in the strictly political and vul- 
 garly practical view taken by him of the scheme. 
 He never indulged in " Protestant heroics" on the 
 subject ; there was no religious rants in his 
 speeches ; he discussed the topic merely from a 
 committee man's point of observation. " Well, 
 suppose the thing done, how are you to toanage 
 the House of Commons ? The Church will next 
 be attacked. Forty Papal members will be in 
 Parliament. It will be the old question over 
 again." All that was very plausible, but it was 
 only partly true. Peel never saw the momentous 
 fact, that if there were dangers from concession in 
 time, there were greater perils from compulsory 
 surrender in the hour of intimidation and vacil- 
 lating counsels. He never divined that the British 
 Constitution was not made for the proscription of 
 large masses. He never, like Lord Chatham, rose to 
 a level with the philosophy of the Catholic Question. 
 When Philip, Regent of Orleans, inserted a 
 secret article in the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, 
 by which the House of Bourbon undertook to 
 abandon for ever the House of Stuart, Lord 
 Chatham at once said, " Now let the Roman 
 Catholics, on the fall of Jacobitism, be placed on 
 a level with the Protestant Dissenters of the 
 
PEEL, OR THE GREAT AMBIGUITY. 281 
 
 realm."* Peel, however, was neither "Protest- 
 ant" in a religious sense on the question, nor did 
 he afterwards become really " Liberal" upon it. 
 He waited upon the Providence of Events. Dila- 
 tory and desultory, he deferred action until too 
 late, and he built his opposition, not on strong 
 principles of moral justice, but on the sandy 
 ground of expediency. There are one class of 
 politicians, whose romantic and high-flown as- 
 pirations, and tumid speeches, render them im- 
 practicable by their unreality ; there are another 
 class who are pedantic, frigid, and formal — beings 
 of rigorous logic, and unready rhetoric — apt at in- 
 duction, inapt at effect. So, also, there are an- 
 other class of politicans, of whom Peel was a type, 
 with cameleon tempers, taking the colour of the 
 times, faint, impressible, and dangerously ductile. 
 These latter public characters turn from year to 
 year. They have no faith in principles; they 
 quail before facts ; and they do not know that 
 their own empirical mode of dealing with questions 
 of the highest moral importance, must actually 
 precipitate social " incidents," before which they 
 will abjectly surrender. 
 
 The conduct of this celebrated statesman on the 
 
 * That was the lirst distinct expression of opinion in 
 favour of " Catholic Emancipation." 
 
292 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Cabinet in 1825 whether a settlement of the 
 subject could be practically come to is admitted, 
 and nothing is more natural and likely than that 
 oral communications, from time to time in that 
 year, had frequently taken place between Lord 
 Liverpool and Mr. Peel. The question might 
 have been very naturally asked by Lord Liverpool, 
 " whether, in case the Ministry tried to settle the 
 Catholic Question upon securities being given, 
 would Mr. Peel make a personal stand upon it ?" 
 and Mr. Peel might, with perfect fairness, have 
 replied, either orally or by letter, that if in Lord 
 Liverpool's judgment, and with the approval of 
 the King, and the support of his anti-Catholic 
 colleagues, the time appeared to have come when 
 the Catholic Question should be arranged, though 
 he (Mr. Peel) could not alter his convictions about 
 the question, that still he would not make a per- 
 sonal stand or appeal to the Tory party in a sense 
 hostile to the Cabinet. Words to that effect, 
 either by letter or by lips, may have fallen from 
 Mr. Peel in 1825. Such words, however, would 
 have been quite different in their meaning from 
 that conveyed by the assertion that Mr. Peel took 
 the initiative, and of his own motion addressed a 
 
 view whicli I attempted to illustrate in detail in " Ireland 
 and its Eulers." 
 
PEEL, OR THE GREAT AMBIGUITY. 293 
 
 letter to Lord Liverpool, saying that the time had 
 come (1825) when the Catholic Question should 
 be settled. 
 
 But leaving the ground of conjecture, let us 
 come to solid facts, which cannot be disputed, and 
 there is an important circumstance which was 
 overlooked by Sir R. Peel in his defence in 1846, 
 though it told in his favour. After the attempt 
 to settle the question in 1825 had failed, the 
 Cabinet adjourned the consideration of the whole 
 question, and was content to take the opinion of 
 the country about it at the next general election. 
 In the following year, 1826, Parliament was dis- 
 solved, and great struggles were made between the 
 rival parties, and it was a memorable year in 
 electioneering annals. The result of that appeal, 
 as far as the Catholic Question was concerned, 
 was this — that the Catholics and pro-Catholics 
 lost in England, but gained in Ireland. For 
 the first time since the Union, there was a 
 majority of the Irish representatives returned 
 favourable to the Catholic side, with the heavy 
 counterbalance that in England the vogue of the 
 Cathohc cause had decidedly receded. 
 
 When, therefore, the question came for political 
 consideration on the death of Lord Liverpool, 
 under the circumstances of 1827 there is a strong 
 
294 CHIEFS OP PARTIES. 
 
 case to show, that from Mr. Peel's own point of 
 view the question abont concession was very dif- 
 ferent in 1827 from what it was in 1825. The 
 opinion of England appeared inclining to concur 
 upon it with Peel, and not with Canning. 
 
 On one occasion, while Mr. Disraeli was 
 playing the part of Junius on his legs, be 
 convulsed the House of Commons while Sir 
 Robert Peel winced under the torturing sarcasm. 
 " Honourable gentlemen think that the conduct of 
 the Right Honourable Baronet is not guided by 
 principle, and that it is extremely difficult to inter- 
 pret his speeches, or to understand his policy. I 
 differ from that view. To me it seems that no- 
 thing can be more plain, or less unreserved, or 
 more entirely straightforward than the Right 
 Hononourable Baronet in his public course." 
 (Looks of surprise from aU sides.) , " I say that 
 he has a perfectly frank mode of treating ques- 
 tions" (increased sxirprise). " I will give an 
 infallible mode of deciphering him, when he is in 
 his most tortuous mood of mind. If you want 
 to know how the right honourable gentleman will 
 ultimately act upon any distorted question in 
 pohtics, all you have to do is — (a long pause, 
 and amid a hushed expectation of the point the 
 accomplished political archer with serene irony of 
 
PEEL, OR THE GREAT AMBIGUITY. 285 
 
 countenance, launched his shaft) " to look to the 
 last state of the poll." 
 
 So it was in 1827. "The last state of the 
 poll" was favourable to Peel's view, and he, there- 
 fore, upon his own system of vulgar expediency, 
 had a case for resistance to the Premiership of 
 Canning. He might, with consistency, have said 
 he would abide by the opinion of the country, as 
 expressed at the hustings. 
 
 Then came on 1829, and whether Sir R. Peel 
 liked it or not, the Duke of Wellington had made 
 up his mind to carry the Catholic Question. The 
 Duke was far more deeply versed with foreign 
 politics than Sir R. Peel, and the Duke knew, by 
 his personal acquaintance with European Sovereigns 
 and their Ministers, that the Cathohc Question, in 
 1828-9 had become to the Court of St. James' 
 as critical a one as the Italian difficulty has become 
 to Austria in our days. Nor was the Duke un- 
 observant or uninformed about certain things done 
 in America. 
 
 So that, in 1829, the personal relation of Peel 
 to the Catholic Question was just what it had 
 been in 1825. It had in the first case been, " If 
 Lord Liverpool's Ministry concede the question, 
 shall T make a formal stand against it ?" Sub- 
 stitute the Duke of Wellington for Lord Liverpool 
 
296 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 and it was the same question over again. People 
 were extremely puzzled in 1829 by Sir R. Peel 
 saying in an undisputed passage of his speech, 
 " My opinions remain as before, but under the 
 peculiar circumstances of the case, I cannot make 
 a formal stand upon it, and oppose the settlement 
 of the question," and to show that this was no 
 new view of his taken up to meet a crisis, it seems 
 to me highly probable that Sir R. Peel actually 
 referred to some communication with Lord Liver- 
 pool in 1825, in which, upon an hypothetical 
 settlement upon securities, he had intimated that 
 he would make no opposition in 1825, if the 
 Liverpool Cabinet settled the question. 1 therefore 
 believe that upon the whole of this most involved 
 subject, the conclusions to be drawn may thus be 
 tabulated. 
 
 1 . That Sir Robert Peel had been sounded by 
 Lord Liverpool in 1825, as to whether, on an 
 hypothetical settlement of the Catholic Question, 
 he (Sir Robert Peel) would make a stand upon 
 the question, securities being given to the Protes- 
 tants. 
 
 2. That Sir Robert Peel had given a guarded 
 affirmative upon a problematical settlement of 
 the question, of which Lord Liverpool was to have 
 the Parliamentary conduct, but that Sir Robert 
 
PEEL, OR THE GREAT AMBIGUITr. 297 
 
 Peel had not of his own accord taken the initiative, 
 or spontaneously suggested to Lord Liverpool that 
 the subject should be settled. 
 
 3. That the aspects of the question had altered 
 between 1825 and 1827, in consequence of the 
 Anti-Catholics increasing their majority at the 
 General Election in that year. 
 
 4. That in 1829, he referred to this problema- 
 tical settlement as mooted by Lord Liverpool, in 
 order to prove that his views in 1829 were not 
 dissimilar from those which he had in 1827, but 
 that he omitted to state how seriously the ques- 
 tion had been affected by the General Election 
 0/1826. 
 
 5. That Mr. Barrow reported the substance of 
 this reference to the conditional settlement of the 
 question mooted in 1825, but that Sir Robert 
 Peel failed to make plain the distinction between 
 a statement as to how he would have acted if Lord 
 Liverpool had made a settlement in 1825, and 
 |)etween an original proposition by Mr. Peel that 
 the subject should be settled. 
 
 6. That Sir Edward KnatchbuU heard the re- 
 ference so made by Sir Robert Peel, and that he 
 interpreted it in the latter, and not the former 
 sense, and grounded his remarks upon it. 
 
 7. That Mr. Barrow accurately reported the 
 
298 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 words of Sir Edward Knatchbull, and that 
 any error (if any) in Mr. Barrow's report of Sir 
 Robert Peel's speech, arose from the in- 
 completeness of Sir Robert Peel in stating the 
 mode in which the communication was made 
 to Lord Liverpool in 1825, and the degree to 
 which it went. 
 
 There then remains only one question, " Why 
 did not Sir Robert Peel take notice of the speech 
 of Sir Edward Knatchbull, and correct it at once, 
 and why did he not, also, notice the misstatement 
 of the Edinburgh Review ?" 
 
 The answer to these questions is this : that the 
 imputed apostacy of Sir Robert Peel to his Pro- 
 testant politics in 1829 was held in such odium 
 by his former supporters, that he did not care 
 what secondary insinuations of treachery and poli- 
 tical perfidy were made against him. The High 
 Tory Party placed the best political writers of the 
 day upon their various organs, for the purpose of 
 blackening and blasting the character of Peel. He 
 was denounced as " Judas," " renegade," " infa- 
 mous apostate," " execrable traitor," " a wretched 
 recreant." Epithets too gross to print were 
 applied to him ; he was ignominiously caricatured 
 in all the print-shops as a rat-catcher; he was 
 contumeliously turned out of the representa- 
 
PEEL, OR THE GREAT AMBIGUITY. 299 
 
 tion of Oxford, and whole rows of country 
 gentlemen looked down upon him with scornful 
 contempt. 
 
 Amidst the storm of sibillation in 1829, Sir 
 Robert Peel considered it useless to enter into re- 
 futations of the charges brought against him. He 
 met the cry against him with callous composure, 
 and under the invectives poured upon him, he 
 stood hardily bold and unabashed. In such a 
 temper of mind, he cared little for the words of the 
 Edinburgh Review, as they were qualified by some 
 praise, and it is not surprising that he took no no- 
 tice of the language of Sir Edward Knatchbull. 
 When he was daily and nightly charged with 
 wholesale betrayal of his party, his country, and 
 the Protestant Religion, he overlooked the alleged 
 case of unfairness to Mr. Canning, and if he had 
 given more accurate explanations in 1829, he 
 would not have been subjected to the imputations 
 in 1846 upon that subject. 
 
 Without affecting to be an " CEdipus," I believe 
 that the only way of reconciling all the circum- 
 stances of " the Peel-Canning episode," is by the 
 construction I have now urged. Upon any other 
 hypothesis, the " concatenation of circumstances" 
 seems utterly impossible to understand; and it 
 seems to me quite plain that, in 1846, even Sir 
 
300 CHIEFS OF PARTIES. 
 
 Robert Peel was at first bewildered when he looked 
 upon the perplexed mode of his action on the 
 Catholic Question. 
 
 The entire conduct of Peel, in relation to the 
 Catholic question, cannot meet approval. Much 
 of it was tortuous, and other portions of it were 
 inexplicably strange. He seems never to have had 
 a conscientious sense of the responsibilities he had 
 incurred by taking a course directly contrary to 
 the policy recommended by Pitt, Canning, and 
 Castlereagh amongst the Tory statesmen — by Fox, 
 Grey, and Grattan amongst the Whig politicians 
 — by Grenville, Windham, and Plunket amongst 
 the neutrals — by Burke, Paley, Blackstone, and 
 Bentham amongst the philosophers and eminent 
 writers. He got into the difficulty badly, and he 
 got out of it worse, for he conceded it without 
 securities, thereby provoking the serious agitation 
 of the ensuing twenty years. The whole truth of 
 the matter is, that " Emancipation" was given and 
 and received — ungraciously. 
 
 But I cannot forget that the whole of Peel's 
 career did not turn on " Emancipation." He 
 had not committed himself upon "Reform" 
 (though he acted timorously in regard to it) ; he 
 had made some reputation as a social benefactor, 
 by carrying into practice the reform of the 
 Criminal Code, of which Romilly, Mackintosh, 
 
PEEL, OR THE GREAT AMBIGUITY. 301 
 
 Bentham, and Brougham were the untiring 
 advocates, and in which they were his pre- 
 cursors. He had also studied deeply the financial 
 interests of England, a knowledge which stood him 
 in good service in the Post-Reform Bill period 
 of his career. 
 
 And, though we may not think that the first por- 
 tion of his political life redounded much to his 
 favour, -\t is plain that Peel was eminent beyond 
 his conteniporaries. Lord Palmerston was born 
 in 1784; Lord John Russell in 1792; Sir James 
 Graham in 1792; Lord Glenelg in 1783; Earl 
 Dudley (J. W. Ward) in 1781 ; Lord Melbourne 
 in 1779; Lord Ripon in 1782; Lord Durham 
 in 1792. Peel himself was born in the same 
 year with Lord Byron, 1788; yet not one 
 of his immediate political contemporaries, 
 except Lord Brougham (born in 1779), 
 could be said to be superior to him in personal 
 standing in the Senate at the time of the Reform 
 BiU. 
 
 In the second and third periods of his career, 
 we shall see how his nature expanded under 
 difficulties, and how he advanced gradually 
 into a larger and loftier growth than could 
 have been anticipated. The publication of his 
 
302 CHIEFS OF PARTIES, 
 
 private papers relative to the transactions of 
 
 1834 and 1846, helps with other evidenc», in 
 
 forming a true estimate of this celebrated public 
 man. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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