THE LIFE AND LABOUES OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE EDITED BY HIS NEPHEW EDWARD BARRINGKTON de FONBLANQUE ;*.•>* \ LONDON RICHARD BENT LEV AND SON |)ublisjjm in #rfoinarg to f)tx Majesty 1874 All rights reserved H TO THE MEMBERS OF THE LIBERAL ENGLISH PEESS I inscribe tfexs §nrf ^totb d % fife of #n* WHO FOUGHT GALLANTLY IN THEIB RANKS FOR HALF A CENTURY: WHOSE EXERTIONS MATERIALLY CONTRIBUTED TO ADVANCE THEIR COMMON CAUSE : AND WHOSE CHARACTER REFLECTED HONOUR UPON THEIR PROFESSION, E. B. de F London : 1873. ALBANY FONBLANQUE. A MEMOIR. Albany Fonblanque was one of the many Englishmen of mark who trace their descent from a French Huguenot family. In the little room in Connaught Square which served him as a study, there used to hang a framed parchment ^presenting a genealogical tree dating back five centu- ies, surmounted by an elaborately emblazoned coat of trms, and embellished in the margin with the quarterings )f successive generations of Fonblanques. On my once mentioning to my uncle, as an apparent inconsistency, that citizens of the United States frequently exhibited similar documents in their houses, and that, not- withstanding their republican principles, they were prone to point, with aristocratic pride, to a long line of ancestors, he rejoined that he could see no possible connection be- tween a man's political opinions and the interest which it was natural and right for him to take in his family history and antecedents. If, accordingly, I preface a sketch of Albany Fonblanque's life with a brief record of his an- cestry, I feel that I am doing what he would not have thought unbecoming or inappropriate. About the year 1240 two brothers of the historical family of the Garnieri of Sienna emigrated to France under the pressure of political troubles — one settling in Provence, the other in Languedoc, where the descendants of each soon acquired considerable landed property and B 2 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FOXIJLAXQUE. patents of nobility under the names of Gamier and Gre- nier. The last representative of the Provence branch, Cesar de Gamier, Marquis de Juliers, died without i in 1820, and the English Fonblanqucs are now the sole representatives of the other branch of the family. The Greniers of Languedoc took a prominent part in the early religious struggles of the Eeformation, and history makes honourable mention of the Sieur Pierre de Grenier, for his gallant defence of the Castle of Cessenan, against the Due de Montmorency, in 1584. * His son- ceived from Henri IV. the titles of Comte de Haute and de Fonblanque, after two fiefs (so-called) which they held in the Foret de la Gresine, near Bruniquet ; and the king further conferred upon them, according to the then prevailing custom of granting commercial privileges to the provincial nobility, a monopoly of the profits arising from the manufacture of glass (Sieurs de Veneries was the title), which the family continued to enjoy for many generations. After the revocation of the Edict of Xantes in 1685, the Greniers suffered much persecution, and one of them was tried and executed for having harboured a proscribed Huguenot priest. In 1740 the then head of the family. Abel de Grenier, Comte de Fonblanqiu . his two only sons, Antoine and Jean, to England, there to be educated in the Protestant faith, which had bee difficult in France. Antoine died without male lie: 1 See 'Journal de Charbonneau Bfolea : Les Gui I -.' page 7; and l Pieces fugitives pour servii a L'histoire de France, par I d'Auhois,' vol. ii. page 148. He left several daughters, one of whom married the father of the late Sir Jamefl Phillips, vicar of Osminton, l>or>ct. who, aa wall aa hia boh, the at baronet, took much pain> to ohtais eyidence of the Fonblanquei hy personal fiattand search in Lai I to them for some of the details I hnve quoted. MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. 3 Jean, on the death of his father, realised, as far as he could, his possessions in Languedoc, and settling permanently in England, where he became nationalized under the name of Fonblanque, established a London banking-house. This undertaking did not prosper imder his management ; but, on his retiring from it, it was successfully carried on by his book-keeper, Peter Thellusson, a Swiss by birth, who became the founder of the Eenclelsham family and of that gigantic fortune which attracted so much public attention owing to the circumstances attending its extra- ordinary testamentary disposition. John Fonblanque married an English woman — Miss Bagshawe — and by her had several sons, the only ultimate survivor of whom, John Samuel Martin, was the father of the subject of this memoir. He was a distinguished Equity lawyer, and represented the borough of Camelford in Parliament. He was a staunch Liberal, in days when Liberalism was not the road to legal or political advance- ment ; and, while the heir to the Throne was attached to the Whig party, John Fonblanque was an intimate and trusted adviser of the young Prince Eegent, whose well-known letters to George III., on his exclusion from the army, were generally attributed to his pen. He was also the author of a standard legal work, a ' Treatise on Equity,' which enjoyed the uncommon distinction of being more than once quoted as an authority by the Bench during the lifetime of the writer. His death, in 1838, 1 was announced as that of ' the Senior King's Counsel and Father of the English Bar ; ' and Lord Lyndhurst, in condoling with Albany Fonblanque upon this event, said : ' I have known jurists as profound as 1 Mr. John Fonblanque, in 1823, obtained authority by royal licence to re-assume the original name of de Grenier de Fonblanque ; but of his three sons only one (the second) availed himself of this sanction. b 2 4 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. your father, but I have known no one who was so perfect a master of the philosophy of the law.' Albany William Fonblanque, the youngest of three sons, 1 was born in London in 1793. At the age of four- teen he was sent to Woolwich to prepare for the Eoval Engineers, 2 but, shortly after, a dangerous attack of ill: compelled him to desist from study for nearly two years. On his recovery Chitty, the eminent special pleader, who was an intimate friend of his father's, proposed to Albany Fonblanque that he should become his pupil, with the view to being called to the bar — an offer which he some- what reluctantly accepted. In after life he frequently referred to the benefits which he had derived from this training, and contended that a study of the Law should form a branch of every liberal education ; but he never took kindly to the profession, and the success which at- tended his first attempts at political writing, before he was twenty years of age, afforded him a welcome pretext for abandoning the legal career, and determined him to make journalism the business of his life. Journalism in the early part of the present century was on a very different footing from that which it has now attained ; and it must have required all his confidence in the justice of his principles and cause, and in his power to express and sustain them, to enable the young 1 The eldest son, John, after some yew of active military service in the wars with France and America, was called to the bar in 1818, and in 1826 raised to the Bench as ('■ munitioner of \he London Court of Ban kruptc y , which office he held up to the date o\ his death in 1863. He - thoroughly Bound Lawyer, and was author, conjointly with the late Dr. Paris, of a well-known work on ' Medical Jurisprudence.' - A letter of his to Mr. John FoTSter, dated duly 1866, in which some of the engineering operations in the Crimea are criticised with considerable technical knowledge, Conclude* thus: 'Once upon a time when beasts could I . I was intended for the Engineers, and then 1 was obliged to study Yauban, Cohorn, and Lechat.' MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. 5 writer to make way against the general unpopularity of the career lie had chosen, and the social prejudices attaching to it. At that time the daily and weekly press had barely begun to exercise direct influence upon the conduct of public affairs. A statesman might wince under the lash of editorial censure, but no degree of newspaper argument was likely to affect the policy of Government or to modify the action of a Cabinet. The late Lord Lytton says, in one of his plays : The people, like the air, Is never heard save when it speaks in thunder ; and half a century ago public opinion had not yet found in the Press the means of making itself heard and felt by the governing or privileged classes. A critic in the ' Edinburgh Review' said apologetically for the calling of journalism that c no man need be ashamed of a profession of which Albany Fonblanque is a member ; ' and Mr. Henry Bulwer (the late Lord Dalling), in his work on Franca, contrasts the public recognition of eminent political writers in that country with the neglect of the same class in England, quoting the Editor of the ' Examiner' in illustration of his argument. Fonblanque himself, however, always deprecated official patronage as destructive of the independence of journalism, and was a strong advocate for the maintenance of an impersonal character by this class of writers, while admitting that this was to some extent a bar to social and even to full literary recognition. But there were other difficulties, besides the then pre- valent prejudice against newspaper writers, in the career which Albany Fonblanque had chosen. The hired literary advocate of political abuses might in those days enrich himself ; the reckless and noisy demagogue might, on the other hand, be sure of attaining popu- G MEMOIR OF ALBANY FOXLLAXQUE. larity. The thinking reformer — the philosophical Radical, afi he was then called, in contradistinction to those wl Eadicalism rested upon abstract principles, and to those 1 who are Eadicals because they are not lords' 1 — the man who would neither cringe to power nor pander to passion or ignorance, was certain to incur the enmity of one class without receiving the support of the other. In 1812, when Albany Fonblanque began his literary career, the political and social principles which he advo- cated were confined to a small class of educated men. The great influential majority of the nation was com- posed of a compact body, who from motives of habit, conviction, interest, or timidity, were opposed to all fun- damental change. As Sydney Smith says : ' Lord Grey had not then taken the bearing-reins off the people as Sir Francis Head has since taken them off the horses.' On the other hand, there was a numerically large body of malcontents scattered throughout the country, bent upon resistance to unjust or oppressive laws and class legi tion, and intent upon the overthrow of obnoxious insti- tutions ; but who, in the absence of organisation and recognised leaders, were unpractical in their aims and often violent in their action. Between the two stood the small party which strove to reconstruct rather than to demolish; to readjust the balance of the Constitution aa the means of its preservation ; to cleanse the .-word of State from the rust which corroded it, rather than to break the blade. Foremost among tl was Albany Fonblanque ; and, while lie used every thnato weapon, argument and satire, wit and ridicule, and sometimes, as when smarting under a sense of injus- tice done to the poor or the defenceless, withering sarcasm 1 Mr. John Stuart Mill oaei tfci a letter '. Foo- Manque. MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. 7 and bitter invective, nothing is more conspicuous in his writings, composed as these necessarily were in all the heat of party warfare extending over half a century, than his consistent repudiation of violence in any form — his unvarying reliance upon moral force. He had thus the twofold duty of leading the attack upon the enemy and of restraining the zeal of his followers ; at once to raise and to control the storm ; and this duty he performed with rare courage, devotion, and self-denial. 1 In the introduction to his ' England under Seven Ad- ministrations/ published in 1837, 2 Albany Fonblanque thus reviews the labour of eleven years : — ' In the settlement of some long-disputed questions and the rapid progress of others will be marked the steady direction and the increasing strength of popular opinion. The Tory party was compact, and apparently unshaken in power, even towards the end of the Liverpool adminis- tration ; the Test Acts were unrepealed ; the Catholics were excluded from the Legislature ; slavery existed in our colonies ; the prestige of the perfection of the Law was unbroken, and the sanguinary character of the criminal code unmitigated ; the corporations were sinks of cor- ruption ; a few individuals nominated nearly half the members of the House of Commons ; and a Parliamentary reformer was in common acceptation another word for a visionary.' 1 ' If I might give a short hint to an impartial writer, it would be to tell him his fate. If he resolves to venture on the dangerous precipice of telling unbiassed truth, let him proclaim war with mankind — neither to give nor to take quarter. If he tells the crimes of great men, they fall upon him with the iron hands of the Law ; if he tells them of virtues, when they have any, then the mob attacks him with slander. But, if he regards truth, let him expect martyrdom on both sides, and then he may go on fearless.' — De Foe. This was the motto chosen by Fonblanque after his assuming the direction of the ' Examiner,' and to the principle of which he consistently adhered. 2 A selection from writings in the ( Examiner ' from 1826 to 1836. 8 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FCXBLANQUE. Sydney Smith, in the preface to his ; Essays,' published three years later, quotes a similar record of abuses in course of reformation in nearly identical words, 1 but l further in describing the condition of Liberal thinkers and writers too honest to sell themselves to men in power : — 4 It is always considered as a piece of impertinence in England if a man of less than two or three thousand a year has any opinions at all upon important subjects ; and in addition he was sure at that time to be assailed with all the Billingsgate of the French Ee volution : Jacobin, Leveller, Atheist, Deist, Socialist, Incendiary, Eegicide — such were the gentlest appellations used ; and the man who uttered a syllable against the senseless bigotry of the two Georges, or hinted at the abominable tyranny and persecution exercised upon Catholic Ireland, was shunned as unfit for the relations of social life.' In the many deep-rooted abuses of the day ; in the unconstitutional pretensions of monarchical or oligarchic power ; in the stubborn opposition of the dominant el; to reform or relaxation of privilege, and in the yet more stubborn bigotry of an arrogant Church Establishment, he found a fruitful field of labour, and a free and congenial exercise for his vigorous pen. Nor was it long before he obtained marked distinction as a political writer. He was, however, at once too ambitious and too conscientious to be spoilt by success ; and in proportion as he became popular with the public he became fastidious with his work and distrustful of his powers. I have heard him say that in his earlier days he had frequently written an article ten times over before it contented him, and that ("sen then he had rarely read it after publication without 1 I have no intention of attributing: even unconscious plfcgiatiem to the witty divine. A retrospect in the Bame field of political and literary labour naturally produced the same impressions upon the two mind MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQTTE. 9 having wished to re-write it. His own ideal of political thought and composition was infinitely higher than that of the public, and his constant effort to attain to that standard put an unnecessary strain upon his mental and physical powers. In addition to his professional literary labours, he felt the necessity of continuing that education which his long illness had interrupted, and for many years he devoted no less than six hours a day to the study of classics and political philosophy, while whatever time remained to him for recreation was given to that lighter literature which always more or less tinctured his writings and his conversation, such as Swift, Fielding, Smollett, and the French humourists, in whom he de- lighted, and from whom so many of his happy illustrations were drawn. His health, always precarious, broke down under this severe training, and before he was twenty-one years of age he was once more brought to the brink of the grave. Under the roof of an elder brother, 1 then a captain in the 21st Fusiliers, and serving on the staff of the Army of Occupation in Belgium, he at this juncture found a happy home where, thanks to the tender care of his sister- in-law, to whom he was much attached, he gradually re- covered sufficient strength to resume his work ; but the shadow remained over his spirits, and he gradually fell into a state of despondency and melancholy, which left their traces upon his character through life. His predilection for the society of cultivated women, 1 Thomas de Grenier de Fonblanque, K.H., who died at Belgrade in 1861 (while holding the office of British Consul General for Servia), from the effects of an attack made upon him by a fanatical Turkish soldier. He had married, in 1815, a daughter of the witty Irish politician — afterwards Judge of the Admiralty — Sir Jonah Barrington, whose well-known " Sketches of my own Times " give so graphic and amusing a picture of society in Ireland before the Union. 10 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FOXBLAXQUE. his respect, I might say reverence, for the good and gentle of their sex, was with him an almost exagge- rated sentiment ; and it was under the influence of such feelings, intensified probably at this time by physical suffer- ing, that on his return to his lonely London life he thus writes to his father : — ' Your youth was never embittered as mine has been ; had it been so, you would know how sweet it is to look for solace and support from female friendship. J. has been everything to me. That affection which others find in sisters I have found a thousandfold in her ; and, should an early summons call me from this world, I bequeath her to the care of you, and of all those who loved me. I am sure I need not say more to a father who, as far as permitted him by fortune, has indulged my every wish. Do not be alarmed at my writing thus. Seriously, I feel easier and more cheerful for having done so.' Although he continued a sufferer for many year- — indeed, he used to remark that he could not understand what people meant by saying that they were 'quite well' 1 — he resumed his journalistic duties with great vigour, be- coming a regular contributor to newspapers and rev ; and realising what in those days was considered an exceptionally good income for literary work of this character. In after life Fonblanque was in the habit of representing his early career in a veiy dismal light, as a weary round of unremitting toil, uneheered by a gleam of pleasure or excitement. I am disposed to think that this was a 1 He often quoted, and once used as nn illustration in one of bis leading artk-li a (see p. 186) this compliment paid him by ■ (Wend : ' I nei lo iking better nor any other man looking worse; 1 and in a note to Mr. F ya, ' How this weather agrees with me you may answer as well ran upon this datum: given six drops ofblood in a man's veins, how warm will he be with the glass below Zei MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. 11 very overdrawn picture. His practical success in political writing, while lie was still a very young man, was such as to place him, simple as his habits were, above all anxiety or care on pecuniary grounds ; and his private letters of that period are far from justifying the gloomy character which after the lapse of many years he was wont to attri- bute to this portion of his life. Writing to a relation in 1820, he says :— ' I have gone more into society lately, fearing lest my solitary habits might have an injurious operation on me. I write much, and with good effect, but my health does not profit by the consequent anxiety. Should I, how- ever, continue the same course with equal success a little longer, I am the most unfortunate fellow breathing if I do not force myself into notice. I have been writing the whole day, and my fingers are so cramped that I can scarcely hold my pen.' A few months later he writes from Brighton : ' You may see from the date of my letter that I am recruiting against the winter, which is always to me a severe trial. I have already been here six weeks, and it is probable that I shall stay some time longer, for I find the place very pleasant ; and, being in great request, feel satisfied with the people. Among other bad habits, acquired since I lost my good genius, you must know that I have become a whist-player. Indeed, to confess the truth, I am addicted to cards in every way. My business here is Whist ; if I cannot get Whist — and Providence is very good to me, and seldom denies me its rubbers — I resort to Piquet ; if Piquet is not to be had, to Ecarte. Do not be alarmed at this report. I am not a gambler, and never play beyond shilling points (the French game, of course, elegantly and Anglice called shorts) if I can help it. Tell Tom that the common love of Whist has drawn me and 12 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLAXQUE. old Lady Dudley, our auut's friend, together. She gives very nice parties.' In another letter of this year he gives an account of a love affair, in which he describes his own feelings with a curious mixture of sentiment and philosophy : — c As I become better acquainted with my divinity, I begin to imagine that, however I may now love her, she is not suited to make me happy as a wife. I am constitu- tionally melancholy, and want, therefore, an animated wife. She is as constitutionally melancholy as myself, though not deficient in a gentle and very captivating archness. My health is about the worst in the world ; hers, again, is delicate. My affections are absurdly ardent when once excited ; hers (here is the only contrast, and a dangerous one it is j temperate and equal, as far as I can learn or judge. I have had two rivals in the field with me, and she has preferred me to them, but I don't think she loves me. She likes my attentions, consults my temper, and stands in almost childish awe of me. Before I had committed myself to a declaration, I loved her with a mad passion. From the moment I took the desperate step, reason returned to me, and delusion of all kinds was rent away. I am no longer the lover : I am the selfish man of the world, searching how every point of person and character may bear on my future happi] At the same time I have a dee]) affection for her, and should be miserable at the thought of causing her a moment's uneasiness. Comfort and advise me. Knowing the caprices of my own temper, and the which it may lead me, there is nothing, short of dis- honour, that I would not prefer to an alliance that gave me a very young and handsome wife without happin 1 Tho lady referred to did Dot become hi> wife, but in 1829 be married i daughter o( the late Captain Keaue. of Meutli. MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQTJE. 13 I send you the " Examiner." Before I tumbled in love I was writing in it to my great honour and glory and pro- bable profit, but since then I have been good for little. Perhaps I shall mend soon.' At this time his brother had accepted the appoint- ment of Consul for East Prussia, and was living with his family at Konigsberg ; and I am tempted to quote a few passages from Albany Fonblanque's numerous letters to his sister-in-law :— ' January 22. 6 Tell me much of the town — of the country — of the music, of the men and women, their manners, customs, cookery, and other weighty matters. I am prejudiced in favour of the town, or rather its people, because they patriotically held out against the contagion of French manners and morals when these were rapidly corrupting the rest of Prussia, and this resistance to ill and seducing example is a thing I honour. ..,..' 1 October, 1822. ' You have sent me some very good sketches of your gigantic habitation. It looks cold, and I cannot picture . a pleasant sky hanging over it. I am glad to see, how- ever, that trees grow at Konigsberg, and that crows fly there. This looks as if nature and nature's tenants had not abandoned the spot. The traveller, on seeing a gibbet, blessed God that he had arrived in a civilised country ; birds are a no less certain sign of fertility. They give one to know that something is to be stolen, which is a comfort, the feathered tribe being the most ancient members of the ancient community of the thieves. In despotic countries also, to one of my ways of thinking, it must be a delight to follow the flight of a bird ; there must be a pleasure in seeing anything take a free course, 14 MEMOIR OF ALBAXY FOXBLAXQUE. and sport above the dominion of the little ill-shaped creatures who call themselves the rulers of the universe. AYhy dont the birds peck out their eyes ? ' Your report of the progress made in civilisation, as indicated by women and horses sharing equally in con- sideration, is by no means flattering, though I have every reason to believe it to be strictly correct. Having heard that the Germans of that part of the world are a simple- hearted, semi-barbarous people, I conjectured that you would find the women less advanced than the men. They generally are, indeed must be so, where they have not established their empire, which backwardness in conquest can alone be attributable to an alarming absence of the graces. Do not talk to me of ' letters ' — the word is formal, and savours of Sir Charles Grandison — but talk on paper as much as possible with your absent but attached friend.' From 1820 to 1830 Albany Fonblanque was succes- sively employed upon the staff of the ' Times ' and the ' Morning Chronicle,' while he at the same time contri- buted to the ' Examiner,' to the 4 London Magazine/ and to the ' Westminster Keview.' A critique written in the latter, in 1S27, upon ' Moore's Life of Sheridan,' led to his being violently attacked in the 'Edinburgh Review,' in a paper called ' Parliamentary History,' which was generally attributed to Mr. Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham. A correspon- dence ensued, a part of which I quote, lesfl from any interest now attaching to the circumstances than because it involves an important question oi' literary morality, which to this day is open to dispute ; although I think the final decision in this particular i one in the justice of which most people will agree. MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. 15 6 To Henry Brougham, Esq. ' October 26, 1827. 4 Sir, — I am given to understand that you are the author of the article " Parliamentary History " in the " Edinburgh Eeview," concluding with observations (in a note) on a paper in the " Westminster Eeview," and a request to the editors to hold the writer of it in suspicion, as a person actuated by malignant and interested motives. From the allusion to the publication of private letters, it is evident that the review of " Moore's Life of Sheridan " must be the article referred to. I am the author of that paper, and, if you are indeed my asperser, I call upon you to avow yourself in that character as frankly as I have avowed myself to you in that of the aspersed. Should you not be the author of the attack, I have to apologise for having thus trespassed on your time and attention. 6 1 have the honour, &c, 'Albany Fonblanque.' 4 To Albany Fonblanque, Esq. ' Hill Street, Berkeley Square, < Friday. < Sir, — I have received your letter of yesterday, in which you say that you are given to believe that I am the author of a note in the " Edinburgh Eeview," reflecting upon the publication of private letters in the " West- minster Eeview," and calling upon me to acknowledge it as frankly as you avow yourself the author of the paper in which these letters are published. ' I must decline altogether answering any such ques- tion, and I should think that further reflection will convince you that I can give no other reply to your 10 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUK letter, and that no inference is to be drawn from it, except my denial of your right to put the question. ' I have, &c, C H. Brougham.' Fonblanque, however, refused to admit this plea, and, finding his adversary persisting in his right to decline avowing or disavowing his responsibility, wrote to the effect that the author, whoever he might be, was not a man of honour or truth. To this Mr. Brougham rejoined that it was evident that it was Fonblanque's wish to pick a quarrel with him, by fixing upon him a hypothetical affront ; which drew forth the following letter : — ' Sir, — In reply to your remark that the object of my letter was to insult, notwithstanding the qualifying expressions, I have again most distinctly to declare that the language to which I felt compelled to resort was intended to apply only in the event of your being the author of the attack on me in the " Edinburgh Review," and of your persisting in a refusal to avow yourself hi that character. ' As to the point of your feeling yourself insulted by the question whether you were or were not the author of the paragraph referred to, I have to say that by the mere inquiry I neither did nor could mean an}' offence ; but if, notwithstanding this declaration, you feel yourself aggrieved, I am of course bound and ready to give you the satisfaction you require. 'I have, &c, * Albany Fonblanqu According to the custom prevailing in those days, the matter was at this point referred to two k friends/ by MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUK 17 whom a hostile meeting was arranged. At the last moment, however, Mr. Brougham's second 1 questioned Fonblanque's right to give a challenge to his principal upon such grounds ; and after some negotiation this was referred for the opinion of a common friend, Lord Dudley, whose decision, as expressed in the following memorandum, put a stop to further proceedings : — ' Upon the question, as stated to me, my opinion is, that Mr. F. is not entitled to call upon Mr. B. to avow whether or not he is the author of a certain paper in the " Edinburgh Beview." ' In order to arrive at this conclusion it is not necessary to decide the more general question whether an anony- mous attack, upon an individual by name, may be of such a nature as to justify the object of it in calling upon the supposed author to avow or disavow it ; though, from some circumstances which I recollect, I infer that some doubt has existed even as to that point. But, when the case is like the present, that of an anonymous writer animadvert- ing, however severely, upon another, merely with a view to what he has written, and without the slightest reference, directly or by innuendo, to any particular person, I do not think that the party aggrieved can be allowed to individu- alize himself, and to call upon whomever his suspicions may happen to light upon, to declare whether or not he is the man who has transgressed the limits of propriety in a controversy with an unknown antagonist. ' Whether or not the rule which I have ventured to suggest will abide the test of any extreme case that might be imagined, I have no hesitation in saying, with respect 1 Mr. Bruce, commonly called ' Lavalette ' Bruce, from the circumstance of his having, in concert with Sir R. Wilson, been the means of liberating Count Lavalette while under sentence of death in ' the Temple ' Prison in Paris in 1815. Fonblanque's second was Mr. Richard Goflj of the Chancery Bar. 18 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. to this particular instance, that Mr. F.'s character, as a man of honour and a gentleman, does not require him to insist from Mr. B. upon that disclosure which he at first thought it necessary to demand.' — D. Writing to a relative some time after this, Fonblanque says : — 1 Tell T. that matters between me and Brougham are just as if nothing had happened, and there is not the slightest necessity for his being shy of him. Bather the reverse ; for all Brougham's friends, who must have had his own report of the affair, applaud my part in it in the most gratifying terms. Indeed T. Smith, Lord Carring- ton's brother, on hearing that I was a candidate for the "Athenaeum," volunteered to bring twelve members from the House of Commons to vote for me, saying that he took a deep interest in me in consequence of that very affair. He is the bosom friend of Brougham.' At this time Fonblanque was rapidly rising in popular favour as a political writer, and applications for contribu- tions to newspapers and periodicals poured in upon him from various quarters. The following letters from Jeremy Bentham and from Thomas Campbell, the poet, show the estimate in which literary veterans then held the young writer :— •>. ' My dear Albany, — In all January the "Westminster Review" will appear in the character of the giant refreshed, so at least the advertisements affirm. 'In former days it had once or twice the benefit of your inimitable prolusions ! Not Long since, if my crazy memory does not fail me, on the proposition being re- newed to you, you expressed yourself not disinclined to accede to it. Should this be the case now, I am your MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. 19 guarantee for payment as soon as the number makes its appearance. Subjects left to your choice ; numbers of them, one, two, or three. Quantity in the whole for which room can be found, from one to two sheets. Ten guineas a sheet was the accustomed, and I believe by you received, retribution. One of the subjects proposed (not by mej is " Justice's Justice," meaning the " unpaids." You know, or you do not know, how I worked Peel about his paid ditto. You will judge whether anything that is there can be introduced or employed in any way to advantage. ' So long ago as June last, when hoping soon to see you, I clapped down a few crudities which if concocted by you might (I think, and I am not the only man who thinks so) be made into a delicious dish. If this happens to suit your taste, so much the better ; if not, don't trouble your- self to say anything about the matter. ' The sooner you answer the more you will oblige 6 Yours most truly, ' Jeremy Bentham.' ' Middle Scotland Yard, 'Whitehall, November 19, 1829. ' Sir, — From being acquainted with your literary character I have for some time been anxious to have the honour of forming your personal acquaintance ; but whilst you were in London I was prevented by extreme indis- position from availing myself of an introduction which I might have had to you. Owing to this circumstance I still have to crave your indulgence for introducing myself to you on paper, in hopes that my name may not be wholly unknown to you, and also to solicit a favour from you, though I have manifestly no other apology to offer than the high value I attach to your literary talents. c 2 20 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. ' As a literary man, though you are probably not doomed, like me, to make literature a business for life, you will, I dare say, be able to sympathise with the anxiety I feel to support the periodical I conduct — the " New Monthly Magazine " — with the most respectable writers who will think me worthy of their assistance. The principles which you advocate, and the spirit and ability of your writings, would make me think myself exceedingly fortunate if I, as an Editor, could obtain the correspond- ence of your powerful pen. ' I am aware that you may have more solicitations of this nature than you have leisure or inclination to attend to ; but, if my application should seem worthy of your notice, I can offer you a sincere assurance, on the part of Mr. Colburn as well as myself, that we will use our very utmost endeavours to make your correspondence with our work in every respect agreeable to your wishes. 8 It will be unnecessary to trouble you further until it may suit your convenience to favour me with an answer. Meanwhile ' I remain, with sincere respect, 4 Your obedient servant, 1 Thomas Campbell.' Albany Fonblanque seems to have inherited from his Huguenot forefathers their love of religious and political liberty, and their instinctive antagonism to all dements tending to fetter thought or opinion. These feelings had been fostered and strengthened by the example and doc- trine of his father, and of his father's intimate friend Jeremy Bcntham. of whom, as also of James Mill, he became an earnest disciple in very early life. George Grote was at this time studying in the same political school, in which John Stuart Mill too, who was MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. 21 some years their junior, subsequently underwent his training. Starting from the same point, these three men in time came to occupy a prominent position in the Eadical party ; but, although there was a perfect agreement in the abstract principles upon which their political creed was founded, the difference in the order of their minds and natures soon created a marked divergence in practice. Fon- blanque, though thoroughly in earnest, was never an enthusiast. He was of the three the least theoretical, and, for that reason perhaps, the most moderate in his views. Both Grote and Mill had an overweening admiration for a republican form of government, as the highest and purest of all political systems, and the one best calculated to ensure the true object of good government : the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Fonblanque, on the contrary, used to maintain that a form of govern- ment was the result, and not the cause, of national life, and that it mattered little whether the head of the State were called King or President while the people were inspired with a spirit of freedom and a love of liberty. Grote, even at the mature age of fifty-five, had so far retained his youthful ardour as to feel elated by the mere fact of ' living under a republic' when he visited France in 1849 ■ — a sensation which to Fonblanque, whose mind was sin- gularly unimpressionable to mere outward forms or names, must have been quite incomprehensible. 1 Indeed, it may be said that, on this subject, Fonblanque's first start in political thought was identical with the stage which George Grote attained by slow and painful conviction, resulting from the experience of half a century. Grote says, in 1869 : 1 I have outlived my faith in the efficacy of a republican 1 See ' A Republic without Republicans/ page 392. 22 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. Government as a check upon the vulgar passions of the majority in a nation ; and I recognise the fact that supreme power lodged in their hands may be exercised quite as mischievously as by a despotic ruler like the first Napoleon.' Fonblanque, probably, had arrived at a similar conclu- sion when, as a boy, he commenced his crusade on behalf of popular rights against prerogative and aristocratic pre- tension. In their aims the two men had everything in common. It was as to the means of attaining their ob- ject that they differed ; and the reason might probably be found in the fact that, while the political views and aspirations of one were tinged with the halo of classical lore and ancient tradition, the other was mainly influenced by the lights of a work-day-world experience. Gfrote was undoubtedly the finer scholar, perhaps the deeper thinker; but Fonblanque was, I will venture to sa} T , the better and safer political guide. The one subject, however, upon which they, and in- deed all shades of Eadicals and advanced Whigs, were completely agreed at the time, was the determination to restore the balance of the Constitution in a popular direc- tion by the extension of the franchise ; and hence the strongly organised agitation which culminated in the Reform Bill of 1832. With that great measure to be accomplished, the different sections of the Radical party were obliged to join force's, and to merge all differences of opinion on minor points; though, as will be seen from the letters of John Stuart Mill, he and his followers had already, as early as 1829, begun to secede from the more extreme Radical section represented by Grote and M< worth. It was at this juncture that Fonblanque assumed the control of the w Examiner ' — a journal destined, under his MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQTJE \ 23 direction, to exercise a powerful influence on the events of the stormy political period immediately preceding and following the passing of the Eeform Bill. The c Examiner' had been established in 1808 by Leigh Hunt and his brother, John Hunt, 1 under whose manage- ment it soon attracted public attention ; while, in pro- portion to the popular support it obtained, it drew upon itself the enmity of the Government by its bold and out- spoken denunciation of the prevalent political abuses and corruption. The law of libel was at that time severe and wide reaching, and strictures upon public men or measures, such as would now be considered to fall strictly within the limits of legitimate criticism, were then punished as crimes, with protracted imprisonment and ruinous fines. The two Hunts — whose honest zeal did, it must be allowed, occasionally outrun their discretion — suffered severely from Government persecution. Three unsuc- cessful actions were entered against the ' Examiner ' within the first three years of its existence ; and in 1812 a fourth action, for a libel upon the Prince Begent (in which Mr. Henry Brougham first distinguished himself by the eloquence and vigour of his defence of the Hunts), resulted in their being sentenced to a fine of 2,000/. and two years' imprisonment. It is noteworthy that an offer was made by several lead- ing reformers to subscribe the fine, and, singularly enough, one of the jury who had joined in the verdict expressed his wish, through Mr. Brougham, to pay the whole amount. The Hunts however declined such assistance, and also refused to entertain a proposition, conveyed to them on behalf of the Crown, that they should not be brought up for judgment if they would engage to refrain from com- ments on the Prince Begent in future. They accordingly 1 For the character of John Hunt, see Extracts, p. 96. 24 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. underwent the full term of imprisonment, and continued to edit the 'Examiner' from within the walls of Horse- monger Lane Gaol — a circumstance which, as may be imagined, considerably increased the popularity of the writers and the circulation of the paper. Although the 'Examiner' professed very advanced Lib- eral opinions, it is not to be inferred, from the repeated Government prosecutions which it had to meet, that it was a seditious or a scurrilous journal. On the contrary; that strict adherence to the principles of moral force which I have attributed to Albany Fonblanque was shared by the brothers Hunt, who, in 1812, incurred much unpopularity among the more advanced of their party by their repudi- ation of the extreme doctrines of Cobbett and of a name- sake, the notorious Henry Hunt, then the democratic candidate for the representation of Bristol, whom they denounced as an enemy to the cause of liberty, because he attempted ' to inflame the passions instead of appealing to the reasou of the people.' In the journalism of those days there was, however, a decree of personality, in the discussion of public men and manners, happily unknown at present. It was then the practice for the supporters of the Government to address persons in power in terms of such fulsome praise as could not fail to provoke counteraction on the part of their opponents. When a Tory print, for instance, spoke of the Prince Eegent as Maecenas, was it surprising that the 'Examiner' should object that 'Maecenas had never made himself the companion oi' gamblers and demireps ? ' Or when, in an adulatory ode, he is addn as ' Adonis in thy shape and face,' might it not fairly be answered that Adonis was badly used in being compared with a red-faced corpulent gentleman of fifty : X : remarks such as these were sufficient to form the grounds MEMOIB OF ALBANY FONBLANQUF. 25 of Government prosecution so persistent that it utterly exhausted the slender fortune of the two Hunts, and finally compelled them to sell their proprietary rights in the ' Examiner.' Leigh Hunt, shortly after this, went to Italy, where he formed the acquaintance of Lord Byron, and lived on terms of intimacy with Shelley. More than twenty years after his leaving England, he received the following communication from Lord John Eussell : — ' Downing Street, June 22, 1847. 4 Sir, — I have much pleasure in informing you that the Queen has been pleased to direct that, in considera- tion of your distinguished literary talents, a pension of two hundred pounds yearly should be settled upon you from the funds of the Civil List. 'Allow me to add that the severe treatment you formerly received, in times of unjust persecution of liberal writers, enhances the satisfaction with which I make this announcement. ' I have the honour to be, Sir, your faithful servant, 'J. Eussell. 6 Leigh Hunt, Esq,' The ' Examiner ' was subsequently purchased by Dr. Fellowes, a gentleman of rare attainments, and a yet more rare benevolence, as will be seen from this graceful and grateful testimony of Albany Fonblanque on the death of his friend in 1847 : — ' ' It is with no ordinary sorrow that we have to announce the death of the Eev. Dr. Eellowes. His long life was one unremitting labour of benevolence. The good of his fellow- creatures was his constant study, and the powers of his mind and the resources of his fortune were constantly applied to that object. The Baron Mazeres left Dr 26 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQTHB. _i Fellowes a large legacy — little short, we believe, of £100,000 — which be expended as if held in trust for public objects ; and every promising project for extend- ing enlightened education, or for serving other important social and political interests, was sure of his generous support. Extensive as his public benevolence was, it did not with Dr. Fellowes, as may be observed in some instances, diminish the warmth of his affections in his domestic and private circle. There never was a more loving father, nor a truer and kinder friend. His nature was of that gentle, sweet, indulgent character that Sterne would have delighted to illustrate ; and superadded was a wisdom which went hand in hand with his benevolence. His acquirements were very considerable ; but his mod was so great, or rather there was so complete an absence of any sort of pretension or desire for display, that the extent of his learning was probably unknown to many of his associates. He was, in fact, a profound scholar ; and his erudition early in life interested Dr. Parr in his favour. He was not, however, one of those learned men who bury themselves in the lore of antiquity ; he always kept up to the knowledge of his time, and could throw himself with great effect into its controversies. When Queen Caroline was the object of public sympathy, it may be remembered that the s^U and tact with which her answers to addresses were varied was the subject of much notice : they were written by Dr. Fellowes. lie was the author of many publications, (me of the last of which was "The Religion of the Universe ;" the purpose o\' which was to trace the perfections of the Almighty through the wonders of Creation. Dr. Fellowes deplored the doctrinal mysteries and dogmas, the polemics and sec- tarian differences, and thought it desirable and possible to unite all denominations in the worship of God through MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUR 27 the knowledge and admiration of his works. His proposal was to make Science the High Priest to Eeligion. ' Dr. Fellowes's politics were those of an enlightened Eadical Reformer : more than Whig but short of Chartist. The steady progress of improvement was what he desired ; he quarrelled not if it were somewhat slow, so that advance was made. The spirit of toleration, which was his animating spirit, preached patience in politics as in everything else ; and, so that evil was yielding to good, he made allowances for difficulties and delays. ' Latterly his sight failed, and he underwent an opera- tion which succeeded for a time ; but darkness fell on him again, though without dulling his natural cheerful- ness, or disturbing his content and serenity, He sadly felt the infirmity which blotted out the recreation and instruc- tion of his books, and shut out from him the faces of many dear to him ; but he bore it without repining, and drew upon memory and reflection, and his large store of good and comforting thoughts, for his solace. ' His last hours were worthy of his life — calm and serene ; full of love of the world he was leaving behind, full of hope of that to come.' For some little time after its transfer the ' Examiner ' remained under the direction of Mr. Henry Leigh Hunt, a son of John Hunt ; but its circulation gradually fell off, until, in 1830, Dr. Fellowes determined to enlist the talent of Albany Fonbianque, and to place the journal under his absolute control. From Dr. Fellowes to Henry Leigh Hunt. 1 Keigate, September 23, 1830. ' After much and long anxious and bewildering deliber- ation, I have finally determined, as soon as the requisite arrangements will permit, to submit the sole and exclu- 28 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. sive control over the paper to Mr. Fonblanque, who has at the same time kindly consented to act as trustee. . . . Mr. Fonblanque will not only have the supreme political control over the paper, but power to appoint whom he pleases to undertake the subordinate management. I do not suppose there is any more mystery in the practical part of the management of a paper than what any man of plain common sense may master, and Fonblanque will furnish the intellectual in as large a quantity as the avidity of John Bull for that article can desire, or his moral stomach digest.' Writing to Albany Fonblanque five years later, on a subject of finance connected with the paper, Dr. Fellowes says : — ' I shall not be found willing to do an act of unkind- ness to any individual, and particularly to one who has made such long, strenuous, highminded, and glorious efforts to put down the selfish oligarchy by which this country is still enthralled, as you have done. Take, therefore, my dear Sir, a constant and affectionate care of honest, worthy, and patriotic John Hunt, and other tilings need not give you an anxious thought.' In a subsequent letter, without date, he writes : — ' Permit me to embrace this opportunity of thanking you for the delight as well as instruction which I have derived from the brilliant wit and cogent reasoning which you have displayed in your political lucubrations. They have never been excelled by any writer of the present age, or indeed of any age. Made virtute, and 4 Believe me, ' Yours truly, *- Robert Fellowes. 1 Leigh Hunt's opinion was not less flattering. In reference to his past connection with the ' Examiner,' he writes : — MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. 29 ' Some years afterwards I had an editorial successor, Mr. Fonblanque, who had all the wit for which I toiled, without making any pretension to it. He was, indeed, the genuine successor, not of me, but of the Swifts and Addisons themselves ; profuse of wit, even beyond them, and superior in political knowledge.' About the same time that Fonblanque assumed the direction of the ' Examiner,' John Stuart Mill became editor of the ' London Keview,' a journal professing to be the organ of the ' philosophical Badicals ;' and in 1831 he writes to Fonblanque : — ' What I want to talk to you about is the critical state of public affairs, and to mingle counsels on the great question of the Facienda. I am persuaded that every- thing depends upon the attitude of the people. Their enemies will give up nothing but in the fear of worse following. That we may lay down as a certain position. Well then, how is that attitude to be secured ? The difficulties are very great. The people, to be in the best state, should appear to be ready and impatient to break out into outrage, without actually breaking out. The Press, which is our only instrument, has at this moment the most delicate and the most exalted functions to dis- charge that any power has yet had to perform in this country. It has at once to raise the waves and to calm them ; to say, like the Lord, " Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further." With such words ringing in their ears, Ministers cannot waver if they would ; and I think you have begun to distrust them, or at least to express your distrust, too soon. We should do everything we can to prevent even the appearance of the Cabinet not being with us ; and I believe they are heartily in earnest w T ith the Bill, that is, as far as Schedule A and B and the 10/. qualification. 80 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. ' With these conditions, I am easy about the rest ; and, if there are certain things which will enable certain lords to say " Ah ! the Bill is now endurable," I know no objec- tion. Given A and B and the qualification, and I say it is the Bill. The Parliament will meet, if not on the day to which it is prorogued, certainly on 1st December ; that I believe on good authority. We must therefore hold the language of assurance, tell the Lords that they will have but a short respite, and that the King (let us not forget him) and the people will not be disappointed ! I am terrified at the idea of any collapse in the public mind — that there should be any mark of despondency. This would give heart, and along with it strength, to our bitter enemies, and this would be a sure effect of the opinion that we are abandoned by the Ministers.' After the passing of the Eeform Bill, however, serious differences began to revive in the Radical camp. Vote by ballot, which to Mill and Grote and their following appeared indispensable to the successful working of the enlarged franchise, was not considered of equal import- ance by others of the party ; and Mill, in a private letter to Fonblanque, complains bitterly of the apathy of some sections of the Radical party. 4 Unless,' he says, ' you and a few others bestir your- selves, and give the word to the people to meet and petition for the ballot during the next three weeks, I motion will go off flatly as it did last year, and if so the consequences will be unexpectedly mischievous .... It is enough to drive one mad to s< e everybody do every- thing except the precise thing which is of importance at the lime, and every opportunity lost. . . . 1 1 wrote to Place, 1 tosee if the committee who managed 1 A prominent Liberal politician, well known at tbe time as the ' Kadical tailor of Charing Oro MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUF. 31 all the correspondence and petitioning on the Newspaper Stamps for two sessions, and only spent £110, would do the same for the ballot. He answered that even this £110 they had not been able to raise, and were £20 out of pocket. I have subscribed both years, that is £2, which was in proportion to my means, but I could not help sending him £5 for my share of the loss. In answer, I received the enclosed, which I will keep as a memorial of the spiritless, heartless imbecility of the English Eadi- cals ' I shall be surprised if, after reading this, you still think that it was not worth while risking something, in order to awaken the people from their torpor? In 1838 these differences appear to have become more serious ; and we find Fonblanque reproaching Mill with identifying himself with the ' Grote conclave ' and the ■ philosophical Eadicals,' and Mill, in defending himself against the charge, repudiating the doctrines of Grote and his coterie, as ' persons whom I have nothing to do with, and to whose opinions you are far more nearly allied than I am. . . . There may be such a conclave, but I know nothing of it, for I have never been within the door of Grote's house in Eccleston Street, and have been for the last few years completely estranged from that house- hold. . . . Immediately after Lord J. Eussell's declara- tion I tried to rouse them, and went to a meeting of most of the leading parliamentary Eadicals at Molesworth's, from which I came away, they thinking me, I fancy, almost mad, and I thinking them craven. I do not except Grote, or Warburton, or Hume, all of whom were there. I except none but Molesworth and Leader, two raw boys ; and I assure you, when I told them what I thought should be done by men of spirit and real practicalness of character, I had perfect ground for feeling well assured that they would not do it.' 82 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. And again : ' What is the meaning of your insisting upon identifying me with Grote and Roebuck and the rest? Do you in your conscience think that my opinions are at all like theirs ? Have you forgotten what I am ? how you once knew that my opinion of their philosophy is, and has for years been, more unfavourable by far than your own, and that my Radicalism is of a school the most remote from theirs at all points which exists ? They knew this as long ago as 1829, since which time the variance has been growing wider and wider. ... In the face of this it is rather hard to be accused of ascribing all wisdom and infallibility to a set from whose opinions I differ more than from the Tories/ In 1 841, however, Mill writes to Fonblanque : ' I believe there is nothing of any importance in practical politics in which we now differ, for I am quite as warm a supporter of the present Government as you are. Except Lord Palmer- ston's Syrian folly, I have seen nothing in their conduct, since the last remodelling of the Ministry, two years ago, but what is highly meritorious ; and now, after this last great act, a Radical, unless he be a Chartist, must be worse than mad if he does not go all lengths with them ; for men who are capable of doing what they have done on this occasion, and of supporting it moreover by speeches showing so thorough a knowledge of the principles of the subject, will certainly bring forward any other great im- provements which the time is, or becomes, ripe for. The moderate Radical party and moderate Radical Ministry which I so much wished for, and of which I had hoped that Lord Durham would have made himself the leader, were merely a parly and a Ministry to do such things as these are doing, and in the same maimer. Thev have conformed to my programme; they have come up to my terms; and so it is no wonder that I am heart and soul with them/ MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. 33 It was about this time that Grote, in a letter quoted in the interesting memoir recently published by his widow, complains so bitterly of ' the degeneracy of the Liberal party and their passive acquiescence in everything good or bad which emanates from the present Ministry ; ' and asks why he should waste his time and powers in ' sus- taining Whig- Conservatism against Tory-Conservatism,' though men like Fonblanque and Mill must have been surprised at finding themselves accused of Conservative, or even Whig, proclivities ! Fonblanque was certainly the last man who could be fairly charged with subserviency to any Government, or, indeed, with allegiance to any set of statesmen. He had certain objects at heart, and while Ministers worked in that direction he gave them his cordial support ; but the ' Examiner' never made itself the organ of a Cabinet, and, although holding views much in advance of those pro- fessed by the great majority of the Liberal statesmen of the period, was ever foremost in repressing and denouncing anything that bordered upon violent, subversive, or revo- lutionary doctrines. 1 Sir Denis Le Marchant, writing to Fonblanque from Scotland, says : — 4 1 have been living for two days in the society of a most sensible and excellent person, who knows much of the opinions of the operatives in the populous parts of Scotland, and who attaches great value to the good in- fluence of the " Examiner." The people in his district, as he tells me, take quantities of papers, good and bad, and he alone took the " Examiner." He lent it to his neighbours, and he soon found that it was sought for and 1 Striking examples of this will be found in Fonblanque's treatment of the Chartists, and more especially in an article upon the Great Chartist Demonstration of 1848. Vide Extracts, p. 216. D 34 MEMOIR OF ALBANY FONBLANQUE. read with the very greatest avidity. He thinks also that it is mainly owing to the influence of that paper that the people in his district refused to hear Eoebuck at Glasgow, or to attend the Eadical demonstrations. This shows that the tone of the " Examiner" is judicious, and suited to the people.' .... 4 There is one thing,' writes Lord Durham in 1836, ' which I admire even more than your rare wit, your irresistible humour and fine scholarship, and that is the thorough healthiness of your political views.' ' Healthiness ' is indeed the most appropriate word to express the tone of Fonblanque's political writings, which were singularly free from anything morbid, strained, or sensational, and all the more vigorous because of their moderation. In describing Lord Durham's politics 1 he unconsciously depicted himself : 4 He was not a reformer of the Eepublican class . . . but he occupied, as it were, the frontier line of Constitutional Eeform.' The maintenance of the Constitution in its integrity was with Fonblanque ever the first consideration, because he believed it to afford the best security for public liberty. On the accession of the present Sovereign the Throne had no warmer champion than Albany Fonblanque ; and he was as ready to defend it against the violence of the Chartists as against the insults of certain of the Tory party.' 2 The position of a young Queen would in itself have appealed to the loyal feelings of a chivalrous nature like his; but it was Her Majesty's strict adherence to Constitutional principles which enlisted his reasoning powers in behalf of the Sovereign, and prompted him to the defence of the Throne against all enemies, whether aristocratic or republican. His was indeed that soundest form of loyalty which, to quote his own words, is ' not 1 See ' liio question that arises ? His position behind the scenes of the great theatre has exposed him to one error common to almost all superior men in the same place of observation : a disbelief or underrating of the better motives of man- kind. A Prime Minister sees so much of the bad side of human nature that he can hardly believe, as much as he should, in the good. The error, however pointedly satire may plead in mitigation, is one which makes an important element of miscalculation and misjudgment. Unlike Walpole, Lord Melbourne has retired from office without taking any of the signs of honour ; and none could he have sought or accepted without descending from his true rank and dignity in the world's eyes. For seven years he dispensed titles and distinctions, and it was not for him who bestowed to receive such things. None of the gauds stuck to his fingers. He left power, as he came to it, without having derived from it any additions to his own state, except the esteem in the. heart of his Sovereign, whose first steps under the weight of the crown he guided with an anxious care which would be imperfectly expressed by any word but paternal ; and the attachment and respect of all who had opportunities of knowing the frankness, the uprightness, the high honourable bearing which marked his conduct throughout his official career. Such a servant needed no outward sign of his Sovereign's favour, and no verbal title to a people's honour. — (1843.) When Napoleon made himself Emperor, Paul Louis Courier's lieutenant remarked that he was made for something greater. William Lamb, clever and accom- 88 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. plishecl as lie was, was made for something greater than a . viscount's coronet, or for something greater than fortune's favours indulged him in being. The one thing needful and wanting in him was the spur to exertion. Had he been born to bread-and-cheese, he would have risen to the top of whatever profession he had made his choice. His capacity was of the highest order, but there was something which prevented its full development ; not indolence, though it bore the appearance of indolence ; but the ruling idea that nothing was worth its trouble, the non tanti answering to too many a suggestion. Whenever this miscalculation was overruled by the force of circum- stances or the necessities of position, Lord Melbourne evinced no lack of energy and application ; and had fortune placed his lot where labour is the habit, instead of a question of the worth-while, he would have added to the many brilliant examples so eloquently described in the lines of Savage, Strong as necessity, he starts away, Climbs against wrongs, and brightens into day. The extensive reading of Lord Melbourne refutes the notion that he was an idle man, and bears out our belief that it was not indolence that stood in the way of exertion with him, but the prevailing habit of distrusting the value of objects and exertions. This impediment was of course inoperative when the business was to please and inform his own mind ; and hence he was a great reader, and in all provinces of literature, not excepting the most arid. He was reputed a man of pleasure by those who saw his idle moments, without in his idle moments perceiving also the evidences and fruits of hours of study and reflection ; BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 80 but, if he is to be classed as a man of pleasure, the highest intellectual researches must have made the most part of his pleasure. Sydney Smith had penetration enough to see that Lord Melbourne was not the indolent man supposed, but only wanting motive for exertion ; and in one of his pleasant pieces of banter (aptly quoted by a daily contemporary) he imagines him passing a night in mastering the undignified and distasteful business of a deputation on the morrow. Lord Melbourne's administration of the Home Office was not, as has been represented, faineant. It was ener- getic, firm, and spirited when occasion required, and the fault we found with it at the time was on the side of severe precaution, not certainly of negligence and inertness. His elevation to the head of affairs in '34 was, it is said, a surprise to the public ; but it does not thence follow that the choice was an unfit one. Mr. Pepys' advancement to the woolsack was another surprise, and now the only surprise is that it was a surprise. Lord Melbourne was exactly the man for holding others together, and this William IV. had the sagacity to perceive ; and in the then circumstances of the Liberal party we doubt whether anyone else could have preserved the concord necessary to the existence of the Government for a session. Upon the accession of Her Majesty a new duty devolved on Lord Melbourne, which he performed with a zeal and judgment beyond all praise. He had the guardianship, as it were, and the guidance of a girl, upon whose young head had descended all the responsibilities and tempta- tions of sovereignty. He had to direct her youthful steps at their giddy eminence, and to surround her with the 90 BIOGBAPUICAL SKETCHES. defences of wise counsel. How lie performed his task we have seen in the matchless conduct of our monarch under all the trying circumstances in which she has been placed, and through all which Her Majesty has passed without swerving an iota from the high path of the Constitution. This service, which has so benefited the country in the different crises which have occurred in our party embar- rassments, and which will continue to benefit it, we trust, for many many years to come, was at this period not without actual detriment to Lord Melbourne in his position as a statesman. His anxieties about the Court necessarily withdrew much of his attention from the affairs of the Ministry, and left it too much a Government of Depart- ments wanting often unity in counsel and concert in its proceedings. And when, interrogated as to secondary matters of detail, Lord Melbourne was found unprepared to answer, he was reproached for negligence ; the truth being that he was engrossed by cares of really greater and more permanent importance. It is well known that the Queen, who had so profited by Lord Melbourne's guidance, was fully sensible of the merits of her servant, and requited them with an attach- ment almost filial. But never did Lord Melbourne turn this kindness of his sovereign to any account but that of her own service. He held Her Majesty's favour in trust for uses directed to the honour and welfare of the Throne, and never turned it to party or personal objects. He served two sovereigns, and he retired into private life without availing himself of their well-merited favour to acquire for himself either honours or title. As to honours, lie was contented with the honour of having BIOGIZAPHICAL SKETCHES. 91 guided with undeviating integrity the early footsteps of a youthful Queen, who, aided by his wise counsels, passed, with a steadiness and judgment beyond her years, through the trying transition from comparative seclusion to the throne of a mighty empire. As to titles, he was satisfied with having established an indisputable title to the esteem of his sovereign, and to the respect and gratitude of his country. There have been few men more popular than Lord Melbourne was in all circles ; not that his manners were courtier-like — they were abrupt, brusque, careless ; but his manly frankness, and, to borrow a phrase from Leigh Hunt, * the handsome solidity of his character ' pleased all, and there was a raciness in his conversation and a glee in his mirth which were indescribably charming. In society he never played the great man, nor did he unbend, for he was never bent, never strung up, always unaffected, easy, and natural, yet preserving an innate dignity so much felt by all that no liberty was ever invited by his familiarity. He liked, however, to startle people, particularly if they exhibited any sort of coxcombry or quackery ; in which case he would fling out something to throw them off their balance, some paradox challenging their pretensions, and exhibiting their incapacity of self-defence. He had great penetration in reading character, and was most felicitous in hitting it off in a few words, going straight to the key foible, or the feature of merit, whichever prevailed. It must, however, be admitted that there was the error in his views of too great an incredulity as to purity. of motives, and that he did not give the world credit for as much virtue as is in it, with all its faults, vices, and hypocrisies. 92 J3I0GBAPEICAL SKETCHES. A Prime Minister's position brings meanness to his feet which he must not mistake for the world's stratum. A French critic observes of Napoleon that one of his great faults was not believing in virtue, which caused him to make very misleading calculations as to men and their actions. Let the amount of virtue be estimated as it may, more or less ; still it must ever be a great element not to be overlooked without vitiating all calculations respecting the conduct and motives of men. If Lord Melbourne's disposition to distrust led him occasionally into errors in estimating the characters of others, it also caused him to do some injustice to his own ; for to avoid the appearance of claiming credit for acts of generosity or beneficence, he would often assign motives very much lower than those that really influenced him. In this respect he was like Goldsmith's Gentleman in Black in the ' Citizen of the World,' who performs acts of the purest charity and benevolence, giving reasons for them of a harsh or calculating nature. This preference of self-disparagement to the possible suspicion or imputation of humbug or cant, is the dissimulation of goodness, the fault opposite to hypocrisy, but a fault still, though not of alarming frequency. The failing of making too light of one's good deeds is not the propensity of the present age, or chargeable against any past time. As a politician, Lord Melbourne was essentially Con- servative, but Conservative without prejudice, Conservative without superstition ; Conservative not in sticking to the horse-shoe nailed on the threshold of the Constitution, but Conservative by timely reparations, Conservative by BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 93 guarding against decay and by adaptations to time and circumstances. He was not an orator ; the display of a set, studied speech being distasteful to him, and there being some hesitation in his delivery — a sort of stammer, not referrible, as we believe, to any defect in the organs of articulation, but to nervousness, the effects of which appeared in his emotions as well as in his language, and indicate the source of the malady that proved fatal. If, out of the fulness of the head, the tongue spoke as it does out of the fulness of the heart, Lord Melbourne should have been one of the very best speakers of his time; but the very fulness of his mind was against the delivery, for, as Montaigne observes, 'there are minds which are like full bottles, which, when reversed, will not pour out their contents because there is so much in them that in the jostle there is a difficulty of escape/ But, though not an orator, Lord Melbourne had great felicities as a speaker, and no one could make a point more tersely and racily. In sarcasm, too, he evinced a power which would have been formidable, but for the moderation which governed it and forbade the exercise except on extraordinary provocation. He hit with his shining keen rapier without pushing it home to a wound. How happy was his reply to an attack of Lord Brougham, who had commenced by reciting what his conduct had been to the Ministry — how in the first year of its existence he had given it his support — that in the second, unable to support it, he had absented himself, and so forth. Lord Melbourne, in answer, repeated his assailant's commemo- 94 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. rations, and expressed his gratitude, thanking the noble and learned lord in due order for his support in the first year, and still more cordially for his absence in the second year. Another stroke to the same enemy was in reply to Lord Brougham's attack on Lord Normanby's Irish ad- ministration, which, as it was atrociously unjust, wound up with a laboured eulogium on the virtue of justice. ' It undoubtedly,' said Lord Melbourne, ' was a most brilliant passage, but he thought he had heard some of it before. He alluded particularly to that part where he spoke of a vacillating House of Commons, a venal House of Lords, and a corrupt and ambitious Ministry, and of the power of justice overcoming them all. No doubt these were fine expressions ; they put him in mind, however, of Sheridan's celebrated eulogium on the liberty of the Press ; but they were by no means the icorse for that' Nothing can be happier than that concluding • salvo on the plagiarism : ' they were by no means the worse for that.' It is the nonchalant, easy tilt of the hilt, dropping the man, run through the body, off the sword. A coarse antagonist would have pinned him; Lord Melbourne let him fall. Another memorable hit was that to Lord Lyndhurst, when he applied to him the reproach addressed by an old worthy to a similar character as to talents, whereof God had bestowed the gift, the Devil the application. We could quote many other specimens of a happy wit accompanied with a not less happy temper. Indeed, of our time, few men have left behind them a greater number of memorable sayings, public and private, than Lord BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, 95 Melbourne. The place lie leaves in society will never be filled, for lie was of a most original stamp, without a particle of alloy of the commonplace or the conventional. It could not be said of him that he was the wit amongst lords, and the lord amongst wits. In company with the best, with Sydney and Bobus Smith, with Macaulay, with Luttrel and Eogers, he held his own ; and, the more brilliant the talents present, the more he shone amongst them by ready knowledge and ready wit. In this imperfect appreciation of a very remarkable character, we have not refrained from noticing what we believe to have been its faults, feeling that truth without reserve is the greatest homage to worth, and that well can Lord Melbourne's character afford the admission of the failings belonging to it in common with all humanity. As Tacitus proposes for the due honour of Agricola, siinilitudine decoremus. Most applicable to Lord Mel- bourne is the description of our great poet : Statesman, yet friend to truth, of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear ; Who broke no promise, served no private end ; "Who gained no title, and who lost no friend. (1848.) MR. JOHN WALTER. We have the melancholy duty of recording the death of Mr. John Walter, the chief proprietor and manager of the ' Times ' newspaper. The man who founded that great power, and brought its complicated machinery to the perfection we now witness, could be no ordinary man ; and his most eloquent monument is the mighty engine he leaves behind him. A history of Mr. Walter would embody a history of the improvement of the daily press. 96 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. The judgment with which he conducted the affairs of his journal was consummate ; and all who have ever been connected with it bear testimony to the generous, the liberal, and considerate treatment they received. We differed from many of Mr. Walter's views, but we never could do him the injustice of denying his benevolence. He was sincerely the poor man's friend ; and, whether rich or poor were concerned, the love of justice always actuated him, and its spirit has pervaded his paper, and marked it with a high purpose worked out with a talent worthy of so noble a cause. To admit est ubi peccat, is only to concede that there may be occasional miscarriage in the best and loftiest aim. All who had the advantage of Mr. Walter's acquaintance were impressed by the true liberality and kindness of his disposition; and he had the friendship and esteem of men whose friendship and esteem are not lightly earned. — (1847.) MR. JOHX HUNT. 1 In our obituary of last week appeared the death of Mr. John Hunt, the brother of the admired poet and essayist, Leigh Hunt, by whom conjointly this journal was founded, and for many years conducted. Mr. John Hunt had not the brilliant gifts and talents of his accomplished brother ; but his abilities were good, his understanding solid, and his taste of the very highest order. In moral character lie was a man of a rare stamp : an honester never breathed. His devotion to truth and justice had no bounds ; there was no peril, no suffering, that he was not ready to en- counter for either. With resolution and fortitude not to 1 See Memoir, page 23. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 97 be surpassed, he was one of the gentlest and kindest of beings. His own sufferings were the only sufferings to which he could be indifferent. His part as a Eeformer in the worst times was unflinching, and he held his course undauntedly when bold truths were visited with the pen- alties of the prison, which he knew how to face and how to endure. His way through the world was a rough one, but his constancy was even, and tribulations left him un- shaken. He was at arm's length with care throughout the active part of his life, but never mastered by it, for his goodness had a bravery in it which always bore him up. Fortune's buffets, of which he had a full share, left no bruises on him, and extorted no murmurs. We never heard him repine ; seldom, on the other hand, had he occasion to rejoice, and never for long. He took what- ever befell him, calmly, as his portion, and with a manly yet sweet resignation. His faults lay on the side of tena- city and prepossession : when he had taken up a cause or a quarrel, it was hard to alter his view of the merits by fact or argument ; and he was sometimes misled, by his sympathy with the weaker, to fight the battle not really of the more righteous, but of the worsted party. Having taken the field when power was carrying every injustice with a high hand, he was apt to believe it afterwards in the wrong whenever called in question. But these errors were few, and might have been fewer still had they been less detri- mental to his interests. There never was a question in John Hunt's mind as to the side to be taken in any dis- cussion but the question of justice, which he determined to the best of his judgment, acting upon the conclusion at all risks. Unconscious prejudice might enter into his H 98 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. views occasionally : but they were honest, according to his lights ; and in the days of martyrdom a martyr he would cheerfully have been for what he deemed the truth. John Hunt never put forth a claim of any kind on the world. He had fought the battle in the front ranks when the battle was the hottest : but he passed into retirement in the very hour of victory as if he had done nothing, and deserved nothing of the triumphant cause. The ever-kind Lord Holland, however, did not forget him. He procured an appointment in the West Indies for one of his sons, an excellent young man, who was doing well and promising to be a stay for his father's old age, when he was suddenly cut off by one of the diseases of the climate. Although many profited by the services of John Hunt in the Press, to few was the height of his merits known, shadowed as they were by his modesty ; but by those who knew them, profoundly are they prized, and affec- tionately is he mourned. — (1848.) LORD GEORGE BENTIXCK. Lord George Bentinck's character may be summed up in one word : he was a man of purpose. He was not a man of much talent ; he was not eloquent ; far from it ; his manner was so unhappy that it was painful to hear him speak ; he was not possessed of any high powers of argu- ment ; he had no one faculty much above mediocrity, and he had deficiencies of considerable magnitude ; but to supply all that was wanting and all that was weak, and to make the most of what was strong, he had earnestness, he had aim, he had constancy, he had indefatigable perse- BIOGBAPEICAL SKETCHES. 99 verance. He was not the man ever to know despair or discouragement. He seemed cast to stand in a breach. He had, in rare perfection, the unconsciousness of defeat assigned by Napoleon to the English character. He knew when he was out-voted, but not when he was worsted in debate ; and he was consequently always fresh and full of confidence to begin the encounter again. He was not an adversary of much prowess ; he wielded no mighty arms, and those which he did wield were wielded with no extraordinary dexterity or skill ; but nevertheless he was a most harassing foe, ever active and on the watch for exposed points. He was wrong nineteen times out of twenty, perhaps ; but he multiplied the number of attacks so as in the long run to make the hits tell out of the misses. How he rallied and headed the Protectionists, after the conversion of Sir Eobert Peel to Free Trade, is in recent- recollection ; it was a gallant service to an ungrateful cause. Lord George had his liberal views apart from questions of commercial policy, and they made him dis- trusted and disliked by his party, which also found fault with the passionate sallies emanating from the very vehemence which constituted the strength of his character. They did not take him for better for worse ; they had not the shrewdness to perceive that to reduce him to the prudences and proprieties would be to reduce him to zero, and that to have the advantage of his purpose and earnestness many excesses must be compounded for. They were dissatisfied that he had not those qualities of a Peel, which, had he possessed them, would in all human probability have caused him to train off with Peel. I 100 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. We believe that Lord George Bentinck was a thoroughly honest man according to his views, but very distorted and confused was the medium through which he surveyed objects. Seeing things exaggerated and discoloured, his mind inflamed upon them, chafing and heating upon its own errors. He had, as it were, hysteric fits of virtuous indignation, the subject matter of which was sheer mis- conception. But this was not without its success with the uninquiring part of the public, who, seeing the much ado about nothing, sagely concluded that c there could not be so much smoke without some fire.' If the home question be asked, What would Lord George Bentinck's position and repute have been if he had been a poor plebeian instead of the rich son of a ducal house ? the best answer is a reference to the secondary place which Mr. Disraeli has occupied, he being a man of genius, of acquirements, and of brilliant talents for debate. In all the qualifications for public life Mr. Disraeli in- comparably surpassed Lord G. Bentinck, but the aristo- cratic position placed the inferior man uppermost. One superiority, however, belonged to Lord George : he was sincere. For how much his sincerity would have told, if he had not been a rich lord, we are not prepared to say. We have too often had to observe on Lord George Bentinck's fierce and unjust personal attacks : but we are disposed to ascribe much that lias been placed to the account of rancour to confusion of understanding. He took a false view, and then raged against the error that was not in the object, but in his way of looking at it. His fancied forte was in grappling with facts; but finger- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 101 ing facts is not grappling with them, nor is seeing a phase of them the same thing as embracing their significance. Hence statistics were a quagmire in which Lord George was perpetually floundering. Often he perplexed himself, and then complained that he had been perplexed, the con- fusing account having been rendered according to his own express direction. The explanation is, that he took to public business rather late in life, and that, not having had the gradual initiation into details, he plunged into them and was overwhelmed by them, as anyone must be, so dealing with matters beyond his comprehension. The fault of Lord George, for which not a word of palliation can be offered, was insolence. He treated all who happened to be the objects of his displeasure as criminals divested of any claims to consideration or respect. The lord in his anger was not the gentleman. SIR ROBERT PEEL. We have seen the extinction of many of the world's lights, but the gloom which has followed the loss of Sir Eobert Peel we have never before witnessed. We well remember the anxiety and alarm about Canning in his last illness, in whom were centred so many bright hopes and the admiration of all ; but much more general and intense has been the feeling for Sir Eobert Peel — the affectionate solicitude while there was yet hope, and the genuine sorrow when the sad truth that all was over went forth. The bereavement is mourned as a national misfortune. We have lost a statesman who has rendered the greatest services to his country, and who was hardly less necessary for our future than he has been instru- 102 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. mental to good in the past. His post for the last four years was that of both moderator and guard ; to protect the working party against interruption, and the system in their charge against any attempts to undo or impair it. The very enmity which so rancorously attached to him contributed to his success in this undertaking ; for it preferred expending itself upon him personally, to the objects over which he extended his shield. In the storms of faction he attracted its forked lightnings, and with results harmless to himself while saving to others. He was indeed, in the phrase of Homer, a bulwark of the war ; and his merit in filling that post is the greater when it is considered that the obloquy to which he so manfully exposed himself for the protection of the common cause was not without pains, and peculiar pains to him ; for Sir Eobert Peel was of a very sensitive nature, and tenacious of respect ; and most poignantly would he have felt the taunts and insults heaped upon him, if he had not been fortified in encountering them by the sense of a lofty and imperative duty. Yet the calmness and equanimity which he showed under the bitterest attacks must have cost him much ; and the greater the honour for the inflexibility with which he held to his course, not deviating a jot to abate or propitiate the wrath of his virulent and unsparing opponents. In reviewing the conduct of Sir Eobert Peel it must always be borne in mind that he was educated in the Tory faith, and at a very early age officially enlisted in its service. But just as he advanced in life, and as experience corrected prepossessions, he saw reason to drop opinion after opinion, and to adopt opposite views. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 103 •* , These changes were not rapid, but they were always in steady though slow progress. And, when he had obtained perception of a great truth, he embraced it without reservation, and in all its bearings. He was not a man of half-and-half measures. Whatever he undertook he ac- complished completely, for his convictions seem to have had a strength in proportion to the slowness of their growth, and his action corresponded with them in mature vigour. His great measures need no recital, their merit no eulogy ; the motives only call for remark, as great incon- sistencies were undeniably involved. And had Sir Eobert Peel's life closed a few years ago, his motive for Catholic Emancipation would have seemed to us at least doubtful, for there were ulterior party conveniences as well as a present personal compromise in that step ; but the motives which, separately considered, might be question- able, must be cleared up by the motives which are beyond all suspicion ; and all that may have been equivocal in Sir Eobert Peel's conduct we read now clearly and unmistakably by the broad context of his sacrifices on the Corn question. In '41 he was in the highest position that any party-man ever held. Ten years before he had been defeated, his followers routed and dispersed; he had rallied them, recruited them, sagely instructed them not to attempt to undo what was done, but to accept the past, and make the best of the new constitution. The end was that he overthrew the Melbourne Government on Protectionist principles, and came into power with a commanding and a sure majority. Within three years he had to choose between the breaking up of his party 104 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. and power, and the continuance of the restrictive system, which he had discovered to be injurious and unjust, and which, with impending famine, threatened cruel sufferings and proportionably grave dangers. His duty determined his line of conduct promptly, firmly, and courageously. He looked to the public interests, and provided for them reckless of any personal or party cost. He broke up his party, he threw himself from power, he unfettered commerce and industry, and opened the channels of plenty to the poor. He then descended, if descent we can call it, to the position of a private independent member, shorn of much of the mighty influence he had once possessed, but retaining still a considerable share, and using it for purposes the most disinterested and the most patriotic. We say that the noble motives for this last great passage in Sir Eobert Peel's life must fairly be taken to construe motives for other changes which have been matter of doubt and suspicion. When charged with the affairs of the country, we sincerely believe that the conscientious sense of duty was ever his sole rule of action, according to the best of his judgment, right or wrong. But we have often had occasion to observe that he was avowedly lax when not under the obligations of office, and that in opposition he seized advantages too eagerly, and for the sake of a triumph of dexterity. But here it is to be remembered that the atmosphere of Sir Eobert Peel's life had been the Parliamentary arena ; that its arts of warfare, its manoeuvres, its stratagems, were his second nature ; and his skill in the game tempted him to take the advantages within the conven- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 105 tional rules of the fair play of party, which are perhaps of too great a width. But this license he could not be charged with since his last descent from power, during which time, with one solitary exception, his conduct was shaped solely with regard to the protection or promotion of the great public objects to which he had devoted him- self, at the sacrifice of every ambition but the ambition of earning a nation's gratitude. About the measure of Sir Kobert Peel's greatness there may be difference of opinion, though none that he was a great man. He is not perhaps to be classed amongst the men of genius, nor of the best order of eloquence : but he had many talents of a very high order, backed with great industry, dexterity in business, and the faculty of adaptation, which is so effective in a popular assembly. Whatever the estimate of him may be, it cannot fairly refuse him a noble place amongst England's worthies and benefactors. Sir Kobert Peel was all in all a public man. That he was unexceptionable in domestic relations is notorious ; but he had no social position apart and different from his public one. It has been said, indeed, in the off-hand language of the world, that he had no personal friends ; but the feeling on his death discloses that his personal friends were the general public. He must, however, have possessed qualities to please society, whether he cared to exert them or not ; for he had humour and a keen per- ception of the ludicrous, which he often used with happy effect in Parliament. But in the House of Commons he was more at home than in the dining-room or drawing- 106 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. room ; indeed, his life seems to have been divided between the strictly public and the strictly domestic, in both of which his memory will long be honoured and loved. The last service he has rendered to his country is the posthumous one of the example (so encouraging to the honest discharge of duty) of the gratitude and generous appreciation which await a long account of great services against which no set-off of passing or petty errors is allowed. ' How can I see faults,' said the eloquent French critic on a deep tragedy, ' when my tears blind me?' The tributes to the worth of Sir Eobert Peel in the Houses of Parliament have corresponded with the general sentiment. Lord Lansdowne expressed his sense of the loss in some words of deep feeling ; the Duke of Welling- ton, the ' Iron Duke,' the ' hero of a hundred fights,' could not be heard for tears. The little he said in praise of his friend, interrupted as it was by emotions of grief, was characteristic of his own noble simplicity. He dwelt not on Sir Eobert Peel's intellectual qualities, nor on the great things he had done, but on his truth, his devotion to the public service, and his undeviating sincerity. The tribute so rendered by such a man is profoundly touching, and brings the public heart to heart with the speaker. Lord John Eussell, in the other House, gave unaffected expression to his sentiments of respect and sorrow, and bore emphatic testimony to the patriotism of the departed statesman. He naturally alluded to the acknowledgment he had so lately had to make of the assistance which Sir Eobert Peel had given to the Government, couched in these words, now so memorable : BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 107 1 We have endeavoured to carry on the Government of this country, both with regard to its domestic and its foreign relations, in times of great danger, in such a manner as that there should not be any disturbance of the tranquillity, of the peace, of the progress of industry in this country, and at the same time to propose from time to time such improvements as it seemed to us might be safely adopted. In that course we have received, I fully admit, the cordial and constant support of the right hon. gentleman (Sir R. Peel). He, no doubt, on consider- ing the course that we adopted, found that that course was consonant to what he believes to be the true interests of the country ; but, nevertheless, I feel an obligation to him for the manner in which he has given that support, giving it freely, giving it frankly, and at the same time never attempting to show that it was by his support that the majority of this House were induced to uphold the measures of the Government.' Mr. Goulburn declined the offered honour of a public funeral for Sir Eobert Peel, stating that he had expressed a wish, only six weeks ago, that his body should be laid in the parish church of Drayton without parade and ostentation, the prohibition of which he had admired and approved in the express directions- of the Dowager Queen for her funeral. No such pageant is needed in this case. The funeral honours have been rendered by the heart of the country. In the beautiful lines on the burial of Moore, we have always thought of most eloquent significance the few simple words, ' and we bitterly thought of the morrow.' And how many minds now think with heaviness of the 108 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. coming time in which the departed statesman's guiding care and helping offices will be wanting. — (1850.) THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON". ' Know thyself,' said the Greek sage, and few men have excelled the Duke of Wellington in this point of wisdom. He was in the secret of his own grand successes, could count and measure the steps by which he had mounted to his superiorities, and distinguish and define the qualities which had ministered to his fortune and to his country's service. First amongst his advantages he accounted his exact knowledge of the mechanism of an army. It was an instrument every part of which he was acquainted with, and every want of which he was experienced in supplying. He had graduated in the learning of this instrument from the part of subaltern to that of Commander-in-Chief in the school of Indian warfare, which exacts an amount of care and skill far exceeding what is required in European cam- paigns. A good Indian general must especially have a thorough comprehension of the business of the Commis- sariat. To use his army he must know how to feed it, and to transport its material ; and of this main business the Duke was a perfect master. From the plains of Hindostan to the fields of Portugal and Spain, Sir Arthur Wellesley carried the combination in his own person of all the expe- rience and skill requisite for the direction and sustenance of an army. He was not dependent on the efficiency of any subordinates in any province of duty. No one could tell him that this or that could not be done ; and he could detect at once any error or imperfection in the performance of any service. He was a soldier of all work, from the shape BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 109 of a camp kettle to the plan of a pitched battle. With every detail he was familiar, and he could direct the Com- missariat as accurately as he could manoeuvre a regiment or marshal a host in battle array. The great Captains to whom he was opposed might be his superiors in particular branches of military science : but none combined so various, extensive, and precise a knowledge of the instrument he wielded, and its capabilities. Both Nelson and Wellington were accomplished craftsmen in their respective provinces as well as warriors ; and, as the one could handle a ship at least as well as any captain under him, so the other could perform the part of Adjutant-general, Quartermaster- general, or Commissary-general. In this knowledge of all details lay his advantage over Napoleon himself, who with his transcendent skill in moving great masses, and working out the grand combinations of war, had not the same familiar acquaintance with the anatomy, the limbs and joints he was setting in motion. In French phrase he worked in block. His genius seized upon the thing to be done, without the method of doing it, which was left to subordinates. Working so lavishly, reckless of blood and treasure, with vast means, Napoleon did wonders ; and working most economically, with scanty means, on a differ- ent system, combining the perception of what was to be done with the perfect knowledge of how it was to be done, Wellington triumphed over his colossal adversary. The Duke was never heard to disparage an opponent. Indeed, his generous appreciation of the merits of the great Captains he had encountered and mastered once provoked the bold question how he accounted for his own triumph over such men. He hesitated for a moment to 110 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. reply, and the interrogator felt all the temerity of the question he had put ; but the Duke relieved him presently by quietly saying : ' Their plans may have been better than mine ; but in the execution of every large plan there is likely to be some miscarriage, and I think I had the knack of readjusting my arrangements to new circumstances more quickly than they had, and perhaps for the very reason that the original plan was not so perfect, and the mending by so much the more easy, as you can knot broken rope more easily than leather harness.' The Duke spoke with great respect, or rather admiration, of the skill of Soult in organising troops and combining their movements : but with this faculty his praise stopped. For genius in war he gave the palm to Massena, in this criticism of personal experience : — ' When Massena was opposed to me I could not eat, drink, or sleep. I never knew what repose or respite from anxiety was. I was kept perpetually on the alert. Bat when Soult was op- posed to me, then I could eat, drink, sleep, and enjoy myself without fear of surprise. Not but that Soult was a great general. Soult was a wonderful man in his way. Soult would assemble a hundred thousand men at a cer- tain point, on a certain day, but when he had got them there he did not know what in the world to do with them.' The Duke would not be drawn into comparisons dispar- aging foreign armies and exalting our own at their expense. George IV. asked him whether the British cavalry was not the finest in the world. The Duke answered, ' The French are very good, Sir.' Onsatisfied with this sufficiently sig- nificant evasion of the question, the King rejoined, 'But BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Ill ours is better, Duke ? ■ ' The French are very good, Sir,' was again the Duke's dry response. No vulgar vaunt of superiority could be obtained from him. The Duke had the simplicity which is almost uniformly the concomitant of genius. Some time ago was exhibited a model of the battle of Waterloo, which the Duke recom- mended a lady to visit, saying, ' It is a very exact model of the battle to my certain knowledge, for I was there myself' As if there could be a being beyond the greenest infancy needing to be told who fought the battle of Waterloo. It was for the modesty of the Duke alone to ignore his own all-pervading fame. Eeaders of that valuable work, Colonel Gurwood's ' Col- lection of the Wellington Despatches ' (a book which will be turned to now with new and infinitely increased interest), must be aware that the Duke of Wellington was a thorough reformer in military affairs, and that, during the long course of the Peninsular campaigns, he was engaged in a perpetual struggle against the abuses of patronage, and jobs of every sort impairing the efficiency of the service. If he could have carried the same principle and the same spirit into his views of civil policy, his name would have stood not less high as a statesman than it does in military renown. But the perfect knowledge pos- sessed in the one province was wanting in the other, and the Duke's sound sense was at fault, working up mistaken data. When, however, he, in his own phrase, hit the right nail on the head, nothing could be neater and com- pleter than the way in which he drove it home. The right line with him was indeed always the shortest dis- tance between two points : the starting ground and the 112 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. object to be aimed at. His fault as a speaker was occa- sionally that of arguing in a circle, which happened when he lost his way in questions economical or commercial, with which he was not thoroughly acquainted ; but, when he was on the sure ground of his better knowledge, he was clear and pithy, and some of the best sayings of our time, condensing good sense in the simplest and most terse expression, belong to the Duke of Wellington. Though, as we have stated, there were political subjects upon which the Duke's knowledge was at fault, yet to repair this defect he had marvellous instincts of necessity, and, though tardy to yield in the field of debate, he was forward in conceding when the time for action arrived. As in the signal instance of Catholic Emancipation, he saw that the thing must be, though he had not seen that it should be. He took up false positions in the field of politics, but never pressed their occupation beyond the moment when he perceived them to be untenable, and that an attempt to retain them might strain the institutions supporting the Monarchy, which was his chief care. We never heard, or read reported, any mention of the service of the people or of the public from the lips of the Duke. It was, as we have before remarked, always the service of the Crown, or the service of the Sovereign. Doubtless in that he thought all the interests of the nation included. It may be objected that this was building the constitutional system downwards instead of upwards ; but, waiving that question, never had the Crown a truer or more devoted servant than the Duke of Wellington ; and, before he closed his eyes, he had the happiness of seeing the Monarchy rooted more firmly than it ever was before in BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 113 the affections of the people, whose loyalty, now, is not merely a matter of traditional sentiment, but of reasoned preference and settled judgment. LADY LOVELACE. Who has not felt an interest in the only child of Byron, the Ada whose name is so caressed in his verse, and a lock of whose hair is the subject of a touching passage in his letters ? Who has not felt at least a curiosity to know what features of genius and character had descended from the father to the daughter ? The Countess of Lovelace was thoroughly original, and the poetic temperament was all that was hers in common with her father. Her genius, for genius she possessed, was not poetic, but metaphysical and mathematical, her mind having been in the constant practice of investigation, and this with rigorous exactness. With an understanding thoroughly masculine in solidity, grasp, and firmness, Lady Lovelace had all the delicacies of the most refined female character. Her manners, her tastes, her accomplishments, in many of which, Music especially, she was a proficient, were feminine in the nicest sense of the word ; and the superficial observer would never have divined the strength and the knowledge that lay hidden under the womanly graces. Proportionate to her distaste for the frivolous and commonplace was her enjoyment of true intellectual society, and eagerly she sought the acquaintance of all who were distinguished in science, art, and literature. But from this pleasure, and all else, in the prime of life she has been cut off. She bore a long and painful illness with the fortitude, the heroism belonging to her character. We need not add to l 114 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. this feeble, imperfect tribute how deeply she must be mourned by all honoured with her friendship — a friendship so cordial, so frank. LORD ANGLESEY. All have thought and felt alike about the merits of Lord Anglesey. In every journal, in every society, the same sentiment has prevailed. It was the peculiarity indeed of his frank and noble nature to make itself understood, and to impress all who had intercourse with him, how- ever slight, with a lively sense of his qualities. It might almost be said that his character could be read off at sight, the express image of chivalry as he was. His bearing bespoke the man, so gallant, so high, so cour- teous, Seldom have bravery, gentleness, and generosity been combined in such noble proportions. In his cha- racter there was not a fold : it was all open as day. His pohtics were thoroughly liberal, and with more far-sighted and sound statesmanship in them than the world has perhaps given him credit for. There is not within the last forty years a single important measure of reform in Church or State, of which Lord Anglesey was not a strenuous, a steady, and an early advocate. He generally, indeed, was in advance of public opinion, and strongly urged measures which were opposed at the time as Eadi- cal, but which are now extolled for their wisdom, and the settled law of the land. Catholic Emancipation, Ee- form in Parliament, Free-trade, Eeform of the Irish Church, had in him an early and staunch champion. He was a repealer of the Corn Laws and a thorough Free- trader years before those objects became popular ; and BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 115 he disapproved of the compromise of the low fixed duty proposed in 1840, as short of what justice and policy required. Upon Sir Eobert Peel's bringing forward his plan of Free-trade, it was remarked to Lord Anglesey that he must not shut his eyes to the injury it would do to the landed interest. His answer was, ' Never mind — it is right and just, and the landed interest must not stand in the way of right.' The Board of Education in Ireland, one of the greatest benefits ever conferred on that coun- try, was Lord Anglesey's work. The credit has been given to Lord Derby : but it is so far from being deserved that he was actually hostile to the scheme, which origi- nated with Lord Anglesey, and was by his energies and exertions conducted to success. Lord Anglesey's poli- tical services were not appreciated, because he was not a speaker, and could not talk well of what he did well, or at least could not do justice in words to his own acts. But he had a sound, shrewd understanding, a judgment seldom at fault, often acting like an instinct, and accom- panied with a moral courage not inferior to his brilliant physical bravery on the field of battle. Few men have better understood themselves than Lord Anglesey. He knew exactly for what he was fit and for what he was not fit : and office had no attraction for him except where lay his sphere of utility, beyond which he never sought nor would accept employment. Lord Anglesey's administration of the Ordnance De- partment was remarkable for its scrupulous justice, and attention to all soldierly interests and claims ; other in- fluences than those of duty had not the slightest weight with him. We have heard complaints of his refusing 1 L> UG BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. favours to old friends ; but he practised that to which he subjected others, and acted the noble part of refusing a favour to himself when there was another whom he thought more deserving of it. On the death of the Duke of Gordon, the command of the Scots Fusilier Guards was offered in the most gratifying way by King William to Lord Anglesey. He received the letter communicating His Majesty's pleasure at night, and at eight on the follow- ing morning he was in St. James's Palace requesting an interview, which he readily obtained. He expressed his gratitude for the King's kind intention, and the admira- tion in which he held the corps the command of which was offered to him ; but he added, ' I am sure that in naming me to this honour Your Majesty has not borne in mind the fact that Lord Ludlow lost an arm in Hol- land at the head of this very regiment.' The King acknowledged that the fact had escaped his memory, and thanked Lord Anglesey for reminding him. Lord Ludlow received the regiment ; and Lord Anglesey had the satis- faction of seeing a brave old soldier rewarded, and made happy for the rest of his life. While at the Ordnance Office he rendered the service of putting the coast defences in a proper state of prepara- tion. On one of his visits of inspection to Portsmouth he was accompanied by the Duke of Wellington ; and most interesting was the spectacle of the two veterans, old companions in arms, tottering along together, arm-in- arm, each fancying he was the prop of the other, and supporting the unsteady step. The older was, however, by far the younger, notwithstanding the loss of his leg. What Lord Anglesey was to the last in appearance will BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 117 dwell in the recollection of thousands. He seemed to have left age behind him ; and, for a quarter of a century after he had turned three-score, there was the same up- right buoyant carriage and youthfully cheerful mien. Although his sufferings, from a nervous disease, were of the most cruel nature, they never affected either his system or his spirits. His activity with his single leg was something marvellous ; and, a-propos of that, we must mention a fact illustrative of his character. After the battle of Waterloo a pension of £1,200 a year was voted to him for the loss of his leg ; but he would not accept the grant. He did not like the idea of turning blood to gold. It is easy to calculate the sum which this self-denial saved to the nation. All through life, and to his last breath, duty was with him, as with his great comrade in arms the Duke, the ruling sentiment; indeed, in Lord Anglesey's dying hours, when his mind wandered occasionally for a few instants, the inquiry was, what brigade was on duty; and, upon the answer that it was not his own, he seemed re- lieved that he was not neglecting his turn of service. His death was serene, more than resigned, cheerful. He was surrounded by numerous loving relatives, and cheered . them with pleasant words almost with his dying breath ; and so parted this brave and honest spirit. — (1854.) GENERAL HAVELOCK. When Parliament was voting inadequate rewards to this brave and triumphant soldier, his admiring country little dreamed that he was already gone where the voice of honour, though never louder or more universal, will not 118 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. reach him. The tidings of his sad fate have afflicted the public more intensely than any event of the Indian struggle, if we except the news of its worst tragedies. We doubt if the people of England in any of their wars ever took a deeper interest in the fortunes and career of a general in the field than they took in Havelock's. In him they admired the union of the greatest qualities both of the man and the soldier. They saw the achievements of sheer personal merit; an eminence due neither to wealth, patronage, nor connections ; a man of genius and energy winning the highest professional distinction, with nothing but the brave heart and the wise head ; proceed- ing from service to service, and victory to victory, proving his ability and prowess in a hundred Asiatic fields, until he reached the crowning honour of the post in which he fell, covered with as much glory as ever surrounded the name of a British hero, Havelock lived long enough for his country's service, and its renown, but not for a knowledge of its gratitude, and its hearty appreciation of its foremost champion. How it would have gladdened his noble nature to have known how generously public opinion vindicated his .claims, and extorted reward more commensurate with his deserts, though inadequate indeed after -all. The gladden- ing thought might have been his at his dying hour, ' My son shall find mankind his friend.' But still we cannot look back at what has been done with any satisfaction, and its insufficiency must now strike every mind. The first proposal was £1,000 a year, and, had that arrange- ment been made, it would have requited Iiavelock's inestimable services up to his death with a sum of about BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 119 a couple of hundred pounds or less ; this was happily amended to a pension of the same niggardly amount, extended, indeed, to the life of his son. That son may be cut off by the sword or disease, and the rewards of the nation thus become a thing precarious, and dependent on the accidents of a life the most exposed to accident. Is this accordant with common sense and justice ? Should not rewards be as substantial and fixed as the services to which they are due ? Should it depend on the chances of life whether a requital of the most important public ser- vice should be thousands, hundreds, or possibly even tens ? Surely the sensible course in a case of this nature is the grant of a sum of money, rendering at the usual rate of interest the income thought befitting. The Princess Eoyal is not dowered with a life annuity, and the same arrangement of capitalising should be adopted for still better reasons in instances like that of Havelock. As for the title thrown in to make weight, the baronetcy, the question may now arise whether it is really a reward or an incumbrance. Many a man with slender means has had to deplore the barren addition to his name stand- ing in the way of his exertions to better his fortunes. A peerage for life would have been the suitable honour for the lamented Havelock. It may be objected that this is not the time to revert to these things : but such is not our opinion, and it is at a moment of grief like the present that the people take the just view of what has been done, or left undone, for the reward of desert of the highest order. The event which has spread a sorrow over the land only to be likened to the grief for the death of Nelson, 120 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. was not uncontemplated. There was a general instinc- tive feeling of apprehension that Havelock would never know the value which his country set on his services, and the honour and affection in which his name is held. We remember especially that, in a very admirable article in the ' Times ' on his merits and the proposed requital, the very event which we have now to deplore was anticipated as amongst, not merely the possibilities but, the sad prob- abilities. It is for the Government now to represent the feeling of the country, and to mark in every way its sense of the services and worth of the departed hero. His monument wants no place in Westminster Abbey, and will stand imperishably in the very noblest page of Eng- lish history ; his family should be the present concern. It would have cheered the hero's dying hour to have foreknown that those dearest to him would be the care of his admiring and grateful country. The loving study should be to do all as he would have wished it done. POLITICAL STRICTURES. 121 CHAPTER IT. POLITICAL STRICTURES. THE TREE OF LIBERTY. The woodcutter asked the trees for a helve to his hatchet. Like the Duke of Wellington, he had nothing but the iron at his command, which is no instrument without a purchase. He told the trees that his object was merely to prune them, and cut away the brambles and underwood which inconvenienced their trunks. The trees, having only wooden heads, were such dupes as to comply with hi? request, in consideration of such fine promises ; and no sooner had the man the handle to his hatchet than he laid it to the trunk of one of the noblest oaks, which groaned, as iEsop tells us, in its fall, that it was rightly served for listening to the promises of a woodcutter, a professed enemy of trees, and giving a handle to an enemy. Now, if the people of England have such wooden heads as to listen to the promises of our man of the hatchet, and to give him a handle, they will soon see him cutting away at the tree of liberty which they have so lately gloried in planting as the ornament and security of the country. —(1837.) 122 POLITICAL STRICTURES. MORE ZEAL THAN DISCRETION. It was the old Lord Harrowby, we believe, who, shortly after the recommencement of hostilities with France after the peace of Amiens, called upon the Government to put an end to the war at once by a march to Paris. Mr. Eoebuck, in the field of politics, is for a march of this kind. He is like a holiday soldier, full of spirit, full of courage for battle, but who wants patience for the necessarily slow business of a siege. He is for storming before the breach is practicable. In his opinion it is doing nothing to man the trenches, and run the parallels, and extend the sap. He despises all the covering works and slow approaches, and is for marching straight to the walls. He would rather break up the siege than waste time in so much pick-axe and spade work. The spirit of the troops is damped by inaction in the face of an inso- lent enemy, and he argues that, if they are not indulged with a coup de main, their valour suppressed will have the odd effect of causing them to yield up the field to the enemy.— (1837.) lord Durham's moderation. False or foolish indeed must any men be who con- found the firmness of Lord Durham with violence. His firmness has no more connection with violence than the timidity of some of his contemporaries with prudence. Seeing his way clearly, he walks in it fearlessly, within the fences of intelligence and property. He has always been the ready combatant of error, from whatever quarter it has menaced the peace of society and the well-being POLITICAL STRICTURES. 123 of the people. When the masses discovered a disposition to violence and revolutionary schemes, he was foremost and most vigorous in the stand against them ; when, at a later period, in 1834, the Eeform Ministry faltered, he energetically asserted the just claims of the people, and showed the great task of duty to them that remained to be performed. The merit of Lord Durham, of trans- cendent importance in our times, is his high courage and promptitude in correcting popular error and re- pressing popular violence, as well as in urging on the slow and the timid. He knows his time for curb and for spur ; and the people have, in more than one instance, shown the excellent temper with which they can profit by his corrective lessons, implicitly relying on his good intentions and his wisdom. — (1837.) A STABLE THRONE. At last the Monarchy is really in danger. Let the Queen look well to her Crown, for Sir Francis Burdett would syllogise it off her head in the turning of a sen- tence. Troy fell by the wooden horse, and horses proper are about to work the mightier ruin of the British Monarchy. Taking in a wooden steed was the destruc- tion of Troy, but turning away living steeds is to be the perdition of England's Queen. No Stud, no Queen, such is the rebellious conclusion which falls upon us with the suddenness of a thunderbolt. Sir Francis states the argument in the compass of a nutshell. The best horses, he affirms, should be prized above all price, and, ' if it is unfit that, under a Queen, interests of such public importance should be regarded, 124 POLITICAL STRICTURES. it follows that it is unfit that a Queen should wear the Crown, and not that the Royal Stud should, be sold.' The alternative being Queen or Stud, Sir Francis Burdett declares for Stud and deposes the Queen. Upon the single incompatibility of Queen and Stud he would establish the Salique law, as the Americans say, ' slick right away.' He admits of no question between the best of horses and the best of Queens. For a wilderness of Queens he would not consent to the sale of the horses. He does not regard Queens as he regards horses, as bulwarks of national safety, as instruments of national renown, and as, brought to a perfection, the admiration of the world. A Queen, he argues, is only good as a handmaid to horses, a head ostleress, as it were, a de- fender of the breed ; in a word, as the Studholder. Let it appear, quoth he, that it is unfit that, under a Queen, the breeding of horses should be regarded, and it follows, not that the Stud should be sold, but that the Queen should not wear the Crown. With how easy a conclusion he deposes Her Majesty. With what a brief and simple logic he takes the Crown off her head. A stable throne is the throne founded on the Stable. — (1837.) IF NOT, WHY NOT? We are reminded of a passage in the Duke of Wel- lington's speech, which may be numbered amongst the very few things marking his Irish origin. It escaped attention at the time, but it is far too good to pass un- noticed. His Grace, in the debate of the 27th of Novem- ber, 1837, stated that two Irish clergymen had been POLITICAL STRICTURES. 125 murdered ; Lord Mulgrave exclaimed, ' No, no, not one ' : upon which the Duke rejoined, ' If I am mistaken, I am sorry for it' — sorry he was not right in stating that they were murdered ! As the old song says, The flattering error cease to prove. Oh, let me be deceived ! It certainly is rather hard on a Tory leader that he cannot assert the killing of a brace of Irish Parsons without encountering a positive contradiction, and having to express his sorrow that the fact is not as he had stated it. Bearing in mind the pomposity with which Sir Eobert Peel two years ago proclaimed the awful truth that the life assurance offices had resolved not to insure the lives of Irish Parsons, it must be to the last degree provoking to Conservative minds that not a Parson has been shot. What, indeed, can be the cause of this untoward fact, so contrary to all Tory calculation ? In a bill in equity, upon a policy of insurance, a de- fendant was called on to answer the query, whether certain rats did not eat a hole in the bottom of the ship, and ' if not, why not?' So the people of Ireland should be called on to answer whether they have slaughtered any Irish Parsons, and ' if not, why not ? ' This is a ques- tion which should be cleared up, in justice to the insur- ance offices and the declaimers and prophets of the Tory party.— (1837.) MR. ROEBUCK'S CURE FOR IRELAND. When Moliere was asked by Louis XIV. what use he made of his physician, he replied: 'Nous causons ensem- 120 POLITICAL STRICTURES. ble ; il mordonne des remedes ; je ne les prends pas, et — je gums' l This is precisely the use that Ireland will make of her ''friend ' Mr. Eoebuck. Mr. Roebuck prescribes civil war ; Ireland will not follow the prescription, and, without civil war, Ireland will soon, we trust, be enabled to say 'je gueris.' Mr. Roebuck is one of those political doctors in whose hands the health of nations is quite safe, if nations will only follow the plain rule of never swallowing their medicines. Adhering to this rule strictly, the physicians, or, to use a more appropriate expression, the licentiates of this college are by no means so useless as at first sight they would appear. We always learn from their prescriptions what course of treatment we ought to avoid, and what drugs are mortal to the body politic. It is something surely to have our poisons labelled, and to know at a glance what powders we should keep for rats, and what preparations we should throw out of the window. Amongst the latter are certainly to be counted Mr. Roebuck's Canada pills ; for so sensible are we of the hideous cala- mities of civil war, that it is not a remedy we should willingly prescribe even in a rat-hole. That violent disorders require violent remedies is a deceitful maxim, even where about the violence of the disorder there is least question. The truth is, that many violent disorders are only safely and successfully treated by methods the very opposite of violent. There is nothing half so malignant in the Canadian distempers as in the 1 ' We converse together ; he prescribes for me ; I never follow his pre- scriptions, and — I recover.' POLITICAL STRICTURES. 127 Irish ; and yet violence is fully as absurd a prescription for the latter as for the former. The true course is Mr. O'Connell's mild constitutional regnmen. There is an energy in this gentle system sufficient to purge even the Church itself, without the aid of a single pill from Mr. Eoebuck's box, which is more to be hated than Pandora's, for, without being fair to behold, and without having Hope at the bottom, it contains the same ghastly troop of plagues and sorrows. In the fable of Prometheus and Epimetheus, the Greek mythology finely shadowed the wisdom of foresight con- trasted with the wisdom of experience. Prometheus, who resisted the fatal charmer whom the gods accomplished with every gift, including that of mischief, is the type of Ireland, proof against Mr. Eoebuck and declining his attractive box ; while Epimetheus, of whom Pandora made an easy conquest, and whose rash hand unlocked the treacherous casket, but too closely typifies the sim- plicity of the misled Canadians. Violence is a prescription pilfered from the Tory doctors, who order steel in every instance, and have always parti- cularly recommended that medicine in Ireland. We object to violence in all cases, whether used against liberty or for it : indeed, the experience of the world runs steadily to show that the violence of the foes of freedom tends to advance it, while that of its friends invariably retards its progress. We lose the moral advantage which our cause gives us, when we condescend to take our weapons from the Tory armoury. Violence is the natural champion of wrong. Those who have their quarrel just can afford to assert their rights calmly, and the remedy for impatience 128 POLITICAL STRICTURES. is to reflect that every hour by which victory is delayed adds splendour to triumph and security to conquest. — (1838.) WHO SHALL DINE WITH THE QUEEN? The ' Times ' certainly takes infinite pains with the Queen. It began early ; it began by instructing the Duchess of Kent in the proper method of educating her daughter ; and, the counsel not having been heeded, it next advised the Princess to turn off her mother ; but, strongly as the grace and propriety of that step were inculcated by the lords paramount of Puddle-dock, this lesson also was neglected. Thus, first, the Queen's education was not to the ' Times ' editor's mind ; next, the Queen's mother was not to the 6 Times ' editor's mind ; and now the Queen's dinners are not to the 'Times' editor's mind. To speak the truth, the 4 Times ' is, as Moliere's Precieuse would phrase it, furiously particular about the Queen's company, and it has the most positive objections to Lord Melbourne. It is not of opinion, indeed, that ' a little Melbourne is a dangerous thing ; ' but it sees precisely the degree of frequency in his visits which must prove fatal to the Monarchy. The ' Times ' editor, therefore, with the pa- triotism which is his boast, to save the Monarchy, kindly presents himself in character of Duenna to the young Queen. There were three things which Solomon, albeit the wisest of men, did not understand. There are two things which have perplexed and baffled all modern sagacity, namely, Why dogs turn round three POLITICAL STRICTURES. 129 times before they lie down ; and why dustmen wear red breeches, which habit is inscrutable. There is one thing, and one only, which the ' Times ' editor does not comprehend ; — why Lord Melbourne is such a constant inmate of the Eoyal residence. Now, if the Queen cannot give the ' Times ' editor some very satisfactory reason for the choice of her guests, fear- fully will be rung in the ears of the whole world the alarm-bell of the Great Tom of Puddle-dock against Her Majesty's dinner-bell, and from pole to pole the moment- ous question will resound, ' Why does Lord Melbourne dine with the Queen?' In the last reign the cry was, Lord Melbourne is never . at the palace, the Monarch hates him ; and now the cry is, Lord Melbourne is never out of the palace, the Monarch delighteth to honour him. So true it is, begging Lord Melbourne's pardon for the canine parallel, that • any stick is good enough to beat a dog.' A losing gambler, rushing out of Crockforcl's at three o'clock of a summer morning, saw a stout man with his foot raised on the post at the corner, engaged in the very peaceable and proper act of tying his shoe. The gambler ran at the stout man, kicked his anonymous quarter, and upset him. The stout man rose in astonishment at the outrage, and, more in sorrow than in anger, exclaimed, ' What's that for? I was only tying my shoe at that post.' ' Only tying your shoe ! ' roared the other in a frenzy of rage, ' you are always tying your shoe at that post ! ' And such is the head and front of Lord Melbourne's offending. He is 'always tying his shoe at that post.' K 130 POLITICAL STRICTURES. The losing player, rushing out of the Carlton, cries out the Premier is ' always dining with the Queen ;' but Lord Melbourne will not be so easily upset as the stout man in St. James's Street, and he will tie his shoe wherever he thinks proper. However this great party question, the dinner-party question, may be disposed of, the Queen must perceive in it a foretaste of what her condition would be with a Tory Ministry, or Mastery, as it would more properly be called. Her very company would not be her own. In the last reign the Tories brought matters to such a pitch that the Sovereign could not dine out when he pleased, and now they would order things so that the Sovereign should not dine at home with whom she pleases. Thus, in an especial manner, they wage war with the Eoyal dinners. All the sympathetic dinner- tables in the land must feelingly resent this wrong to the liberty of hospitality, and ten thousand knives and forks should leap from their sideboards to vindicate the Queen's right of dining with whom she pleases. — (1838.) REPEAL OF THE UNION. We do not see how the promise of a Eepeal agitation infuturo is to act. Miss Edgeworth tells us of an Irish lady who was ever taxing the abilities of her carpenter for the production of effects above the reach of mortal hammer and saw, and, when the mechanic begged her opinion as to the mode of realising her conceptions, the answer was always — ' Somehow by means of a screw.' Mr. O'Connell resembles his countrywoman. The screw by which everything is to be clone for Ireland is the menace POLITICAL STRICTURES. 131 of Eepeal ; the screw of Eepeal is the learned gentleman's only mechanic power, except, indeed, for the Church, which he proposes to take down by the principle of the inclined plane. — (1839.) The Count de Salis, who wears the Eepeal button, has struck upon a novel argument for Eepeal, namely, the im- practicability of carrying such a measure. 'lama Eepeal er,' says the Count, ' but I hold Repeal to be impossible.' We need not trouble our readers with the Count's letter in full. The substance of it is what we have just stated. We believe there are many Eepealers of the same species with the Count de Salis — men who would not at all like to be taken at their word, and have the domestic legislation they shout for suddenly conferred or inflicted on them. They are stout Eepealers, because they have a lively faith in the impracticability of Eepeal. They know the Union to be impregnable, and therefore they think they may safely exclaim : ' Away with it ! ' When men call upon mountains to fall upon them, and invoke the earth to gape and swallow them up, they do so in full confidence that the mountains and earth will do no such thing. Thus there are certain Eepealers who vociferate 4 Down with the Legislative Union,' being well- assured that they might cry ' Down with the firmament ' with as much chance of having the prayer granted. The old man in the fable calls Death to come to his aid, but, on the arrival of the king of terrors, suddenly loses all inclination to accept his assistance. Eepeal is the death of Irish commerce ; and the Eepeal er, like the 132 POLITICAL STRICTURES. old man in the fable, would be the first to shudder at the grim realisation of his mad desires. Count de Salis advocates Eepeal, because Eepeal is an impracticability. This is a step beyond the famous ' credo quia impossibile. 9 The Count not only believes, but acts upon the principle, that the object he aims at is unattain- able. The alchymists spent their lives in pursuit of the art of making gold ; but the alchymists believed that there existed such an art, although not discovered. The Count de Salis is guilty of the complicated absurdity of chasing a chimerical object, knowing and believing it to be chimerical as clearly and firmly as we do. He is not the dog who lost the substantial morsel by snatching at its image in the water ; for the dog was satisfied that what he snatched at was as solid as what he already held ; while the Count, on the contrary, knowing the laws of reflection, and perfectly aware of the shadowy nature of the tempting object, commits the dog's folly without the dog's excuse. We might attempt to extract sunbeams from cucumbers, and assign the reason of the Count de Salis for choosing such a path of industry : we believe it to be impracticable ! We might take a leaf from Mr. 'Council's book, and commence an agitation for the repeal of the Heptarchy, giving the Count's reason for our conduct : we believe it to be impracticable ! We might set about the enterprise of assimilating the bench of Bishops to the fishermen of Galilee and tent- makers of Tarsus — the Count's argument would serve our purpose : we believe it to be impracticable ! We might undertake to infuse the spirit of justice into POLITICAL STRICTURES. 133 Lord Hill's administration of the Horse Guards, or propose to ourselves to establish order and harmony in a regiment commanded by Lord Cardigan ; such things are impracticable, but what of that? quoth the Count de Salis. I am a Eepealer, but I hold Eepeal impracticable ! The Irish Eeformers ought to achieve all things prac- ticable before they give themselves up to the impracticable. It will be time enough to attack the Union, admitted to be impregnable, when they have carried the Church, which is not so strong as Gibraltar. In feasible objects they are sure of allies ; in objects unattainable who will support them but visionaries and enthusiasts like themselves? We altered the Eepeal button into a button for Eepeal ; and surely a button is full value for a scheme allowed by the wearer of the button to be an impossibility. Napoleon said that the word impossible was not French. The Count de Salis admits the word impossible to be Irish, and admits further its just application to a project put forward by its authors as the sine qua non for Ireland.— (1840.) " We learn from one of the organs of the Eepealers, the 1 Belfast Vindicator,' that the Eepeal of the Union is not to be considered as a reform, but the very opposite. The ' Vindicator ' tells us that it hates Eeform, and therefore proposes Eepeal. Its reasons for hating reform are curious in their very little way. The writer of the ' Vindicator ' ' would as lief wear an old hat without rim or crown as be called a Ee- 1U POLITICAL STRICTURES. former ; ' and why ? Because the aristocracy would despise him ; and what a shocking thing it is to be despised by the aristocracy ! and what an exalted motive of conduct to eschew the contempt of the worshipful classes, as Mrs. Honor would call them ! But this is not all ; the name of Eeform has ' no spell in it,' and who would advocate a cause with a name having no spell in it ? whatever that may be, for we confess a complete ignorance of spells. And that is not all ; Eeform has ' no poetry in it.' Good- lack-a-day ! And worse still, ' no inspiration/ Eightly, then, must a thing have been likened to a hat without rim or crown which lacks the common necessaries of a spell, poetry, and inspiration. At the end of the paragraph, like the postscript of the lady's letter, lies the wonderful news that the Eepeal of the Union is actually carried, and that all that remains is the formality of an Act of Parliament ! ! ! So in ' Cinderella,' when Magnifico is trying to squeeze his daughter's huge foot into the glass slipper, he cries out exultingly, ' It's on ! it's on ! it's on ! — all but the heel.' The Eepealers have put their foot in it — ' all but the heel.' The trifling formality of the Act of Parliament is still wanting.— (1844.) T*00 WEAK FOR BOYS, TOO GREEN FOR GIRLS OF NINE. , Five hundred Eepealers are clad in green. What can resist such clothing ? Eepeal first modestly set up a button ; it has now got to a coat. As a button is to a coat, so, then, the present state of the Eepeal cause is to what it was five years ago. POLITICAL STRICTURES. 135 Eepeal has evidently a tailoring turn. The colour of the uniform is well chosen. Green to the green. All who are green enough to believe in Eepeal will wear the colour of credulity. Mr. O'Connell is always talking of the greenness of Ireland, and now her sons are to be not less green than her verdure. Now that green coats are put on, Mr. O'Connell de- clares that the Eepeal agitation has commenced in earnest. Commenced ? Why it was carried in '44 according to the authority of Mr. O'Connell ! In the autumn of '43 was issued the promissory note for Eepeal three months after date ; and now the cause is beginning again with a green coat. It is a farce finished one day to be repeated the next. But can Parliament dare refuse to repeal the Union, knowing the appalling fact that there are in Ireland hun- dreds of men resolutely wearing green ? The conciliatory stage has passed away : it was marked by the cap which Mr. O'Connell set at England. The cap, whether a wishing cap or cap of maintenance, did not quite succeed ; so recourse is had to the green coat, the ultima ratio of Eepeal. — (1845.) Amongst the curiosities of literature are unlucky errors of the Press. Bayle has recorded some which will not well bear recital. In our own experience we have seen the immortal soul of a pious divine reduced to an im- moral soul by the dropping of a letter, and by the same casualty the lives of certain illustrious personages trans- 136 POLITICAL STRICTURES. lated to the lies of the same, and the Church in danger explained, as it were, by the slip, the Church in anger. The last specimen of this sort is an address to Irish Ee- pealers, bearing the signatures of Mr. Smith O'Brien of the black-eye, Mr. Meagher of the sword (query, word ? he being one who ' will say more in a minute than he can stand to in a month '), and others of that stamp, in which we find this passage : ' We have all the same bright goal in view, though we may not all be of one miud as to the best and safest path towards its attainment. But upon this we are thoroughly unanimous — that this common object of our wishes can never be realised if we will consume our time and our energies in assailing and reviling one another.' Now this is evidently a misprint. The passage was written — 'We have all the same right gaol in view, though we may not all be of the same mind as to the best and safest path towards its attainment,' i.e. the gaol. The transposition of a letter makes the difference between the goal and the gaol, if difference it can be called, for in truth the goal of Messrs. O'Brien and Meagher is the gaol, and the gaol is the goal. The next sentence shows the correctness of our reading : 'But upon this we are thoroughly unanimous — that this common object of our wishes ' (the gaol) ' can never be realised if we will consume our time and our energies in assailing and reviling one another.' Therefore, as the surer way to get into gaol, they assail and revile the Saxon and the Lord-Lieutenant. — (1848.) POLITICAL STRICTURES. 3 37 THE PENNY POSTAGE. The dispositions of the Tories to Eeform in its most moderate degrees have been sufficiently signalised by their opposition to every measure of improvement that has been brought before them this Session. They did not indeed throw out the Penny Postage, because they entertain a vain hope that it will throw out the Ministry by a deficiency in the revenue, compelling the imposition of new taxes ; but they showed plainly enough that, if they had been in office, the Penny Postage would not have been conceded. Here, then, is a reform most anxiously desired by the country, which the Tories would obstinately have refused, and which the Whig Ministry have granted to the wishes of the people. Can Lord Brougham name a single improvement, can he name any number of improvements, to be had from the Tories equal in importance to this ? Nay, can he mention any one improvement, great or small, to be expected from the Tories ? He professes to be in their confidence ; he promises and vouches vague things for them : but what can he venture to name? — (1839.) THE LAW OF MINOEITIES. 1 The equal division of an assembly,' says Lord Mel- bourne, 'is a possibility always on the cards — a contin- gency which may at any time take place. Whether this be an advantage or disadvantage we are not precisely the tribunal to determine. We must decide by majorities, which, perhaps, after all is not a very satisfactory mode of settling questions. But the imperfections of human 138 POLITICAL STBICTUEES. nature force it upon us. God forbid I should say that a majority is always in the right. I have been for so long a period of my life acting with a minority, and I even now so often find myself identified with them, that my associations and feelings are all the other way. (Laughter.) My prepossession, therefore, is that a mi- nority is generally in the right.' All new truths have their periods of minority ; but, when they attain to their majorities, does Lord Mel- bourne begin to distrust them ? Does he feel towards questions as fowls do to their broods, and. treat them with all care and love while they are small and helpless, but wage war with them when they are grown to their full size ? A Prime Minister, with Lord Melbourne's prepossession that a minority is generally right, must be in a painful state of doubt as to the correctness of his course. If his measures are supported by a majority, he must be filled with dire apprehensions that he has proposed some- thing very wrong ; if they be defeated, the comfortable sense of right is disturbed by the beating. If the presumption be as Lord Melbourne holds, that the majority is generally wrong, it certainly must be, in his opinion, as he says, ' not a very satisfactory mode of settling questions to settle them by majorities.' But is there, then, no other way ? There are Dutch auctions ; and is there no mode of giving the victory to minorities, the lowest number carrying the motion ? In such case a minority of one should be the perfection of reason. The difficulty, of course, would be to keep clear of agreement both with the foolish and the wise people ; that is to say, if it can be supposed that there can be any wise persons POLITICAL STRICTURES. 139 but one in a community whose wisdom tapers away to the fine point of a minority. A Whig Minister making a stand against some Eadical motion would find the Tories rushing in to spoil his minority ; and, even in the present system of giving the victory to majorities, how much must Lord Melbourne be distressed by the majorities given to him by the junction of the Tories in divisions on Eadical questions, which must destroy the presumption of right which would otherwise, in his view, belong to his minority of the Liberal party. Lord Melbourne's faith in minorities is not peculiar to himself. A Eadical member of the last Parliament pro- fessed it, and succeeded so happily that upon one remark- able occasion he carried his whole party with him out of the House, when he walked away alone. The con- sciousness of right, and pride of standing alone against a world in error, could no further go. Carrying the principle a step further, when a man is divided in his own mind as to any question, he should act upon the opinion which seems in the minority in point of force. The world would thus be governed on an entirely new system. Bedlam has always claimed to be in the right on the ground of its minority. The reasoning of its inmates is that there are few wise people in the world, and , the mad ones, who immensely outnumber them, lock them up. We are not quite sure that, if Bedlam, by virtue of its differences with the rest of the world, were thought wise enough to be trusted with legislative power, it would always suffer in comparison with the body representative of majorities. For instance, in a question concerning 140 POLITICAL STRICTURES. their own powers, the Bedlamites would surely acquit themselves more prudently than the Commons have done in the case of Stockdale v. Hansard. The Bedlamites would very judiciously and energetically have thrown the Sheriff out of window, and put Lord Denman into a strait waistcoat. — (1839.) TORY DISLOYALTY. If bringing the person of the Sovereign into hatred and contempt be a mode of producing insurrection and effecting revolution, the Tories are certainly employing all the powers of falsehood for that object. Mr. Brad- shaw is not alone in his glory. Mr. Eoby, at a Con- servative meeting at Ashton-under-Lyne, intimated by direct implication that the Queen did not know virtue from vice, purity from impurity, and that virgin inno- cence was banished from the Court ; virgin innocence banished from the Court in which the young Queen pre- sides ! l And this filthy imputation was listened to by officers holding Her Majesty's commission, Colonel T. and one or two others, whose silence upon such an occasion was acquiescence ! But these are only the promi- nent examples of the practice of the Tory party generally, who are acting towards the Queen precisely as Defoe describes their forefathers as having acted towards 1 The words are that the Tory chiefs should ' purge the Court, which stinks in the nostrils of all but those who did not know virtue from vice, purity from impurity/ &c. Now, as it is certain that Her Majesty's Court does not stink in Her Majesty's nostrils, it follows, according to Mr. Hoby, that Her Majesty does not know virtue from vice, purity from impurity, &c. In a letter to the ' Standard,' complaining of some remarks, Mr. Roby does not deny the words quoted, and he cannot shuffle away the implication in them. — (El). Examiner.) POLITICAL STRICTURES. 141 William III. With merely the change of the person, we may apply to this incorrigible faction the powerful re- proach of Defoe : ' Your whole party abuse her ; your climate blows always with storms of raillery and re- proach : your mouths are always full of cursing and bitter- ness ; and you are ever casting the venom of your tongues and the filth of your passions in her face. Her best actions are the subject of your detraction and envy ; her disasters your mirth ; her sorrows your song ; her death would be your triumph ; and the nation's loss your joy/ The ' Globe ' declares that it will not blame the Tory party generally for the outrages of some of its members. We will. We charge the Tory party with an offence analogous to misprision of treason. It is true that the leaders and organs of the Tories could not prevent the outrages of Mr. Bradshaw, Mr. Eoby, and others before them : but they could have discountenanced and rebuked them, and, instead of doing so, they have preserved a guilty silence. Far worse firebrands than Mr. Feargus O'Connor are the Conservatives, who familiarise men's minds with the idea of rebellion and describe the Sovereign as the worst public enemy ; setting an example of vice to her people ; degrading and debasing the Crown ; and lending herself to the destruction of the religion and liberties of the nation. Compared with these incendiaries, we look upon such a man as Mr. Frost as a minor offender. 1 Spare my life, I am not a combatant,' said iEsop's trumpeter taken in battle. 'No,' replied his captor; ' you above all men deserve to suffer, for you sound the charge which stimulates the fury of others, and your 142 POLITICAL STRICTURES. vile breath gives the signal for strife and carnage, and puts a thousand swords in action, though you use none yourself.— (1839.) It cannot but be unpleasant to gentlemen to report what passes in society : but abuse of the Queen has reached such a pitch, and has been followed by overt acts of out- rage so alarmingly in accordance with it, that to refuse to bear testimony of it would now be like the refusal to de- nounce an attempt against her Majesty's person because of the odium attached to informers. It is possible that the elderly gentleman who declined causing the arrest of Francis because of the trouble, had a doctrine similar to that of Captain B., and, giving the traitor credit for the drunkenness which covers more sins than charity, could not think of noticing his offence at the time, or of denouncing him without inviting him to profess sorrow for his attempt or the indiscretion of betraying it. The regret of the assassin, whether of character or of life, is at the discovery of his hidden malice, and it is only of his indiscretion that he repents. But this, with the drunken reviler of the young Queen, would quite satisfy Captain B. 1 —(1842.) 1 An officer holding a high military appointment on the Queen's personal Staff so far forgot himself as to speak of Her Majesty in such coarse and offen- sive terms as to compel a gentleman present to report his words. He was placed upon half-pay in consequence, and Captain B., who held a Government appointment, blamed the informer, stating that if anyone in his presence had d — d the Queen at a convivial meeting he would certainly not have turned eavesdropper. He subsequently denied that his remarks could bear that con- struction, but Mr. Craven Berkeley, to whom they were addressed, affirmed this being their substance, and a duel between the two was the result.— (Ed.) POLITICAL STRICTURES. US PEEL AND THE TORIES. What's to be done with Sir Eobert Peel? is now becoming an urgent question. In the words of the old epigram, the Tory party can neither live with him nor live without him. They murmur against him, they mutiny against him, they reproach him, they revile him, they insult him, but yet they suffer him ; but the question is, can he much longer suffer them ? He is necessary to them, and they use him and abuse him ; but they omit to observe that while they abuse him they damage him for their uses. To break their utensil, without breaking with their utensil, is the character of their conduct. Their only presentable leader in the Commons they mutilate and cover with dirt. Their poverty, but not their will, consents to his leadership ; and the pleasure of their will, and not the policy of their poverty, is fulfilled in the ebullitions of their spleen against him. His reputation is their peau de chagrin ; their existence depends on it, and with every indulgence of their passions they effect a diminution of the reputation on which the life of their party hangs. The service of the Tory aristocracy is a hard service, inasmuch as it includes the condition that their leader shall also be their obsequious follower. They would say with Mrs. Malaprop, ' Lead the way and I'll precede.' Sir Eobert Peel is both above and below his place ; and he has the full share of hatred for being above it and for being below it. — (1840.) 144 POLITICAL STRICTURES. ' I like my grandson,' said the old gentleman troubled with an extravagant son, 'because he is my enemy's enemy.' The Liberals have a liking for Sir Robert Peel on the same principle. They like the leader of their enemies, because he is their enemy's enemy. — (1842.) Sir Robert Peel's party is the road to his ambition, and he has macadamised the road so that not one particle of its structure stands out from the rest; all is a smooth, equal, dead level, over which the Premier smoothly trundles his wheel of fortune. We see Sir Robert Peel with the hammer in his hands breaking the heads about him down to the size of a walnut. He is far from being a great man himself, but yet he has the art, somehow or other, of making all the men about him little. They shrink and dwindle away to nothing under his leadership. They are reduced to mere ciphers, or head clerks of departments. See how he has hocussed Lord Stanley, pitch-plastered and all but burked him. Like the canistered genii under the seal of Solomon, in the ' Arabian Nights,' this fiery spirit is bottled up under the seal of office by Sir Robert Peel. The Premier, when he wants a dram for debate, draws Lord Stanley's cork, and puts in the stopper again and sets him by on the shelf just as suits his conve- nience. When Catalani's husband was consulted about the formation of an opera company, he answered, ' My wife, and four or five puppets, that is all that is necessary.' POLITICAL STRICTURES. 145 Sir Eobert Peel thinks himself and four or five pup- pets all that is necessary. He thus constitutes himself the sole dependence of the Tory party, and were it to lose liim it would find itself without a man whose capacity for leading could be recognised ; one as good or as bad as another ; all competing, and none seeming to have the superiority marking out the possessor for the chiefship. Toryism is the kingdom of Lilliput, extremely popu- lous but with everything in little, and Sir Eobert bestrides it as its Gulliver. And what enemy of Toryism would wish to shorten the days of the man under whose all- depressing hand Tory principles are broken clown, and Tory men of mark and likelihood dwindle away so as to lose all place of import- ance in the public eye? 'The cold shade of the aris- tocracy ' is a favourite figure ; but the cold shade of Sir Eobert Peel within its range has an intense effect of the same kind ; seeing which we may, without any doubt of our sincerity, address to Sir Eobert Peel the Eastern wish, * May your shadow never be less.' — (1843.) A CUEE FOE TEEATING. A charlatan, who sold an infallible poison for the destruction of fleas, was called to account for the inefficacy of the specific. Having inquired how the powder had been used, and found that it had been scattered about for the fleas, he replied, ' Oh, that is not the way ; first you catch the flea, then you take him by the nape of the neck and squeeze him till he gape, then you put a grain of the powder down his throat, and then you let him L 146 POLITICAL STRICTURES. go again, and you will never see him again, I'll warrant you.' Ludlow is Lord John "Russell's flea. He has had it by the nape of the neck : he has squeezed it till it gaped, he puts a grain of powder down its throat, and he lets it go with a hope that it will become ashamed of its ways. The illustration, it must be confessed, is too favourable to the practice of Lord John Eussell. He has had the flea by the neck : but he has not had the grain of powder to put down its throat. Having the flea by the nape of the neck, he has said that he would be quite justified in punishing it, but that, seeing that there are other fleas, he will let it run till he has made a powder, a grain of which shall be mortal introduced into the mouths of fleas held by the nape of the neck till they gape. Lord John's plan for the prevention of treating has in it much of the stringency which, with a nice application to a flea's neck, may cause it to gape. — (1840.) THE DUKE AND THE CANADA BILL. ' Heaven forbid that I should raise my hand against thee ! ' said the Quaker to the dog, ' but I will give thee a bad name ; ' which threat the good man fulfilled most effectually by raising a cry of mad dog. Like this has been the Duke of Wellington's course as to the Canada Bill. Heaven forbid that he should destroy it, but he does his best to give it a bad name. — (1840.) THE JEWS IX PARLIAMENT. The main argument of Sir Robert Inglis against a POLITICAL STRICTURES. 147 mitting Jews to municipal offices was, that it was against the prophecies. How the fly on the chariot axle becomes poor in the comparison with this flight of presumption. Here is this miserable fly, just of a capacity to deposit its dirt on a Jew, conceiting itself potential to frustrate or fulfil the decrees of God. The wretched insect presumes to eke out the will of the Omnipotent by its aid. It says, ' I will not abolish a form of seven words lest it should de- feat the will of Heaven.' The pert, ephemeral thing argues as if the accomplishment of the purposes of the Almighty depended on what it, and beings like it, could do in their little cobweb sphere of legislation. In its audacity it is afraid that it may overthrow the whole scheme of Providence ; it prates, let us have a care of what we do lest we prove too strong for Heaven. The fly on its ball of horse-dung is apprehensive of deranging the plan of the universe. — (1841.) THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON STANDING IN HIS OWN WAY. We have had no disposition to comment on the Duke of Wellington's declaration that he is not in the political service of the Queen. Solve senescentem, ne peccet ad ex- tremum ridendus, should have been in the mind of Sir Eobert Peel ; but it is probable that, whatever may have been the secret opinion of the Premier, he had no choice in the matter, as he could hardly venture to pronounce the Duke unfit for the duties of one of Her Majesty's ad- visers so long as his Grace believed himself competent. And it is a matter of notoriety that the Duke's claims to deference, and to the guidance of the judgment of others, l2 148 POLITICAL STRICTURES. are greater now than they were when there was more reason for them, that he is impatient of any difference of opinion, talks as if he were an infallible oracle, and has, withal, a very irritable jealousy of the suspicion that he is not. In this state of mind his Grace must be a most embarrassing colleague, as Ins disposition must be to avoid all questions which may tax his mental powers, and betray their enfeebled state. It is a sad case. He stands in the only shade of his glory. In retiring he would leave his greatness to the pride and gratitude of his country, and to the contemplation of the world. — (1841.) STOjS t E-BEOTH. Ministers have been cooking some stone-broth for Lord Keane. What is stone-broth? ask our readers. They shall hear. A fellow comes to your door in the country with a large stone in his hand, says he is weary and hungry, but no beggar, and only wants the use of fire, water, and a kettle to make some stone-broth for his dinner. Who would refuse a poor wayfaring man the use of a kettle and the fire to dress his dinner ? He fills the kettle with water, and puts in the stone to stew, and watches the simmering of the pot with great care. He tastes the broth, and seems satisfied that it is going on well ; but modestly observes that a little salt would make it all the better. Who could refuse the poor fellow a little salt to improve his dish ? Presently he tastes it again, declares it good enough, but that a handful of sweet herbs, if he had such a thing, would make it excellent. Who could refuse a handful of sweet herbs when nothing more was POLITICAL STRICTURES. 149 wanting to make a poor man's dish excellent ? Presently he tastes again, and is in raptures with his success in cookery, but some condiment is the one thing needful ; next it wants but a piece of bacon to be perfect ; and, at last, he finds that a few pounds of meat would make it a dish for an emperor, and, when he has got the leg of beef, the stone-broth is finished. The foundation of all this is the first gift, which has led to all the others. So it has been with Lord Keane, and others before him. Ministers put their General into the House of Lords. Nobody has a right to complain, for titles are cheap re- wards. The stone is now fairly in the pot, and upon this is grounded a request for the salt-box, which can hardly be denied ; the grant of a handful of money to enrich the peerage for Lord Keane's life cannot be refused ; and then there must be another handful for his successor ; and who could grudge a third for a third life when the thing is doing, and after so much has been given ? It is but the leg of beef which finishes the stone-broth after the pinch of salt that commenced it. Lord Keane has been a fortunate man. His great ex- ploit in India was the capture of a very strong place with a very weak door, and he will doubtless have the same good luck in finding a very weak door to the guard- house of the public treasury. Lord Keane did all that he had to do in India well ; his campaign was short and successful, and he seems to have been not displeased to leave off with the success he had achieved, and to hasten home fur his rewards. The question is not whether Lord Keane has rendered service, but whether the service he has rendered is such as to create a claim both to a title 150 POLITICAL STRICTURES. and two thousand a-year for three lives ; and this at a time when Government thinks it right to practise a most minute economy. A Treasury order was lately issued to the public offices, directing that old ink-bottles and almanac-frames should be saved, and returned by a cart, which would call for them, that they might be used again, and that notes should be written on half-sheets of paper. This was striking evidence of a rigorous spirit of economy. ' Take care of the pence,' says old Eichard, 'and the pounds will take care of themselves ; ' and when we saw the case of the old ink-bottles and almanac-frames, it seemed to us that the public purse should hardly want guardians, so well able should it be to take care of itself, according to the reasoning of the maxim. But, lo ! £2,000 a-year for three lives is asked for the reward of Lord Keane's campaign ! Juvenal raises the question, quot libras in dace summo f We wish some one would calculate the number of old ink-bottles and almanac-frames in Lord Keane. Let us see how much parsimony is necessary to make up for so much profusion. Let us see to what extremities we must be miserably penny-wise in order to be able to be mag- nificently pound-foolish. Let us have the computation of the value in old ink-bottles or almanac-frames granted to three lives in consideration of Lord Keane's successes. To conclude, we repeat that Lord Keane appears to have done his duty, and to have done it well ; but that there was nothing so extraordinary in his performance of his duty as to justify burdening the much-burdened public for his reward; and Her Majesty might much within the POLITICAL STRICTURES. 151 truth have said, in the words of the excellent old ballad : I trust I have within this realm Five hundred good as he ! —(1841.) THE POLITICAL MACHEATH. There is surely no exploit of the juggler comparable with the trick of Sir Eobert Peel to obtain for his party, through ' the science of darkness,' or the concealment of his intentions, the suffrages of both agriculturists and manufacturers. The great delusionist is to make believe that he is pledged to the one, and to hold out, through his decoys, signs and tokens of promise to the other. He is the Macheath, between the Polly and Lucy of the conflicting interests. He could be happy with either were t'other away. But while they so teaze him together, To neither a word will he say, But tol de rol de rol, &c. Sir Eobert's tol de rol de rol is the sliding-scale, the burden of his speech, which, without the details, is about as meaning as the burden of the song. Were Sir Eobert to slide into office we should next have the duet of the beguiled interests : I'm bubbled ! I'm bubbled ! Oh, how I am troubled. Bamboozled and bit, my distresses are doubled. Like master like man, and the happiness of MacheatKs followers is complete whenever t'other dear charmer's away. For example, at Manchester, Sir George Murray is free to declare against the sliding-scale ; having to do with Polly alone, he does not hesitate to proclaim that Lucy has crooked legs. In the agricultural districts the 152 POLITICAL STRICTURES. opposite tale is tolcl by the decoy candidates. The land- lords and farmers are assured that Sir Eobert is wedded to the sli ding-scale. The townsmen are told, with a knowing wink, that he is for a sliding -scale indeed, but that he is also for playing the agriculturists the slippery trick of pushing down the slide. Hide and seek is Sir Eobert's game. He hides his policy, cries whoop, and leaves his followers and his op- ponents to hunt for it. Each may fancy it what he pleases — the pleasures of imagination and hope are open to all — but they are disturbed by the pains of memory, in which some of his followers remember the passage of the Catholic turn, and tremble for corn. The agriculturists cannot trust him ; they feel that he is not thoroughly with them, and that he will tamper with what they fancy their interests to trim with the commer- cial influences, deranging one interest without doing enough to serve or satisfy the other. His mind is big with pivot only, if it be big with any- thing. Peel and Pivot must be the rallying cry of his followers — the rallying on a pivot ! What a fine prospect would this be — derangement for the landlord* and farmers without any proportionate advantage to the rest of the community. — (1841.) A PAIXLESS OPERATION. An ingenious dentist advertised a mode of drawing teeth without pain. His patients, relying on his assur- ances, awaited the removal of their teeth without any apprehension ; but short was their trust, for he .com- menced with a rude tug, giving cruel torture — up went POLITICAL STRICTURES: 153 the hands to the instrument, up started the patient, and bawled, ' Why, you promised to draw my tooth without pain, and you have almost wrenched my jaw off/ ' Now stop, stop, my good sir,' replied the dentist with the utmost blandness and composure, 'don't be impatient. I do draw teeth without pain, but before I perform the operation according to my own method I wished to show you Cartwright's manner, that you may the better judge between us, and what you have just felt is Cartwright's manner, not mine.' The patient sat down again — another tug, another roar, another rueful remonstrance, another smiling explanation. ' My dear sir, you are too hasty ; I was only showing you how Spence would hurt you. Be seated, and assured that / will give you no pain.' By this time the tooth hung by a thread, and, removing it with much flourish and no pain, the dentist triumphantly cried, c Now this, my good sir, is my manner of tooth- drawing, and confess that it is not accompanied with the slightest uneasiness.' And so the ' Spectator ' would repeal the Corn Laws. In the Session before last we saw the Whig method of repealing the Corn Laws ; in the last Session we saw the operation of the Anti-Corn Law League ; and when the Corn Law, like the tooth, hangs by a thread, we shall see our contemporary's mode of repealing it without pain or difficulty. — (1841.) PEEL SAUCE. ' Sir Eobert Peel's Sauce ' is advertised in the windows of the oilshops and Italian warehouses. It is the best of all sauces. With it any sort of fare, no matter how plain or coarse, is relished, and without it the most delicious 154 POLITICAL STRICTURES. viands lack zest. With Sir Eobert Peel's sauce a morsel of dry bread or a scrap of broken victuals is a luxury. But why expatiate on an excellence which has always been admitted ? Sir Eobert Peel's Sauce is proverbially the best of sauces. Sir Eobert Peel's sauce is Hunger. It is the sauce of the poor, and the only thing which the rich envy them, and cannot buy of them. Sir Eobert Peel has been reproached for doing nothing for the country since his accession to power ; but he has given the people his sauce in abundance, and he has not postponed to February the increase of hunger. Sir Eobert Peel's sauce is made of preserved Corn Law, from which it is to be had in infinite abundance. Never was it so plentiful as at this time, and the pecu- liarity is that people who have nothing else in the world have Sir Eobert Peel's sauce in their stomachs. The pickle-shops pretend to have Sir Eobert Peel's sauce ; but the country, which is in a much greater pickle than is to be found in the shops, has it in incomparably greater quantity and intensity. Indeed, the pretence of selling Sir Eobert Peel's sauce is a false one, for people who can afford to buy it cannot taste it. In the windows of the poor the announcement could with perfect truth be made — ' Sir Eobert Peel's sauce here.' We have not a doubt that the name of Sir Eobert Peel's sauce will pass into proverbial uses, and supersede the dinners with Duke Humphrey. Men sitting down to meals will ask each other, ' How are you off for Sir Eobert Peel's sauce ? ' Beggars will whine that they have nothing in the world but Sir Eobert Peel's sauce. Starving wretches who commit crimes to satisfy the cravings of POLITICAL STRICTURES. 155 famine will plead the irresistible persuasions of Sir Kobert Peel's sauce. Cobbett used to dub Sir Eobert Peel, Peel's Bill Peel ; but his apter description henceforth will be Peel's Sauce Peel. Certainly Mr. Shandy was not wrong in believing that men were made by their names. What do we want from a sauce but zest? and turn to Johnson's dictionary and you will find zest defined, the peel of an orange squeezed into wine. The orange peel is indeed a powerful stomachic, and Peel in giving himself, and nothing but himself, to the country — the Peel, and nothing but the Peel — has created a degree of hunger quite unparalleled. The poet for his feast says — Let each man bring himself, and he brings the best dish. But Sir Eobert Peel has done better than bring with him- self the best dish, for he has brought with himself that without which the best dish is savourless and insipid ; he has brought the sauce which henceforth bears his name, the best of sauce, Sir Eobert Peel's Sauce, the hunger which is everywhere prevalent. Let him, therefore, in honour of this curious service, be everywhere known by the style and addition of Peel's Sauce Peel. ' He is himself a host,' has often been said of a great man. He is himself a cruet-stand is the praise of Peel's Sauce Peel. All the provocatives to appetite have been surpassed by his infallible recipe for hunger — the denial of bread, effected by the preserved Corn Law, by the exquisite process of the enhancement of price and the limitation of the field for employment. These are the ingredients of Peel's Sauce. 156 POLITICAL STRICTURES. We must not omit to observe this curious peculiarity about the thing, that, though it cannot be bought genuine, yet the profits of it amount to many millions, and are carried to the pockets of the landlords, who, like the giant in the nursery rhymes, Grind our bones to make their bread — (18410 THE CORN LAWS. The Irishman, who found his blanket too short to cover his legs, hit upon the clever expedient, for lengthening it, of cutting a piece from the top and sewing it on to the bottom. This is pretty much what Sir Eobert Peel has done for the Amendment of the Corn Law ; what he has cut off from the duty he has tacked on to the averages. —(1842.) The late Captain Conolly, in his amusing ' Travels in the North of India,' carried away a napkin which did not belong to him from a bath. Discovering his mistake, he ordered his Persian servant to go back and restore it to the owner ; but the man protested against so unusual a proceeding, saying that he should be taken either for a thief or a madman, and concluded by a recommendation to his master to keep the napkin, and to satisfy himself with putting up a prayer for the man's prosperity. This is the way with our rulers. They keep the Corn Law, and instruct the Archbishop of Canterbury to put up a prayer for charity and the relief of the dis- tress which they have done so much to cause, lies- POLITICAL STRICTURES. 157 titution is in such cases worth myriads of aspirations. —(1842.) How like to Sir Eobert Peel is Dickens's description of Mr. Pecksniff's horse : — c He was always, in a manner, going to go, and never going. When at his slowest rate of travelling, he would sometimes lift wp his legs so high, and display such mighty action, that it was difficult to believe he was doing less than fourteen miles an hour ; and he was for ever so perfectly satisfied with his own speed, and so little disconcerted by opportunities of comparing himself with the fastest trotters, that the illusion was the more difficult of resistance. He was a kind of animal tolio infused into the breasts of strangers a lively sense of hope, and possessed all those who knew him better with a grim despair' When our Premier was prancing about in the profession of Free-trade principles, he was like the horse lifting up his legs so high, and displaying such mighty action, that it was difficult to believe he was not making wondrous progress ; and yet he was all the time at his slowest rate of travelling. Like Mr. Pecksniff's horse, too, he infused into the breasts of some of our Eadical brethren a lively sense of hope, while he possessed us and others who knew him better with a grim despair. A piece of orange peel on the pavement is not a more slippery footing than reliance on its namesake, Sir Eobert, in public affairs. Simile simili gaudet : like likes like, and the Peel likes the sliding-scale because it is so like himself. There has hardly been a moment of his official life in which he has not been giving rise to expectations 158 POLITICAL STRICTURES. and disappointment. Benthani said that lie had great difficulty in defining justice, but at last he settled that it was the disappointment-preventing principle. If it be so, Sir Eobert Peel must be the incarnation of injustice, for his whole course, where it has not been deceit, has been the disappointment of those who trusted to him. Public affairs under him are like the bridge in the 4 Vision of Mirza,' with trap-doors suddenly opening under the feet of those who traverse it. Every great interest stands, as it were, on a new drop, and it is a toss up whether Sir Eobert will or will not draw the bolt. We look at the Parliamentary stage now as we look at a pantomime, expecting the unexpected, and wondering only when anything keeps its form and its promise. By what perverse art, by what curious infelicity it is that Sir Eobert Peel, who has made so many complain, has made none in opposite interests content, we are utterly unable to explain. It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and it must be an ill Peel indeed that does so many much harm and nobody any good : but so it is. At the present moment commerce and agriculture look equally aghast at him. The one knows not what it has to hope, the other knows not what it has not to fear from him. Both have prayed to know on what they may reckon ; and the answer, as if in mockery, is, in effect, reckon on nothing beyond the present, full of distress as it is, for beyond the present the Minister lias no determination, no fixed purposes. He once declared that he would not put into the lottery of legislation for a better Corn Law than that of '28. He did put into the lottery of legislation, how- POLITICAL STRICTURES. 159 ever, last year, with what success we need not say. It is too soon, he avers, for another State lottery ; so, by way of variety, he puts up the prize for a scramble, pull baker pull devil. The great interests of the country are to fight it out tooth and nail, hammer and tongs ; and the stronger is to have what it wants, the so-called Govern- ment standing by waiting to see which is victor, and to do homage accordingly. Horace Walpole tells us of a pompous ambassador who wrote to his Court, ' Some say that the Pretender is dead, some say that he is not dead ; for my part I believe neither the one nor the other/ * So some say that Sir Eobert Peel intends to change the Corn Law, some say that he does not intend to change the Corn Law ; but, for our parts, like the ambassador, we believe neither. — (1843.) UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. For our own parts, we are not favourable to the Suf- frage, miscalled Universal, in the present state of the intelli- gence of the labouring classes, especially the agricultural. We should prefer the gradual extension of the franchise ; but, if the question is to be whether we are to remain fixed in this filthy and pestiferous slough of corruption, or to pass to universal suffrage with all the objections belonging to it ; it being declared that we are not to have a measure to guard against the foul influences which are destroying our constituencies, because it is feared that it might tend to Universal Suffrage ; in this case, we deliberately aver that we would rather compound for the inconveniences and possible dangers of Universal Suffrage, than suffer the 160 POLITICAL STRICTURES. continuance of the abominations in the present system. It is like the choice between suffocation from the miasma of a cesspool and the clanger of an inundation, and we think the inundation the wholesomer peril of the two. The electoral system is now the great jakes of the country ; and there Lord John Eussell stands, daintily holding his' nose over it, and spurning the only contrivance that would sweeten it. — (1842.) THE TARIFF AND THE INCOME TAX. ' Do you see how that fellow is cheating you ? ' said a spectator to a gamester. 'Hush,' replied the latter, ' don't concern yourself about the matter ; I intend to pick his pocket as he goes home.' This, at the best, is Sir Eobert Peel's morality. He saw how the monopolists were cheating the country, and, instead of breaking up the game, he bethought him of picking their pockets on their way home from the hustings. A roguery is made the means of the restitution. — (1842.) ' Let them hang you,' said the Old Bailey lawyer to his client, ' and see what a case I will make out against them.' Let them charge you with the Income Tax and rob you of the Tariff, and see how I will resent it, says Sir Eobert Peel ; but in neither the case of the lawyer's client nor that of the country would the unprofitable retribution reconcile the sufferer to the wrong. — (1842.) A farmer, having placed a luncheon with a huge Cheshire cheese before a clown who had been the bearer of a POLITICAL STRICTURES. 161 message from a neighbour, was disagreeably surprised, on returning from the fields some hours afterwards, to find the man still working away at the dish * What, my friend,' he exclaimed, ' have you not done with that cheese yet?' ' Sir,' answered the fellow with all gravity, tapping the Cheshire with his knife, ' you told me to eat the cheese, and it takes a longer time than you may think for, to eat up such a large cheese as that.' This is the only way of explaining the non-absorption of the whole of the revenue by its appointed guardians, that it takes more knavery than one would imagine to swallow up such a large revenue as that. — (1844.) 6 1 don't thank a man for supporting me when he thinks me right,' said a Minister in days of yore ; c my gratitude is to the man who supports me when he thinks me wrong.' As when Greek met Greek there was the tug of war, so, when Exchequer Chancellor in meets Exchequer Chancellor out, there is the tug at the public pocket. ' There are two of them,' as the haunted man said when he saw the sham ghost with the real one. Job between his comforters was not in a worse case than John Bull between the Exchequer Chancellors in and out. The one lays on a burden for one reason, and the other acquiesces in it for a reason directly the contrary. As the toper finds in everything a reason fair to fill his glass again, so these gentlemen of the Exchequer find in everything a reason for emptying the public pocket. — (1845.) M 1G2 POLITICAL STRICTURES. PICKFORD AND PEEL. Every one has heard of the great carrier of England, whose vans and boats are seen, go where we will. Few are aware, however, of the benefits he has conferred upon the world, or that in the conduct of his carrying-trade Mr. Pickford became the study and the prototype of the great Conservative Minister. Peel is but Pickford on a grander scale. The Pickford theorem was this : — given, a road made r and goods already to your hand, to carry the greatest quantity in the shortest time. The Peel theorem was like it : — given, the labour and the work of others, to do more in a shorter time than other men. In the application of this rule these great practical philosophers agreed. The first carried the merchandise of others over ready-made roads, as in another depart- ment of the public service ; the latter carried the measures of others when the thoroughfare was sufficiently cleared for him to let them pass. The Peel and Pickford policy was coincident, and only not identical by reason of the difference between material and political merchandise. Both were carriers on a large scale, and both depended, as a necessary condition of their calling, upon the skill, enterprise, and labour of others. Both required a road and a market ready made. They never wasted their energy in making roads or markets for other men. There was, however, a marked difference between these great men ; — a moral difference which ranked Pickford above Peel. Pickford never pretended to carry anything POLITICAL STRICTURES. 163 of his own. He openly received the goods of others, and gave a regular receipt for them, and punctually delivered them. Peel, however, contrived to receive other men's goods, and to deliver them as his own. And though he evaded neither discovery nor conviction, yet he success- fully escaped punishment, as indeed Jonathan Wild might have done, could he have appointed his own judges, as Peel craftily managed to do. Pickford was the God of Peel's idolatry. Upon the whole, he thought no man kept so steadily in the right road. Hence their career was alike and striking, as the history of each will show. Pickford first took up with the Heavy Waggon Interest. He toiled and travelled, slow and sure. So did Peel. From Oxford to London, and London to Oxford, Peel's team was seen day and night, and night and day, dragging its appointed load. None so steady — none more trusted in those days. He was welcomed in and cheered out of Oxford by crowds of elderly gentlemen, old ladies, and children, who shouted with delight at the bulk of the load, and the skill of the young driver, as he wound his way through the narrow streets. It seemed like one of the settled institutions of the State, such was its magnitude, solidity, and equipment. But, alas ! we are never moderate in our hopes, or humble in our ways. Pickford was ambitious. Peel, too, sighed for fame. Pickford had long watched a young and rising rival in the Canal Interest, which was very likely to take with the public. Peel had not been less observant. He marked the smooth, seductive, and yielding character- istics of his certain competitor. They were qualities after his own heart. Moreover, the canal had been proved to M 2 164 POLITICAL STRICTURES. be as sure, and only a very little faster on the road than his own team ; and, after all, what was a canal but a road covered with water ? Pickford, who was an enter- prising man, dashed into the new canal business, and Peel cautiously followed him. The barge now took the place of the waggon, and the old wain, impeded sore By congregated loads adhering close To the clogged wheels, CO' was discarded, and Pickford and Peel launched their for- tunes upon the smooth and sinuous canal. Great was the dismay at Oxford when the old stage waggon was abandoned. Church and State were pro- claimed in danger when Peel gave up the Oxford Eoad. He was called even by those who had long employed and praised him, ' a man wholly unworthy of trust, and of thoroughly proved incapacity.' He tried in vain to allay the angry town by saying he preferred the old waggon and team ; but when he saw (as he said plausibly enough) how heads of houses were decaying, and how poor a thing the trade of the Oxford Eoad alone was likely to be, what could he do but follow Pickford, unless he was to give up the carrying trade altogether, which he was determined not to do, even for all that Oxford could offer him ? He accordingly gave up the Oxford connection, and relied, like Pickford, upon the public alone for support. Pickford and Peel were now fairly embarked in a new line once more. If they lost old friends, they consoled themselves with making new ones ; and all the world said that Peel especially was a promising fellow. They drove POLITICAL STRICTURES. 165 a thriving trade, and Peel carried many tilings for people who never either trusted or employed him before. He was thought a handy, active chap, and, by dint of his readiness, gradually got the patronage and business of the old firm of Grey, Eussell, Brougham, Althorp, and Co., who did a great deal with him. His business once again flowed smoothly on, and was, as it were, fixed for ever. There was even an Oxford Canal. But Peel did not ply upon it very steadily. Now, soon after this time there arose a great commo- tion in the carrying trade. People complained that the canal even was sluggish, and that during one part of the year there was no getting on at all. The elements baffled even Pickford and Peel ; and there was no satisfying the Manchester and Birmingham people, who determined on having no hindrances to their trade with London, or any- where else, indeed. They demanded such a change — Eeform they called it — in the carrying trade, that, com- pared with what Peel had encountered before, it was a perfect revolution. Horses drew the waggon, and horses, too, dragged the barge ; but now these turbulent towns insisted upon doing everything after their own fashion, and by abhorred machinery. He was quite astounded at the hubbub they made — The sudden blast The face of heaven and our young Peel o'ercast. Nevertheless, thus fostered and forced, in fact, into exist- ence, the great Steam Power arose, to the utter discomfi- ture of the Canal and Waggon Interest for ever ! Peel, alarmed, deliberated and was lost. Pickford's genius rose with the emergency. He had no notion of 166 POLITICAL STRICTURES. giving up the carrying trade. He openly traded upon trading principles, and he determined not to stand still. He dreaded becoming a practical proof of the saying of the Scottish metaphysician that men, through inaction, might become oysters ; and he had no taste for such a quiet life. So he made up at once to the young giant, and his vans forthwith flew through the land ! But Peel, too, was a long-headed fellow notwithstanding. He collected the scattered host of the routed waggoners and bargemen, and he gathered all the discontented around him, to determine how he could recover his trade, and, By what best way, Whether of open war, or covert guile, They now debate. Peel had, however, from the first made up his mind. He always intended to take to steam as soon as he could. He only waited whilst Pickford was testing the strength and success of the rail. When his friends talked of setting up the waggon again he held his tongue ; but, whenever an accident happened on the rail, he took care very loudly to condemn it ; and so his friends expected, simply enough, *to see him some day re-establish his old team again. Little did they know what was passing in his mind ! Peel had all along decided upon a ' bold, comprehensive, and direct ' course, as his friends afterwards boasted : but lie kept it quietly within his own breast. He had determined, as he had succeeded so well heretofore when he gave up the wain, to send on the first good opportunity the barge adrift — take to the rail — and even to carry the Queen! So, with his characteristic prudence and caution, he con- POLITICAL STRICTURES. 167 suited none of his friends, but went straight to Brunei, the great engineer of the railway nearest Windsor, where the Queen was. All he required was, that the Queen should be carried safely, but not too quickly, Brunei thought Peel's connection worth having, and agreed to look after the business himself. Peel knew if he carried the Queen, such was the confidence of the people in her, that all the carrying trade would quickly be his own again ; — and he was right. Having, therefore, seen that the road was already well made ; and having calculated the chances of accident very carefully ; and having convinced himself of the necessity of adopting the railroad system, if he meant ever to overtake those who had adopted it ; and, above all, having found that the public had decided the question ; he decided for himself, cut his old friends and patrons once more, and, making a railroad carriage exactly like a canal boat and bribing his men to say nothing about it, succeeded in getting the Queen's patronage, and became again the prime carrier of the country. The fame of the disciple eclipsed that of the master, and he became known uni- versally as PlCKFORD THE GREAT. (1842.) CRUEL SUFFERINGS OF THE FARMERS' FRIENDS. Unde nil majus generatur ipso. There is a Society to prevent cruelty to animals ; there is a Humane Society ; there are merciful associations for all sorts of purposes down to the Industrious Fleas Eman- cipation Society ; and is there none for the protection of the Farmers' Friends, whose tortures at public tables and hustings it is dreadful to behold or to hear of? We live 163 POLITICAL STRICTURES. in a country which will not suffer a chimney-sweeper to put himself to the pain of climbing a flue, and which yet allows a Farmers' Friend to explain himself, as the cruel operation, as if in mockery, is termed. If it were an- nounced that any individual were about to put himself to the torture publicly, the humanity of society would revolt against such an exhibition, and the prevention of it would be imperatively demanded. And yet country gentlemen are permitted to explain themselves to their constituents ; and this is endured by a community which would not permit the same persons to perform the milder operation of eviscerating themselves! Bull-baiting has long been abolished in the passive: but is the baiting of a respectable country gentleman a less cruelty because he stands on two legs instead of four, and because he makes a show of voluntarily undergoing the suffering? — the fact being that the bull goes into the ring with quite as much relish for the persecution as the squire feels in going to the explanation. We fearlessly put the question to the public in the words of the old song, ' If you were an ass, would you like it yourself?' If you were a Farmers' Friend, would you like to explain yourself and your votes? Would you like to poke your eyes out, to pluck your nails out, to flay yourself? Would you like to go to a feast to eat dirt ; to go to a dinner to eat your own words, and cry good to it ? The horrible disgust of this operation is hardly to be described ; it is the torture of the shame far surpassing any that can be inflicted on the body; and yet a people who will not let Hindoo widows burn them- selves in India, will at home suffer Farmers' Friends to explain themselves ! POLITICAL STRICTURES. 169 A writer in the ' Morning Chronicle ' has, we fear, to answer for some of the public insensibility. We refer to some ingenious essays imagining what country gentlemen would say if country gentlemen could speak. Now we have no hesitation in declaring that there is much of fallacy in the assumption of our contemporary. We know the insolence and abuse which this opinion will draw upon us, and, to meet it in time with his own weapons, we will at once designate him as a foolish, feeble, and ignorant contemporary, for we are prepared to show that the position that country members cannot speak is not strictly consistent with truth. Pity has been claimed for them, and refused to them, as poor- dumb creatures ; but pity is, in truth and in humanity, due to them because they are not dumb creatures. The assertion may be startling, but we are prepared with our proofs in support of it. Livy tells us that it was accounted a prodigy when an ox spoke in the forum ; Eabelais dates some of his events when beasts did speak. It is possible that both were misled by fables : but we cannot be mistaken in the evidence on which we come to the conclusion that country gentlemen can and do speak ; and, if this be admitted, we leave it to a humane public to conceive the distress, the pain, the shame which the unfortunate gentlemen must undergo in their penances before their constituents. For ourselves, we will freely do all in our power to stop this cruel moral torture. We will receive the names of benevolent persons disposed to establish a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Farmers' Friends. It might be made a branch of the Humane Society, armed with gags and muzzles instead of hooks and drags ; and in that 170 POLITICAL STRICTURES. case the cautions against going out of one's depth would serve for both services. Gold medals should be awarded to active and courageous servants, who save a Farmers' Friend from the torture of explanation, by promptly gagging him and dragging him from the hustings or dinner-table.— (1842.) THANKS FOR A HUME. Thank heaven there is a House of Lords, was the cry •of the Tories some few years ago. Thank heaven there is a Joseph Hume, must now be the exclamation in every Conservative mouth. It is dreadful to think what would have become of Lord Ashburton without Joseph Hume. Nothing under Sir Eobert Peel but Joseph Hume could have saved Lord Ashburton's character from destruction. The Govern- ment saw their ambassador trampled under foot by Lord Palmerston, Lord John Eussell, and Mr. Macaulay, and could not stir hand or foot to save him ; could not make a move to pick him out of the dirt, cleanse him of aspersions, and set him on his legs. But for Joseph Hume, Lord Ashburton would have been a ruined man. Give me footing to stand on out of the world, and I will move the world, said Archimedes. This was the want of Sir Eobert Peel for the rescue and reparation of Lord Ashburton. He could not move his world of government without a plant for the lever out of his world of government ; and this Joseph Hume gave him. POLITICAL STRICTURES. 171 Thank heaven there is a Joseph Hume, must then be the grateful and joyous cry of Lord Ashburton. Thank heaven there is a Joseph Hume, must be the glad echo of Sir Eobert Peel and Lord Stanley. Thank heaven there is a Joseph Hume, must be the exclamation of Downing Street, the Treasury, and all the clerks therein. Thank heaven there is a Joseph Hume, is the accla- mation of the Carlton Club. Mr. Joseph Hume is now to be looked upon as some- thing more than a Member-man. He is an institution without which the Tory Ministry would be incapable of one of the first duties of a Government, the protection of a servant from a heinous wrong and injustice. When we see, indeed, according to the frank showing of Lord John Eussell, what has been done by the inter- vention of the Hume, and what would have been done or undone but for the Hume, we are lost in wonder at the potency and greatness of the part acted by the Hume. The leader of this strong Government could not have stirred to the rescue of Lord Ashburton but for Mr. Joseph Hume. In this particular instance of Lord Ashburton, Sir Eobert Peel's Ministry was like a ghost, which, as every one knows, with all its marvellous faculties has not the power of speaking first, but, when once invited to declare itself, can make all its wishes and purposes known. See what Lord Stanley said, in effect, at the end of his speech on the vote of thanks to Lord Ashburton. — (1843.) 172 POLITICAL STRICTURES. WILL HE SWEAE IT? It is said of a certain sort of character, ' He is not a man to be believed on Ms oath.' Sir Eobert Peel is a man to be believed on his oath ; but he must be on his oath, and, feeling this, he swears himself when he would have the world believe him. There is at least some modesty in this ; more modesty perhaps than piety ; more distrust of public confidence in his conduct and word than reverence for sacred things. Most gentlemen are apt to think that their motives are unimpugned, and their assertions credited, without the sanction of an oath ; but Sir Eobert has not this ordinary pride of a man of honour. In this particular case of the Ecclesiastical Courts Bill Sir Eobert Peel's oath that he has no corrupt motive is thought to be like the thief's protestation in the fable, that he had not the stolen leg of mutton. The rogue who had it hidden under his cloak swore he had not taken it ; and the one who had taken it swore that he had not got it. No man in public life has recognised the virtue of oaths so signally as Sir Eobert Peel. In '35, upon declaring a change in his views of the Irish Church question, he distinctly and emphatically stated that, having been sworn to advise his Sovereign truly, he had felt compelled to come to certain new conclusions. It is only a pity that he is not always under the strin- gent obligation of an oath. His spontaneous oath is of course binding, but he. has never given the public the great and much-needed comfort of it but once. When he charged Mr/Cobden with instigating assassi- POLITICAL STRICTURES. 173 nation, he did not throw in that he believed it, ' So help me God.' Nor, when he protested that he would never put into the lottery of legislation for a better Corn Law, did he add, ' So help me God.' He should now always be asked whether he will swear it. When the niggardly lady in the farce orders sand- wiches and wine, the surprised footman (Keeley) eagerly asks her, ' Do you mean it, ma'am ? ' The same sort of incredulity, with the same sort of query, always applies to Sir Eobert Peel, and ' Will you swear it ? ' and if not, why not ? will be the proper test after his own voluntary precedent. — (1843.) MY GRAHAM. Sir Eobert Peel has taken Sir James Graham under his special protection, and proceeded through a long valu- ation of his services, somewhat in the strain of those poetic commonplaces, every stanza of which begins with the question, Who did this and that ? and ends with the name of the object of laudation. To the question, who did this and that when at the Admiralty Board, the tender response was c My Graham/ ' My Graham's ' services, even in the opposite camp, were magnified and paraded with all particularity by Sir Eobert Peel ; but, when he came to the same task for Mr. Croker (whose claims to a pension had been brought in question), and with this difference, that Mr. Croker's merits should have been more intimately known to him, inasmuch as they were rendered for many years in his 174 POLITICAL STRICTURES. own ranks, in which he long played the part of a voltigeur, Sir Eobert had nothing to say, but that if the attack on Mr. Croker had been made when he was in office he would have given his assailant a disagreeable answer. Here was no long string of questions about the author of divers services, with the response, ' My Croker.' My Croker was left, as the Irishman said of the potatoes, to speak for himself. Sir Eobert Peel takes care not to be his sponsor. All that he vouchsafes to say of the cleverest man in his party is, that he would have delivered himself of something very disagreeable if he had been so attacked when in Parliament. Sir Eobert does not condescend to fight the battle of Mr. Croker, because Mr. Croker is simply a man of letters ; all that he stoops to is a hint, which would have been most aptly expressed in the pugilistic phrase that Mr. Croker is ' a very ugly customer.' Henry IV. introduced Biron as one whom he could present to his friends in the chamber and his foes in the field with equal satisfaction. Only one half of this senti- ment appears to be felt by Sir Eobert Peel as to his potent swordsman, Mr. Croker. All that he can say for him is the noli tangere for the type of a barren pugnacity, the thistle, acceptable only to the ass. — (1843.) LORD BROUGHAM'S FLOWERS OF SFEECH. We remember a farce in which Keeley is made to in- dulge in the kind of eloquence which consists in ringing the changes, of words on one idea, as when he speaks of 1 a juvenile person of the other sex, a girl of tender years, a maiden in the dawn of life, a fair of sweet sixteen, a budding woman, / may say, a young female.' POLITICAL STRICTURES. 175 Another example of this style of diction is before ns — c I hold in my hand,' says Lord Brougham, ' from Sir Thomas Wilde, a distinct disclaimer, an articulate dis- avowal, a positive and deliberate denial of having made any such charge against my noble and learned friend.' Any one of these clauses would have served for all the others, and any one of them would have exceeded the fact ; but the sentence would not fill the mouth or the ear without the surplusage with which it is stuffed to plump it out. This style is derived from declarations and pleadings, which much delight in it, every word having its value, not indeed in enforcing the meaning, but in swelling the costs. An eccentric baronet, who pub- lished a translation of Aristophanes which no one would buy, had the 1,200 copies bound in different handsome bindings, and furnished his library with them. There was a fine array of sets of showy books to the eye, but it was but a multiplication of the one bad translation of Aristophanes. And so it is in these fine long-winded sentences, the clauses of which are the one idea differently dressed. And thereupon people exclaim, what a master of language : a master who raises a levy, en masse, of words for every idea he would marshal in procession. An orator who has a great thought, presents it as simply and nakedly as he can ; but one who wishes his thought to pass for more than it is, dresses it up in different guises, and ordinary hearers mistake the repetition for copious- ness. The idea is like the rusty nail in a kaleidoscope, putting on many forms and colours in changing appear- ances, but nothing at bottom but a rusty nail after all. —(1843.) 176 POLITICAL STRICTURES. THE FAINEANT ADMINISTRATION. The 'Times' is the Dog in the Manger, which will neither enjoy a good thing itself nor suffer another to enjoy it. Our surly contemporary attacks the poor 6 Quarterly Eeview ' with ridicule and scorn, because it is thoroughly satisfied with what it is complimentarily pleased to term ' the policy ' of the present Administra- tion. For this the ' Times ' calls the ministerial organ stupid, and even goes so far as to liken it to the Ministry itself, which we must observe by the way is a palpable injustice, for to be like the Ministry, which does nothing, the • Quarterly ' should be published with blank paper. It is rather hard that the ' Times,' which has done so much to establish the present Ministry, should not allow anyone to admire it. For our own parts, even for the novelty of the thing, we like to see the 'Quarterly Eeview ' come out with its eulogium of the Government, to break the monotony of what would otherwise be universal abuse. Out of twenty-six millions of people it is good to find some one pleased, and we are much disposed to think that the ' Quarterly Eeview's ' satisfaction with the Ministry is more reasonable than the ' Times ' ground of discontent. The latter requires the Government to do something. The ' Quarterly ' says, how wisely they do nothing ! — how well they do nothing ! Here is their talent, or, as Bentham would have phrased it, their peculiar aptitude. Shining in doing nothing, they shine only so long as they do nothing. They are like those people who in conversation appear to the greatest ad- vantage while they hold their tongues, and who are POLITICAL STRICTURES, 177 extolled for a great talent for silence. And why would the ' Times ' destroy this grace, such as it is ; is it not a good rule, quieta non movere? And what makes the demand upon the Ministry to do something more unreason- able on the part of our contemporary is, that lie himself declares that they never attempt to do anything without blundering and bungling most egregiously. Does not this fact show, then* to what they should confine themselves ? Does it not distinctly mark the province of their abilities ? Ministers are like the amateur managers of Drury Lane Theatre some years ago, who, happening to shut up the house for a week, were so delighted at the cessation of the nightly loss as to wish most fervently that they could always go on so. But the necessity of performance spoilt all. As it was with that Committee of mismanage- ment, so it is with this Government ; the best thing they can do, the only thing they can do without mischief, without blundering, without discredit, and without disgrace, is nothing. It is the Faineant Administration. What Dogberry's ancient watch was in the business of a police, the present Ministry is in the conduct of a government ; and the maxim of the mirror of constables of the night, extended to greater affairs, will precisely tally with the rules observable in the Administration of Sir Eobert Peel. The command to stand has been given to the Eepeal agitation ; but, if Mr. O'Connell will not stand, the State Dogberry cannot help it ; Be has done his part as becomes a peaceable watch, and can do no more, and the knave may continue without interruption, for it is bad to meddle or make with such. Oxenstiern sent his son forth to see with how little I 178 POLITICAL STRICTURES. wisdom the world was governed ; but things are so im- proved now-a-days that it can be seen how the world can be governed, not with little wisdom, but without any wisdom at all. The existing Government is the nearest thing possible to no Government; and, if it should prove that the country, in difficulties of no small number and no small magnitude, can get on with such a zero of a Government, it must be quite certain that it would do equally well without any Adminis- tration whatever, and that the whole apparatus of the Cabinet could be dispensed with. The Government of the country is in a predicament like that of the Irish Gentleman in Joe Miller in the sedan chair wanting both seat and bottom, who, shoved along shuffling with broken shins, came at last to the conclusion that he had as lieve walk as be carried in such a chair. It is without seat or bottom that the affairs of the Government are carried on in the sedan of this Administration, with Mr. O'Con- nell for one porter, and Mr. Cobden for another ; Eebecca and the Scotch seceders lending a hand occasionally. The chairmen's poles are the levers of the different agita- tions, and they are put to the same uses of menacing the Government with success, as these instruments in Moliere's comedy, where they extort from the impostor the payment of the debt he had at first insolently re- fused, with the gracious admission set forth at large in the whole policy of Sir Eobert Peel, ' People may have of me whatever they please when they set about getting it in that fashion,' {. e., with the argument of a stout staff addressed straight to the head. POLITICAL STRICTURES. 179 The amazement and the scandal of the ' Quarterly Eeview ' at 'Young England's' demands upon the Govern- ment can only be likened to Mr. Bumble's emotions when Oliver Twist asked a second time for soup. The difference between the two occasions for astonishment and indigna- tion is simply this, that the little Oliver Twist in the political world asked for soup not for the second but for the first time, at the audacity of which solicitation Sir Eobert Bumble was well-nigh dumb-struck. The race of the Bumbles and the race of the Twists may be traced upwards from the poor-house to the Cabinet and the Legislature, and everywhere authority is astonished at the cravings of the unsatisfied wants, which it regards with the ' Quarterly Eeview ' as an unwholesome appetite. What can people require more than Sir Eobert Peel in power? Let them be content with that, and ask no more. Sir Eobert himself is satisfied, and declares that confidence in himself is all that is needed to set every- thing right. The malcontents talk of the largeness of his majority, and make exactions in proportion to its supposed power ; but the corpulence of the thing makes its disability, and it is as unfit for action as Falstaff him- self. It merits the character which the Greek general gave to a large army wanting the controlling and directing mind—' a great beast lacking a head.' Men of democratic opinions will not quarrel with the thing, as they will see in it the experimemt to what degree Government may be dispensed with, and affairs com- mitted to the currents of popular agitations. The old notion was, that either the causes of discontent were to n2 180 POLITICAL STRICTURES. be removed, or their consequences to be controlled ; that coercion or conciliation was the alternative : but Sir Eobert Peel's experiment is to take the neuter middle between the two, the easy, if not the golden, mean of doing nothing, and of bringing Government to the perfection of approach- ing to the same result as the absence of all government whatever. We shall see how it will end, and learn what to do with, or what to do without. — (1843.) THAT S NOT IT It is said that an Irishman never shows you the way. If you inquire the road to a particular place, he asks you whether you see the mill on the top of the hill, adding, well, that's not it, and whether you see the bridge yonder, and sure that's not it, and whether you see the great white house in the distance, for that's not it, and so on as to all the objects in view. In the debate on the state of Ireland Sir Eobert Peel's answers as to the aim of his policy are founded on this model. — (1843.) ME. O'CONNELL AND THE BOUKBONS. In remarking on Mr. O'Connell's desire for the restora- tion of the old Bourbon dynasty, we certainly did not refer to the proviso that Constitutional liberties should be granted, because we looked upon it as the sort of folly called in the East ' throwing words into the air.' Every Pretender is ready to make any terms for his restoration, and as ready to break them on the first opportunity. Louis XVIII. granted the Charter which Charles X. made ball-cartridge of in July '30. POLITICAL STRICTURES. 181 When the Devil was sick, The Devil a saint would be j But, when the Devil got well, The devil a saint was he. Expelled Monarchs and Pretenders will promise and vow for the liberties of the people whatever is required of them as a condition for restoration ; but let them get the power, and they soon contrive to release themselves of the irksome conditions. . . . Vows made in pain Ease will recant as violent and void. There is not a Carlist who, if the opportunity offered, ' would not counsel his Pretender to sign any bit of paper that might be asked of him, reserving the resolution to make it a nullity. Has the world ever yet witnessed the reformation of a Eoyal race? Did the Stuarts show themselves corri- gible? Were the sways of Charles II. and James II. any improvement on those of their predecessors ? And have we lost anything by the defeat of the Pretender's attempts, though there is no doubt that he would have made large paper concessions ? To us it seems more prudent to bar the door against the wolf than to take his bond for good behaviour and a well-regulated tooth. But Mr. O'Connell is passionately fond of legitimacy, and stickles for ' the right divine ' like an old Jacobite. ' There is,' says he, ' a security for every institution under a legitimate Monarch that can never exist under an usurper ; ' and as an usurper he has just classed Louis Philippe. 182 POLITICAL STRICTURES. In Mr. O'Connell's view of history, then, he must deplore the deposal of James II., as, by the settlement of the Crown on the Prince and Princess of Orange, Eng- land must, in his judgment, have lost the securities for free institutions. The Jacobites considered William as much an usurper as Mr. O'Connell considers Louis Philippe ; nay, Mr. O'Connell in his devotion to legitimacy, in the sense of hereditary right, may look upon the title of one King of a revolution as equally bad with that of another. As for the assertion that legitimate Monarchs can more easily concede liberty than usurpers, we know not where the evidence is to be found in support of it. The concession may be more easy on the part of such Monarchs ; but, easy as it may be, they do not make it. England's best securities for liberty have dated from the time that she set aside the claims of legitimacy and made election of a Sovereign. But in what single instance can Mr. O'Connell show us a legitimate Sovereign freely extending popular rights, or a restored one observing the engagements on the faith of which he had procured his Crown ? In Louis XVHI. and Charles X. the French have warning of what they might expect from Henry V. We are no admirers of Louis Philippe and his family : but, with all their faults, we should look upon the restora- tion of the elder branch as. one of the heaviest calamities that could befall the popular cause throughout the world, as it would be a revolution backwards, and virtually a declaration of returning fealty to the old regime. — (1843.) POLITICAL STRICTURES. 183 THE PEEL QUADRILLES, It is announced that when Her Majesty was SirBobert Peel's guest at Drayton he figured in a quadrille for her delectation. Now, the person considered, there is nothing in courtly acts equalling this feat in its peculiar way. Ealeigh's cloak for the feet of Elizabeth is dry commonplace com- pared with it, for what was it after all but the sacrifice of a cloak ? But for Sir Eobert to offer himself up as a dancer for Her Majesty's diversion is the most gallant thing we ever read of. It was as if the Archbishop of Canterbury had performed on the tight rope to please her. It is not often that the Queen can have any new entertainment as the guest of one of her subjects ; but Sir Eobert Peel gave her a diversion which no other person in the kingdom could have furnished. At Eu, in the chateau of the King of Prance, what had our Queen to amuse her ? A concert, forsooth, not better than she has once or twice a week in her own palace : but at her Minister's she had a ballet the most delightfully grotesque, Sir Eobert, in his own person, giving an amusement which all the Elsslers and Taglionis in the world would fail to rival in its particular mirth- moving way. It was indeed ' a dainty dish to set before the queen.' What price would not people have paid to witness such an exhibition ? The bare idea of it amuses us immoderately ; what then must have been the effect of actually beholding such a lusus ? The only thing at all resembling it that we have ever read or heard of is the dance of the Spinning Dervises in the East. If we might hint a fault, it would be that Sir Eobert 184 POLITICAL STRICTURES. figured in a quadrille instead of a pas seul, which would have had a still better effect ; but perhaps he reserves that for the next time that he has the honour of enter- taining Her Majesty. As it is, the devotion which he has testified to Her Majesty, as Terence phrases it, manibus pedibusque, corroborates the character which George the Fourth delighted to give him of the most elegant man of his time. Had he capered away before that monarch, we potently believe that he would have died of it. Who will not apply to such an exhibition the words of John Gilpin's bard And when he next does join the dance, Ma j we be there to see? A thing of this sort in a man like Sir Eobert Peel, who does nothing without a reason, must be looked upon as a prodigy, preparing us for the most extraordinary move- ments. It is surely an omen for a great statesman troubled with a corn question to dance. Does it prefigure a dos a dos with the Duke of Buckingham (it is well it is not the late one), or an en avant in the pastourelle with Mr. Cobden, or a balancer with Lord John Eussell, or the demi queue de chat with his own tail, or the boulanger with the League, or the chaine Anglaise with O'Connell? Certain it is that, with a man of the eminent consistency of Sir Eobert Peel, every part of his conduct may be taken as an index of what is to come ; and we look upon his sayings and doings in the recess as giving the cue to his policy in the coming Session. In fact, he speaks in figures and parables to those who can understand him, and the absurdity is in taking his words literally. — (1844.) POLITICAL STBIGTUBES 185 A ROYAL COMPLIMENT. A max with a very cadaverous countenance was com- plimented by a friend on his looks in these terms, i I never saw you looking better, nor any other man looking worse.' l The same turn of congratulation may be addressed to the nation under its Tory Government at this moment by the Queen. Her Majesty has never seen her country under her Tory Administration looking better, nor has she ever seen it under any other administration looking worse— (1844.) peel's portrait gallery. We have been much puzzled by a paragraph in the ' Morning Chronicle,' announcing that Sir Eobert Peel is ' forming an extensive collection of the portraits of his political friends ! ' Was the like ever heard of before ? If we had seen it stated that an artist was employed to take the likeness of Sir Eobert Peel's political friend in the singular (and a singular friend he would be) y we might have given credit to the report, and should only have been curious to know who Sir Eobert Peel's one friend might be. But to require us to believe that he has more than one friend is rather too much. It is utterly inconceivable. No doubt Sir Eobert would be glad of a collection of portraits of friends ; but it is easier for him to employ an artist than to make the friends who are to be the subjects of his pencil. Perhaps, however, the Premier,. 1 See page 10. 186 POLITICAL STRICTURES. because he has no friends, thinks to supply the deficiency by paintings of such curiosities, as the Dutch, where they have no soldiers, paint sentinels in the empty sentry-boxes. As a purely fancy sketch or essay in the ideal, no subject could be better chosen than Sir Eobert Peel's friend. It must have some likeness to Mr. Bonham, and yet it must not be Mr. Bonham. A bit must be culled from one man, and a bit from another, to make up a Sir Eobert Peel's friend. Colonel Sibthorp must contribute something, a whisker we will put him down for ; Mr. Bonham his gracious air ; Mr. Gladstone his charming vivacity ; Lord Stanley Ms sweet smile ; and thus might be clubbed a Sir Eobert Peel's friend. No one man would have enough of the thing in him. Mr. Disraeli could contribute as much as anyone, little as it might be. There is no other way of doing it than by hodge- podge or pick-nick ; by which is to be understood the pick of whatever there is appertaining to Mck (the old) out of every man, and blending all into a Peel's friend. Sir Eobert Peel hearing some one say that he was going to see a friend, cried, ' Let me go with you, for I never saw one.' If he had seen one he intended to have his picture taken on the spot, for in such a case there would be no time to lose, lest the friendship should be lost. The story is, we believe, in the last edition of Joe Miller; but it is a melancholy fact in the life of the Premier. Upon our own authority we can state that Sir Eobert is forming a collection of the portraits of griffins in his menagerie ; and we are assured that they are extremely POLITICAL STRICTURES. 187 like the life, niucli more so than the public-house signs, which have quite a mistaken notion of the figures of those animals. Our only apprehension is that these collections may clash, and impair the effect of each other, the griffins being mistaken for Sir Eobert Peel's friends, and Sir Eobert Peel's friends for the griffins. — (1844.) THE SKIN DOCTOR. Our Premier is what the French call a skin-doctor, a most fortunate quack at throwing in eruptions, exorcising pimples, and getting rid of a rash. There is no denying the miracles worked by Peel's lotion during the last half- year or ten months. His medicine indeed requires an immensity of time, patience, and gentle friction ; but in the end it benumbs and stupefies the acuteness of feeling in the patient and of interest in those around him. Weariness is created, if not cure ; and the slumber which succeeds exhaustion comes at least to suspend irritation and suffering. But the skin-doctor evidently shows his reluctance and incapacity to meddle with the chronic disease. His art does not extend beyond the surface, or his cure beyond the preservation of quiet and the saving of appearances. He shrinks from searching into the true source of disease, for that would task his faculties and weigh upon his re- sponsibility too much. He finds it more convenient to deny the existence of all internal disorder ; and, how- ever deadly the ill which ossifies the heart or inflames the intestines, Sir Eobert has still but the old medicines of his police lotions and his mesmeric speeches. — (1844.) 188 POLITICAL STRICTURES. THE MAN OF LETTERS. 1 It was the custom in France in Napoleon's time, and in that of Louis the Eighteenth, for the solemn sittings of Cabinet Councils to be opened, not by prayer and thanksgiving, but by a daily report from the police and the post-office. Before entering upon the grave discus- sion of the business of the nation, the Council was en- lightened as to the comings and goings of this and that personage, with extracts from their letters, revelations of their amours, and records of their social quarrels. A Prime Minister once protested against this custom as an egregious loss of time. ' Do you want to rob me of the only entertaining part of Cabinet Councils?' asked the King. ' You can't expect me to sit out your solemn tragedies unless you indulge me in my police and post- office interludes.' The other Ministers agreed with the Monarch, who was always put in good humour by prying into the billet-doux of his courtiers. Fouche had a col- lection that would have furnished forth another edition of Brantome's ' Dames Galantes.' No one knew where he kept it. Napoleon, who paid him to spy, paid another genius to act spy upon him. As the whole French system has been transplanted and acclimatized here, we wonder who is employed to watch Sir James, Quis custodiet istum custodem ? But Louis Philippe keeps a man of letters and re- 1 Relating to the opening of private letters on their transit through the Post-Office by order of the Home Secretary, Sir James Graham, with a view to the discovery of treasonable correspondence — the condemnation aud defence of which practice gave rise to much angry debate in Parliament, and finally resulted in a Secret Committee of Enquiry being granted. — (Ed.) POLITICAL STRICTURES. 189 search far more clever than either Fouche or Graham. His insight is quite miraculous, and his mode of arriving at the contents of a letter without breaking the seal is indeed prodigious. No Mazzini ever complained in France that his letters were opened, no Stolzman dunned a Liberal deputy to state that his missives were in- tercepted. This is statesmanship as it should be. A Chancellor of the Exchequer should pick our pockets without superadding the annoyance of our being con- scious of it, and a Home Secretary should read our letters without disturbing our confidence by stating the mean fact. They manage these matters better in France. M. Comte is Louis Philippe's man of letters, a gay, con- vivial, courtly old gentleman, and with such a fund of anecdote — the latter easily accounted for. He is a walk- ing 'Biographie des Contemporains,' knows everything that was said, thought, or written by an eminent per- sonage of either sex for the last forty years. No man has brought to such perfection as Comte the art of judging of people's characters by their hand-writing. Sir J. Graham might go to school to him. One inestimable quality of such a master would be invaluable to such a pupil, this is the impossibility of being turned out of his office. Most Liberal Ministers who have come into power in France have commenced by insisting on the removal of M. Comte. All were convinced, in a few minutes, that the thing was impossible, or, at least, that it would be attended with the greatest possible incon- venience—to themselves. M. Comte is the inventor of one of the most efficient checks upon the licentiousness of the press that have 190 POLITICAL STRICTURES. ever yet been found. The stamp on French journals being about a halfpenny, and the postage but four-fifths of one, of course all journals go through the Post-office. Any fine morning M. Comte gives an order, that all the numbers of any journal shall be seized and sealed up in a bag. He may do this for a week consecutively, thereby burking the journal. Should the law authorities prose- cute the said journal, and should it be acquitted, M. Comte returns the papers — sis months after date. But in no case can any editor or proprietor bring an action against M. Comte ; they must first obtain leave of the Council of State, and that gentleman is of course one of its members. This being on the orthodox plan of pre- vention better than cure, we recommend it to Sir James, whom the English press certainly doth abuse most vilely. In parts of Germany, not the most envied, persons who write and don't like to have their seals broken, — for when they are awkwardly broken the letter is sacrificed, — put their names on the back of the letters, and some times add a summary of the contents. This saves police and post-office much trouble, and might be adopted advan- tageously by the refugee population around the Hay- market during the administration of the Baronet of Netherby. The paternal Government of Austria has a way of its own. It is most anxious after the health of its subjects, and is haunted by the idea that the plague might circu- late in a letter, or the cholera be enwrapped in a billet- doux. The Austrian police therefore breaks the seal, unfolds the letter, takes a copy of the contents by some very POLITICAL STRICTURES. 191 awkward mode of impression, which leaves the letter as if it had come off a lithographic stone, and then the double- headed eagle is stamped upon every page. The sight of this tutelary bird ensures to the worthy Austrian that his letter is free from either plague or political sin, and he blesses the providence of the Emperor. Why should not the Netherby arms attest the purity of John Bull's cor- respondence after examination ? We trust that a Commission will be appointed to in- quire into and collect these foreign improvements in so interesting a science. The practice of sending com- mercial delegates has been abandoned, from the hopeless- ness of concluding treaties, or the determination to make no concession towards them. Let the salaries be trans- ferred to delegates from the A division of Bow Street, the ABC division of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and the P E Y Council Chamber of Whitehall.— (1844.) Sm James Graham plays the part of Moliere's Mas- carille to perfection. One of his porters civilly asked Mascarille for his fare. Mascarille haughtily asks him what he means by such impertinence, and boxes his ears. The other porter upon this takes up his pole and threatens Mascarille with a drubbing, on which the bully gives all that is demanded, saying, ' People may get anything from me when they set the right way about it.' We have seen our Mascarille loftily refusing to vouch- safe any reply to the questions as to the doings in the Post-office. He would give no information, no explana- 192 POLITICAL STRICTURES. tion whatever ; lie took his stand on his authority until frightened into concession by the threatening tone of public opinion. — (1844.) The boy Jones 1 admirably maintains his character, and his title to the name wittily bestowed on him, of Inigo. Serving on board of the ' Warspite,' and being curious to see how the life-buoy worked, Inigo plunged into the sea, called out for the life-buoy and a boat, and had his desire for the exhibition of the uses of the life-buoy fully gratified in the most practical way. The curiosity of this boy Jones should surely be turned to some account in Her Majesty's service. In the Navy it is obviously inconvenient. A whole ship's company was, as we have seen, thrown into alarm, the ship hove to, boats lowered away, and the light of the buoy wastefully burnt, that the boy Jones might see what he had a curiosity about. He may next take it into his head that he would like to see a ship on fire, or the explosion of a powder magazine, and would find some way of satisfying his wish. But there is a vent for his inordinate curiosity, in which he might be useful. It is not the vent for which he was educated, the vent of chimnies, but a vent far dirtier — the Post-office espionage, under Sir James Graham. Let him be appointed coadjutor to the Home 1 This boy had a mania for penetrating into the Queen's residence, and vfa.3 several times found secreted in different parts of Buckingham Palace. -(Ed.) POLITICAL STRICTURES. 103 Secretary in stealing into the thoughts and private com- munications. The business of the Secret Office would precisely suit his parts ; so much so, indeed, that there cannot be a doubt that, if he were at home and at liberty, he would, by hook or by crook, contrive to find his way into that inquisitorial chamber. For what is the privacy of a palace, which so tempted him, compared with the opportunity of prying into the privacy of a whole nation's confidential communications ? The only question is, whether the boy Jones would consent to be the colleague of Sir James Graham ; for he may, with some justice, draw a distinction between his inquisitiveness on his own impulses and at his own risk, and the mean pandering to the malignant curiosity of others.— (1844.) The complaint that letters opened were re-sealed may be met with the same sort of reply that George Selwyn made to the reproach that he had gone to see one of the Scotch lords beheaded. ' Well,' he answered, ' if I did go to see his head taken off, did I not make amends in going to see it sewn on again ? ' If Sir James Graham does open your letters, does he not make the amends of sealing them up again ? — (1845.) PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. In former days, when a man had set his heart upon some object, he made a vow not to shave, or not to cut his nails, or not to wash, or to wear a horse -hair shirt or a girdle with spikes in it, till he had accomplished the exploit. o 194 POLITICAL STRICTURES. Our friends of the League are reviving this sensible expedient. The people are not to bathe, and not to live in wholesome dwellings and untainted air, till the re- strictions be removed from their industry. When Cato saw a man in sorrow tearing his hair, he asked him whether baldness was a cure for grief ? Are dirt and miasma any remedies for monopoly ? Have dirt and miasma any tendency to free-trade ? — (1844.) 4 Why will you rob me ? ' said the Prince to his favourite cook. ' You know that I cannot part with you ; but I don't like to be robbed. Calculate what you make by robbing me ; let me know what it is, and I will add it to your salary.' The cook required time to think of the proposal, and after mature deliberation said, ' Sir, I have well considered what you offer, but I cannot consent. I must rob you.' And so it is with the protected interests. They must rob us.— (1845.) The man who quarrelled with his dog's tail and cut it off by inches, always found the offence in the extreme of the tail ; but, as he docked and docked extreme, extreme was still left to dock again till he got to the stump. The first bad harvest we have, Sir Robert Peel will discover that the protective system has still an extreme, and will cut off another joint of the tail of monopoly. — (1845.) POLITICAL STRICTURES. 195 What is going to happen ? Lord George Bentinck has sold his race-horses, and taken leave of the Turf. This looks like the burning of the ships, and occasions the sort of astonishment which the Eoman satirist counts upon in the announcement that a certain lady has torn herself from her amusements to devote herself wholly to her vices. The country wants all Lord George Bentinck. It cannot spare any part of him for any other business than that of saving her. Lord George Bentinck is her last man. The Protectionists are like the Ten Thousand Greeks suddenly deprived of their leaders, and who found a chief in one Xenophon, a sort of Bentinck of his day, the treach- erous Tissaphernes having been the Peel. We are now beholding a second Anabasis, with this trifling difference, that it is more of a going down than of a going up, going down to Greenwich, going down to King's Lynn, and, above all, going down in opinion. Whether this modern Xenophon will ever bring his retreating army within view of the sea, it would be too bold to conjecture ; but, as a step to the crowning exploit, he showed them the river at Greenwich, and the host raised a shout of white-bait. But how far is white-bait from Whitehall ? how far King's Lynn from the Queen's Cabinet ? and when will the Xenophon of the Protection- ists bless their sights with the long-hoped-for view of the straits of Downing Street ? Alack ! alack ! all other straits will they know first, not excepting peradventure the strait-waistcoat. The resemblances between the retreat of the Ten o 2 196 POLITICAL STRICTURES. _ , Thousand and the Catabasis of the Protectionists are manifold. There is the same despondency in the troops, the same inordinate propensity to panic. An ass in the camp one night filled the Greeks with consternation, and in the Protectionist camp, too, asinine alarms prevail both day and night to the most insensate degree. With the Pro- tectionists it is thought a sign of honesty to be in a fright, which shows also how Greek they are, their honesty having an obvious derivation not from the Latin honos, but from the Greek for an ass, ovo$ (onos). Xenophon's army burnt their tents that they might get on the faster : Lord George Bentinck sells his horses to speed the plough. In the history of the sacrifices which men have made for their country, this will shine as one of the most notable instances. There was a Queen of France who vowed that she would not change a certain under garment till a rebellious town were taken ; the place held out ; the Queen kept her oath, and changed not her linen ; and in compliment to Her Majesty's plight a colour came into vogue denoting constancy to be of a very dirty hue. It would become Lord George Bentinck passing well to make some vow of this kind, such as that he will never sit down again till he sits on the Treasury Bench. But what he has done as to the horses is very handsome as far as it goes ; and it throws a light on History, and interprets the story of Curtius, who doubtless sent his charger to the Tattersall's of the day that he might throw himself into an open place and so save the State. And, after this example, whenever there is a place open for Lord George Bentinck, we shall surely see him patriotically POLITICAL STRICTURES. 197 jump into it. The great difficulty of modern times is* however, to find the open place in the Forum ; and folks in quest of one always cry out that there is a breach in the Constitution which they only can stop. Everything, it seems, is to be retrieved by the Protec- tionists, and the throne of artificial scarcity restored. Lord George Bentinck tells the farmers that they have only to do again what they did in '41 to reinstate monopoly. But where is the Peel ? In whom are they to place their trust? They are told that all confidence is destroyed ; and the new men who say so nevertheless claim the confidence which they charge Peel with having totally and for ever annihilated ! The lamentations about Sir Eobert Peel's perfidy, and the lesson of distrust thereupon, have been carried rather too far for policy. It was, to be sure, vastly affecting to see the deserted ones wearing the willow, and their wailings would touch a heart of stone. The burden of the song everywhere was that of Shenstone's despairing shepherd : — Yet my reed shall resound through the grove "With the same sad complaint it begun ; How she smiled — and I could not but love ; Was faithless — and I am undone. But, after all, Lord George Bentinck's faith in Peel is not eradicated. He quotes while he abjures him. He believes in the Peel past while he renounces the Peel present. He solemnly cites the authority of the Peel of '41 for the fact that a social revolution must follow the abolition of the Corn monopoly, pinning his faith implicitly upon Peel, when Peel, as he avers, was playing the de- ceiver. Well, and this was part of the stock in trade of 198 POLITICAL STRICTURES. pretences. How unreasonable to give up the deceiver and yet cleave to the deceits. In truth, these Protectionists are more Peelite than Peel. They stuck to the Peel errors that Peel has con- fessed and abandoned. They are still following the Peel of '41 ; he is the breath of their nostrils. They call him false, and they swear by his lessons. They bring an action against their schoolmaster, and quote his instructions as oracular. He told them the repeal of the Corn Laws would be a social revolution. A man every now and then predicts the end of the world, and there are always fools to believe him ; but they are not such dupes as to rely on the prediction after the clay that has falsified it, and after they have stoned the impostor. Where is the social re- volution, or any sign of it ? Lord George Bentinck has sold his horses, and that is the only token that everything is to be turned topsyturvy. For the mares' tails denoting the coming storm we must now look, not to the sky, but to Tattersall's. When his hammer knocks down the stud it sounds a bidding for the Government, or else the knock- down of all institutions. — (1846.) In Hogarth's ' Gin Lane ' a man astride of the arm of a sign post is busily sawing asunder the beam that supports him. This truly Irish application of industry is illustra- tive of the present endeavours of a section of the Free- trade party, which is doing all it can to cut away the support of the Free- trade cause. Their success and downfall will be coincident. To call these gentlemen penny-wise and pound-foolish would be to understate POLITICAL STRICTURES. 199 very much the proportions of their folly, for what they risk in their petty economies is in the ratio of much more than two hundred and forty to one. We have designated the guardians of Free-trade as the Free-trade Conserva- tives ; we should describe the other section to which we refer as the Free-trade destroyers. They are now going hand-in-hand with the Protectionists ; they join in the same clamours, speak in every respect the same language, use the same watchwords, join in the same devices, go out together in the same divisions. — (1850.) Is our old comedies the names of the dramatis persona? were made to denote the quality or business of the char- acters ; and we believe that in like manner, changing only one letter, the name of the new Protectionist champion expresses his peculiar function. The true name, we take upon us to say, is not Foskett, but Fossett. JSTow a fossett, as defined by Johnson, is c a pipe inserted into a vessel to give vent to liquor.' And so the office of our Fossett of Durham House is that of a channel to give vent to what is brewing or brewed in the vessel of Protectionist counsels. The coadjutor included in the ' we ' of Fossett is obviously his partner Spigot, the pair between them playing fast or loose according to occasion, and according to their voca- tion. Whenever they let fly, we shall know what is now fermenting with double double toil and trouble, the grand restorative. The stag sheds its antlers ; the lobster sheds its ciaws ; but it is the marvel of Protection to shed its head periodically. It cast off Peel ; it casts off Disraeli ; it will 200 POLITICAL STRICTURES. cast off Fossett. Heaven in its mercy has not given the breath of life to the man false and foolish enough to be permanently, acceptable as a chief to the Protec- tionists. Their exigencies of illusion exceed the capa- bilities of human deceit. The Protectionist bark is like the boat in which Sinbad was ferried by a grim iron man on the condition of foundering upon the utterance of any good word. So Mr. Disraeli enounces a truth, and away goes his support from under him Hudibras con- jectured that the pleasure may be as great of being cheated as ' to cheat : but there is this peculiarity in the agricultural case, that the demand to be cheated is so inordinate as utterly to exhaust the capability of supply. We shall soon see a great party reduced to this strait that, wanting a deceiver, there will be no one to dupe it. Let it cherish and make the most of its Fossett, and its Growler, and its George Frederick Young, for when these are gone where is it to look for a new deceiver of a capacity equal to the increasing occasion ? For it is to be observed that the task of delusion is of a daily growing magnitude. Every day's experience adds to the dimen- sions of the fiction which Protection craves for its sus- tenance. — (1851.) Dickens's Micawber is the exact personification of Pro- tection always in ♦ distress ; Mrs. Micawber represents the friends who never have deserted, never will desert their Micawber, and who devise and discuss what may be done for him ' till something turns up,' in this strain : 4 Corn/ said Mrs. Micawber, ' may be gentlemanly, but it POLITICAL STRICTURES. 201 is not remunerative. ... I ask myself this question, if corn is not to be relied upon, what is ? ... What is the conclusion, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to which I am irresistibly brought ? Am I wrong in saying, it is clear that we must live ? And the fact is, my dear Mr. Copper- field, that toe cannot live without something widely different from existing circumstances shortly turning up.' Here we have the sum and substance of all the speeches at Protectionist meetings, and in what follows we have Mr. Disraeli lecturing in the petticoats of Mrs. Micawber : ' Now I am convinced myself, and this I have pointed out to Mr. Micawber several times of late, that things cannot be expected to turn up of themselves. We must in a measure assist in turning them up. I may be wrong, but I have formed that opinion.' And such precisely has been the burden of Mr. Dis- raeli's song — ' Something must be done till things turn up, but they won't turn up of themselves, odd rot 'em,' and the agriculturists must set to work to turn up a majority in the next parliament to extricate Mr. Micawber from his embarrassments. — (1851.) The Italians have a story of a feeble old gentleman who, having occasion to dismount from his mule, could by no means climb again into the saddle. After many abortive essays he prayed to St. Anthony to aid him in the feat, and so vigorously did the saint lend his help that with one spring the old gentleman vaulted, like ambition, clean over the back of the mule into the mire upon the other side ; upon which misfortune he cried out, as he wiped 202 POLITICAL STRICTURES. away the dirt, ' Too much help, too much help, good St. Anthony!' And if Mr. Disraeli would not go beyond the mark, and fall again into the slough of Protection, he must at the coming election deprecate, ' Too much help, too much help, good John Bull.'— (1851.) THE MAYXOOTH GRANT. Sir Eobert Peel draws a dismal picture of Maynooth. It bears, he says, ' the character of a deserted barrack rather than of a collegiate establishment ; ' having this peculiar feature of a deserted barrack, that it is excessively .crowded, that there are 440 students, that it is impossible to afford each a separate room, and that several are placed in one bed. The professors are miserably paid, the institution alto- gether on a beggarly footing. Is it decent and becoming that the priesthood of a nation should be so educated ? To English ideas it would certainly seem not. We picture to ourselves at once such men as our Phill- potts and Blomfielcl lying two in a bed and kicking away for room. But our colleges are starting-points for the road to preferment, studded with rich seats, palaces, and endowments of many thousands a-year. The Irish Priesthood have no such prospects before them ; a suffi- ciency is the most they can ever rise to, and the lot of most is one of penury. Yet, though they have no Bishops rolling in wealth, and though their preparation at Maynooth has conduced little to refinement and accomplishments, they are never- theless as active and zealous a clergy as exist on the face POLITICAL STRICTURES. 203 of the earth ; and they have one possession which is not always amongst the sacerdotal boasts, the confidence and affections of their flocks. The Irish Priest has nothing else to do but to cultivate the affections of his parishioners. He is not a magistrate, administering the game-laws and sitting in quarter- sessions, searching out crime, not to preach penitence, but to apply punishment. He is not a gentleman associating with the aristocracy and gentry of the district, giving and receiving entertainments. He has not a family to intro- duce into society, and to settle in the world. He has consequently nothing to do but his one pastoral duty ; nothing to think of but his flock, who look to him as their only sure friend and adviser in all difficulties and tribulations. He often belongs to their class by birth, and is just raised above them by the education, such as it is, he has received, and by the reverence belonging to his office. He has the most intimate knowledge of their notions and feelings, and, being so little above them, is not too exalted to give them a helping hand ; for, in the spiritual as in the material world, the man who is only a step above his neighbours is better able to succour and raise them up than he who is at the top of a pinnacle. But the consequence of all these worldly disadvantages is, that the Irish Priesthood possesses an influence which statesmen regard with apprehension and jealousy in a body unconnected with and independent of Government. Judge the tree according to its fruits, and for its sacer- dotal uses it has not failed, notwithstanding all the defi- ciencies of Maynooth, the education at which is so alarmingly apostolical as to scare our Legislature. 204 POLITICAL STRICTUBJES. Take a drawing-room view of the results, and the judgment must be quite different. The priests are, for the most part, humble, not to say low, ill-informed, per- haps coarse, and not the sort of persons to be looked up to by gentlemen. But they have little to do with gentle- men. The great mass of the Catholics of Ireland are of the lower orders, the working classes and the peasantry. In England there is a large middle class of educated and well-mannered people, with whom the Clergy are sufficiently on a level. Our Clergy, though too much above the poor, have their usefulness in the next, the middle class ; but lift up the Irish Priesthood to the same level, and you raise them above the only sphere of their utility ; for in Ireland there is no middle class worth mention, and the passage is from the Catholic millions to the Protestant and small Catholic aristocracies. It is easy to say, if there must be Catholic Priests, let us ensure good ones, instead of half-educated or unedu- cated men ; but you cannot ensure the good by the education for the good with the subsequent condition un- suited, grating, and disgusting to them. Eaising the education without raising the after-lot will be sheer injury. It will be making a gentleman, to put him out of his place, and to vitiate his whole life with repinings and mortifications. Jeremy Taylor says that 'the world is like a board with square holes and round holes, and that men are like square pegs and round pegs, which have often the lot of getting placed in the wrong holes, which they never can fill or stand in uprightly.' 1 A Catholic Priest turned in 1 The following note, addressed to Mr. Fonblanque, shows that a claim POLITICAL STRICTURES. 205 the improved Maynooth will be a round peg having no fitness for the square hole of the voluntary Church. If Sir Eobert Peel will take to the carpentry of shaping the pegs he must fashion the sockets also, or all will be un- easiness and dislocation. — (1845). PEEL PEIMJIPLES. It is thoughtlessly said that Sir Eobert Peel is a man of no principles. As well might it be said that a horse- dealer is a man of no horses. The horse-dealer, it is true, has no particular attachment to his horses, no desire to retain them. He takes them only to part with them for a profit ; he buys, sells, changes, and swaps. And so it is with Sir Eobert Peel and principles. He is a man of all principles, or an all-principled man. He has had all in turn, and made his profit of changing them as opportunity has offered. What is the trader's care for his commodity ? To keep it only till he can part with it advantageously ; and such is Sir Eobert Peel's care for principles. He is never with- out them ; he has always some on hand : but it is by the change of them that his political fortunes have been made. is made on behalf of the Rev. Sydney Smith for the authorship of this well- known illustration : ' Sunday, April 6. 1 He can well spare a happy illustration, my dear Sir, but the Round Man in the Square Hole is not Jeremy Taylor's, but Sydney Smith's ; at least he was not wont to make the good things of others his own, without saving that he had done so. He first introduced it into his lectures at the British Institution, and afterwards into one of his Essays, / think, in the " Edinburgh Review." But he can well spare an illustration to a friend, as I said before, and to few would he have felt prouder that his sayings should have been attributed than to that master of eloquence whom he so much admired. 1 Yours, dear Sir, very truly, ' Catherine Amelia Smith.' — (Ed.) 206 POLITICAL STRICTURES. When an Irish worthy was upbraided for selling his country, he replied, ' And thanks be to Heaven that I have a country to sell.' Sir Eobert Peel has the similar cause of thankfulness as to the change of his principles. He thanks Heaven that he has principles to abandon. — (1845.) When Tickell was lying in the kennel dead drunk, and Sheridan, nearly as bad, was unable to get him on his legs, the wit hiccupped out, ' I cannot help you up, my dear friend, but neither will I desert you. I'll lie down by you in the gutter.' And Sir Eobert Peel, in like manner, when his friends roll in the dirt, is ready, if he cannot lift them up, to lie down with them — (1845.) Sir Eobert Peel is like that benevolent bear in the fable, who watched over the slumbers of the sleeping hermit, and, seeing a fly light on the holy man's nose, took his measures against the disturber by giving a most vigorous slap of his paw, which unluckily smashed the hermit's nose as well as the insect Like this is the tender care of Sir Eobert Peel, and so unfortunate to the objects of his solicitude are his Marplot offices. — (1845.) THE HOUSE OE LORDS. There is a pleasant story of a provincial antiquary's journey to visit Hicks's Hall. A hundred miles off every- body could tell him about Hicks's Hall. They knew all about it, where it was, and what it was like ; nota magis POLITICAL STRICTURES. 207 nulli clomus sua. But as the traveller diminished the dis- tance from Hicks's Hall the information about it became less and less positive, and when two or three miles off no one knew it, or could say or conceive anything about it. The House of Lords is another Hicks's Hall. A couple of months ago everyone knew what the Lords would do with the Corn Bill. At that time, if many of the Lords did not know their own minds, they were perfectly well known to certain shrewd calculating persons. Noses were counted, for noses are more cognisable than minds (perhaps because a man may or may not have a mind, but the possession of a nose is more certain), and lists drawn up giving the votes of the Lords to a figure. But as the day of proof approaches, and as we get nearer and nearer to Hicks's Hall, all these pleasing certainties vanish ; the lists so lately handed about have been crumpled up and pocketed ; and the knowing ones, who smiled so scornfully at any distrust, have begun to make faces as long as their former muster-rolls of contents. They say that the proxies bother them. They can see their way on the second reading, but in committee they are at sea. For the second reading there is to be a majority, but the question is whether or not the amendment of a moderate fixed duty will be carried, and with what consequences ! But, if you would know unerringly what the Lords will do, peer into coffee grounds, fling an apple-peel to the ground after the prescribed ceremonies, try the sortes Virgiliance, ask Mrs. Harris, or, last and best, consult a cunning woman on Epsom race-ground. Be sure of one thing only, that nothing ever happens according to reason- able expectation ; and if you are told that the Lords must 208 POLITICAL STRICTURES. do this or that, because of such and such consequences if they take any other course, be quite certain that the line of conduct so mapped out will never come to pass.— (1846.) We have now arrived at that period of the Session when the proceedings of the Lords bear all the ap- pearance of an obituary recording the demise of measures too good for this House of Peers. To celebrate the merits of the departed, severally and separately, and to lament their fates, and to direct indignation against the de- stroyers for each work of mischief and malice, would now be as impossible as to pronounce eulogies on the victims in a general massacre, and to denounce severally and separately each instrument in an army of executioners. When this work of Herod is acting, the escape of a Moses is far more remarkable than the spectacle of any number of the murdered innocents ; and the most sur- prising thing witnessed in the House of Lords is the defeat of the Duke of Wellington's attempt to strangle the Slave Trade Suppression Bill. A majority for Ministers in the House of Lords, in spite of the Duke of Wellington's opposition, is indeed a portentous novelty. We remark the matter, however, only for its oddity, for we do not imagine so vain a thing as any improvement in the con- duct of the House of Lords. So long as the constitution of the irresponsible branch of the Legislature remains unaltered, its prevailing propensities will continue un- changed. The rehiedy will grow out of the exhaustion of the public patience, which, great as it is, must be brought to an end by the drafts so continually drawn upon it. Balzac, in his Peaa de Chagrin, has imagined a POLITICAL STRICTURES. 209 talisman which satisfies every wish of its possessor, but with these conditions : that upon the fulfilment of each wish the peait de chagrin contracts, and that, when it is wasted away altogether by the process of diminution, the owner perishes with his talisman. The Lords have their peau de chagrin. They have the power of gratifying their factious desires : but with the satisfaction of each evil wish the tenure of their power is slowly but steadily dwindling away. — (1839.) DUKES TO THE FROXT ! When Partridge, having seen Garrick in ' Hamlet/ was asked which he thought the best actor in the play, he answered, ' The king, of course ! ' the blockhead supposing that the merit went with the precedence. The fat-headed Protectionists share in Partridge's views, and think that a marquis must be a better champion than a simple com- moner. All this is mighty pleasant to their adversaries. It is well to be opposed by a party which rates a Marquis of Granby so highly, and a Disraeli so lowly. With the Dukes' sons and Dukes themselves in the front of the battle, and the only swordsman of prowess in the rear, the phalanx is not very formidable. — (1846.) ARMY REFORM. The Duke of Wellington passes for a man of excellent sense, and a vast fund of good sense he has in him ; but it shares possession of his mind with a great deal of preju- dice, and each has its separate sway and never interferes with the other. There is nothing logical in the Duke's mind ; whether he be right or whether lie be wrong, he r 210 POLITICAL STRICTURES. cannot show cause for it. If lie comes to a just con- clusion, a hundred to one that the reasoning for it is faulty. His propositions are often identical; and the petitio principii is his favourite battle-horse. He tells us that the discipline of the army is an essential of its existence, and he concludes therefore that the cat- o-'nine-tails cannot be dispensed with ; but he does not show, or attempt to show, that the cat is necessary to the discipline of the army. He observes indeed that, after the abolition of flogging in the Indian army, mutinies followed and corporal punishment was restored ; but is it certain the Indian army mutinied to bring back the cat? Is it clear that the Duke has not mistaken the post hoc for the propter hoc, incidence for causation? There may be risk in the sudden abolition of the pun- ishment ; but this does not prove that the punishment has worked well, for there are many tilings working notoriously very ill which cannot be abruptly stopped without danger. When we get into a vicious system, the difficulty of getting out of it is always created ; but this difficulty is not to be mistaken for a sign of merit in the system. The Duke's professional prejudice makes him cling to the cat, while his good sense makes him admit that the less it is used the better, and look forward to witnessing its total abolition. Will that be when we have a better army ? No, the Duke declares that the army is alifcfdy excellent. We have, as Mrs. Gore says, ' the best-flogged army in the world/ and the Commander-in-Chief pro- nounces it also the best in the world ; so that it is not upon any improvement in the army, already so perfect, that the lash is to be abandoned. The Duke's reasoning POLITICAL STRICTURES. 211 cannot be followed. The scourge is good and bad in it ; bad, inasmuch as the less of it the better ; indispensable for the best army in the world in one breath, and never- theless to be got rid of in a few years, when the army can hardly deserve more praise and less Hogging than it now does. But the Duke feels that the present proposed restric- tions on flogging are the virtual abolition, and that the mere name of the once terrible punishment is retained. The cat has lost all its lives but the last, which is contracted to a span. The maximum of the punishment will seldom or never be inflicted. The number of lashes will probably range from twenty to thirty, which will not disable the sufferer or consign him to the hospital ; and a punishment so repugnant in its nature, and at the same time compara- tively so little effectual, will soon dwindle into disuse. — (1846.) The Duke of Wellington is not, and never has been from the date of the Peace, a willing military reformer. He did what he could to reform the army when it was the instrument with which he had to work to serve his country, and to make his own great renown. But, those objects attained, nothing was done in the way of improvement from '15 to '33, and no one measure of military reform that we are aware of has originated with the Duke. The best that can be said of him is, that he has submitted to measures of improvement. He has consented to military ' reform as he consented to Catholic Emancipation and the repeal of the Corn Laws against his opinions. He thinks . that the country does not need a better army than the one p2 212 POLITICAL STRICTURES. he led to victory. Blackguards made fighting soldiers in his time, and he would be for working up the same material, relying on the same results. He does not pay himself the just compliment of remembering that we may not in all times have a Wellington to remodel and form an army in the face of an enemy. Prejudiced, however, as the Duke is against all reforms, his prejudices are not of a force to oppose him inflexibly to changes against which his authority would be decisive. He dislikes and distrusts, but acquiesces. He has no faith in his want of faith. He damns with faint praise, but does not obstinately thwart. Eeform goes always against his grain, but Conservatism is not less out of his habit. It is easier to get him to advance against the bias of his prejudices, than to fix him in a resistance unsupported by reason ; but then, as he moves on malgre lui, you hear the creaking and grating of his adverse prejudices. — (1847.) BLUB BOOKS. Mr. Anstey's notice of motion for papers occupies eight folio pages in the Vote List. The documents he calls for would be about as voluminous as the Statutes at Large, and would probably occupy the Foreign Office months in copying. The expense of the printing would be several hundred pounds. Yet Mr. Anstey's motion wants comprehensiveness. The true scope and shape of the motion should be for an account of everything secret and ostensible done in the Foreign Department from '29 to the present time, with an account also of what has been left undone, • if POLITICAL STRICTURES. 213 any,' — a qualification very frequent in Mr. Anstey's notices. There is a notice of motion we should very much like to see on the Vote List. It is a return of what meddling busy-body Members cost the country in the expense of printing, and wasting the time of clerks in public de- partments. It would be good to charge the places that send such Members to Parliament with the expenses of their folly in waste of paper, print, and time. Bluebeard tried the curiosity of his wives by a blue^ chamber ; had it been a blue book, the ladies would have stood the test. The public now vicariously pay the penalty for curiosity of idle Members of Parliament. The bee, as Swift says, is not a busier creature than a blockhead. When Mr. Anstey's hundred blue books are printed, it would be well to have a return of the persons, ' if any/ who have looked beyond the covers of them. For State secrets there is no depository so safe as the Blue Book— (1847.) THE MONSTER MOTION. 1 We are sorry to say that Mr. Anstey does not get on with Lord Palmerston's treason or get off with his head. The House leaks at a terrible rate under the weight of his oratory and argument ; and the task of filling sieves with water seems as feasible as that of getting forty members to listen to the motion about everything that has been done everywhere, and the Foreign Secretary's 1 A threatened impeachment of Lord Palmerston for dereliction of duty as Minister for Foreign Affairs. (Ed.) 214 POLITICAL STRICTURES. treasons therein, from 1830 to 1848. Mr. Anstey had a good start ; he opened with a House of between three and four hundred members ; but, before he got to Turkey in 1833, he had melted his audience down to less than forty. His views are obviously dissolving views. Every word of his speech must have shot a member out of the House. The feelings of the unhappy orator, seeing the stream ebbing through the door, can only be compared to those of the con- vict in his last hour watching the grains dropping through the sand-glass. ; There goes my speech,' must have been his reflection at every fresh disappearance. A French journalist said : Every day of my life is a leaf in my book. Poor Mr. Anstey must have thought : Every word in my Speech is a member in the lobby. The impeachment is, however, perhaps to come out by instalments ; the present being a farthing in the pound, as it were, and the next beginning at 1833, and giving us a small continuation of the great treason ; but at this rate when shall we get at Lord Palmerston's head? And it will be remembered that his treasons are all going on in the meanwhile, like a house on fire, and that Mr. Anstey's speeches are by no means of a fastness to overtake them. As well might a donkey pursue a hare. Eussia will have made a province of us before Mr. Anstey has effected the thousandth part of the exposure of Lord Palmerston's perfidies. We submit the question to calculation. If 400 mem- bers be reduced to 39 by Mr. Anstey's examination of Lord Palmerston's policy in Turkey from '30 to '33, how many members would it require to make a House for him, while he reviews everything that has been done everywhere for the last eighteen years, and catalogues POLITICAL STRICTURES. 215 the countless treasons of t he Foreign Secretary? Taking the present width of the door for escape, our estimate is that 50,000 members would be requisite at the very least to keep up the necessary dam-head of auditory. Mr. Anstey empties the House at the rate of 323 members in 20 minutes; three members walk out abreast in every line of the report in the ' Times.' His speech, according to the notice of motion, would make adjourned debate for a month, but his auditory melt from it at the rate of 15 fugitives a minute. Never was there seen such a dis- proportion yawning — yawning in every sense — between supply and demand. AJST) WHAT CAME OF IT. Mr. Anstey's infernal machine, to blow up the character of Lord Palmerston, has gone, off with the whiff and tiny crack of a pop-gun. When John Kemble was asked what lie thought of Conway the actor, he answered, in his drawling, phleg- matic way, ' He is a very tall young man.' The same sort of account in mensuration may- be given of Mr. Anstey's speech. It was a very long speech. As an act of memory it was thought extraordinary, but, by a happy dispensation, the speaker who had memory for all is the only mortal man who has memory for any part of it. It was what the Irish call a great big nothing, a huge bladder of fetid gas, the escape of which made every man hold his nose. Foul words and foul imputations constituted the whole farrago, Mr. Urquhart, who primed and loaded Mr. Anstey, of course vouched for the truth of his charges. So Addison 216 POLITICAL STRICTURES. tells us of a certain quack who used to parade the streets with a boy going before him, proclaiming, ' My father cures all manner of diseases ; ' to which the charlatan solemnly added, ' The boy speaks the truth. 5 These two gentlemen see the prudence of not appearing in their own parts. Each feels that he looks too ill in his own. In a clever French novel, two gentlemen who have not a change of clothes are put to their wit's-end by their host's adverting to the etiquette of changing dress for dinner. ' How,' said one, ' can we change our dress when we are not worth another suit ? ' ' Oh,' said his friend, 6 nothing can be more easy — you put on my clothes, and I will put on yours.' So we have Mr. Anstey in the threadbare garb of Mr. Urquhart, and anon Mr. Urquhart in the guise of Mr. Anstey. But enough of this foolery. We have said more than we ought to have said of this egregious pair and their burlesque impeachment, 'an idiot's tale, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' THE DEMONSTRATION REVERSED. The Chartists have tried their strength and proved their weakness ; but they have also rendered the invaluable service of showing the immense force ready to come for- ward for the support of the laws, the preservation of the peace, and the defence of the Government. Upon the most moderate calculation the odds were ten to one against the Chartist muster, not including the military in reserve or the police on duty. As for the Chartist assemblage, it was short of the crowd always to be col- lected to see a boxing-match or a cock-fight. If Mr. POLITICAL STRICTURES. 217 Feargus O'Connor had given out that on the 10th of April he would, at one o'clock in the afternoon, jump into a quart bottle, he would have collected ten times the number of people to witness in due course the postponement of the exploit, And certainly, whenever he packs a quarter of a million of Chartists on Kennington Common, jumping into a quart bottle will to him be a feasible and easy un- dertaking. The largest calculation gives 20,000 to the meeting of Monday, and boys made a large portion of that number. As another considerable portion must have been the marauders of London, it is clear that the bulk of the London Chartists have no disposition to commit themselves to the chances of involvement in outrage. In no other country in the world could what occurred last Monday and the preceding days take place, — an in- surrection for the overthrow of the Government regularly announced ; the insurgents from the country invited to come up by the early trains ; the prohibition of the meeting and procession as illegal by the Government, without the arrest or interruption in any way of any of the ringleaders concerned; the calm, quiet attitude of the middle-classes, gentry, and aristocracy to encounter the threatened insurrection, men rising perhaps half an hour earlier than usual to shave and dress, and go upon con- stable's duty against the threatened rebellion, or to garrison buildings and stand prepared for defence with more serious weapons than staves ; then, in the very Legislature, on the preceding Friday, the ringleader taking his part as if no sort of reproach or suspicion attached to him, and, after the failure of his attempt, going to the Home Office to report proceedings, and announce the distressing fact that in 218 POLITICAL STRICTURES. requital for his patriotism his toes had been trodden upon and his pockets picked — no bad foretaste of revolution, a specimen in little at the beginning of what would come on a larger scale at the end. In England only could treason- able preparations be so dealt with ; and it is therefore in England only that such preparations end in such abortive conclusions. There is full liberty to play the braggart, full liberty to play the fool, full liberty to run the head against the wall, and full resolution to maintain the barriers of order, and to stand by them manfully. For the defence of order the middle-classes of England are, in Homeric phrase, the bulwark of the war. To the virtue of our institutions we owe the existence of the most numerous and best-conditioned middle-class in the w^orld ; ■and as they have been produced by virtue of our free in- stitutions, so they become preservative of them in turn. There are many faults in our Government, but the mere fact of the existence of our middle-classes, as they are, is decisive evidence of the balance of merit in it ; and into these middle-classes any industrious artisan can ascend, and thousands are continually ascending. The Chartist delegates are extremely indignant that the cold water of illegality was thrown on their proposed procession by the Government, and that precautions were taken against the fulfilment of their menaces, which ren- dered them impracticable. It was hard that the Govern- ment would not quietly suffer itself to be overthrown. Why are they so wilful to struggle with men ? Why do not Ministers leave the public offices to be sacked, the magazines and arsenals to be stormed and POLITICAL STRICTURES. 219 pillaged, the streets to be occupied by a rabble, the houses to be gutted and fired? And parasites of the populace (for the populace has its parasites and sycophants as Courts have theirs) have in Parliament complained of the precautions which reduced the- meeting of Monday to impotency and insignificance; Mr. Thompson especially, the member for the Tower Hamlets, averring that his Christian heart was shocked by the preparations of the Government to put down outbreak ; his Christian heart not having been in any manifested degree shocked by the atrocious menaces of the pike and the fire-brand, which have warned Government to be on its guard against the most criminal enterprises. Let the promises of the worst violence be compared with the measures of defence, and the forbearance exercised. Certainly nothing could be completer than the arrangements for the safety of the town. Every contingency was foreseen and provided against. It is easy now to deride the preparations as dis proportioned to the event, but the event was dwarfed by the very measures of prevention. The one was so small because the other were so great. Had the preparations been less the issue might have been reversed. It is a grand fact for the world that the assemblage which was to overthrow the Government of Great Britain was scattered and dispersed without the appearance of a single soldier, and in the presence of a small part only of the immense available civil force. But those who complain of the military and other pre- parations held in reserve, may be assured not only that such arrangements will always be provided to meet illegal violence and crush it in its outset, but that there is also 220 POLITICAL STRICTURES. in the minds of the classes which support the laws the settled resolution, in the event of extreme necessity, not to trifle with the exigency, and to exercise such vigour in repression of tumult as to bring it most shortly to an end. True policy and true humanity counsel this course, and, if the guardians of the peace find themselves compelled to resort to the last means of defence against armed aggression, they will take. care to do so effectually, and in such wise that the stress of the chastisement shall fall on the foremost in the wickedness. Often and often as the example of England has served the world, never did it render a greater, never a more signal, service than last Monday. The issue was looked for by all Europe with the misgivings of good men and the hope of bad spirits. Our enemies were everywhere exulting, and so confident were they of the event, deem- ing the triumph of revolution certain, that the news was by anticipation spread that London was in the hands of the Chartist populace. The intelligence presently follows that London has not even been disturbed by a riot, the great bulk of its population having turned out, from the Duke to the coal-whipper, to preserve the peace and support the laws. Walter Scott supposes the retreat, Where, while the tempest sways, Scarce are boughs waving ; and while Europe is swept by the hurricane, England alone is hardly stirred. She floats the ark on the Euro- pean deluge of revolution, and scarcely feels the agitation of a ripple. But to what is this security owing ? — to the knowledge which every intelligent man has, that upon the mainte- POLITICAL STRICTURES. 221 nance of order depends his all ; that his condition must be impaired by any public calamity ; that commotion must cost him dear ; that revolution would be followed by ruin and beggary. Every part of our social system is sympathetic, a wound anywhere is felt everywhere, the nerves have their ramifications throughout. Conse- quently each, in acting for the good of all, does .his best for himself. The policy of every man is to spare no exertion, no petty sacrifice, for the maintenance of peace and order. To keep his house over his head and his family in safety, he is ready to turn out in the streets to repress tumult. The result is a security which will richly reward those who have so wisely and honourably contri- buted to it. Capital will take refuge in the only safe country in Europe, and her industry will be in demand to supply the wants of nations whose industry has been para- lysed by commotion and insecurity. — (1848.) EXAMPLES FOR YOUNG IRELAND. It appears that the lessons of the Four Days in Paris have not been thrown away on the Young Irelanders. The cruelties have filled them with admiration and emu- lative aspirations. The ' Cork Constitution ' states that at a meeting of one of the Confederate Clubs three enthu- siastic cheers were given for that pattern of all Irishwomen, Madame Le Blanc, who boasted of having cut off the heads of five or six youths of the Garde Mobile. We can imagine then the delight with which other kindred ex- amples have been received, such as the mutilation of prisoners, and the assassination of General Brea and his aide-de-camp in cold blood. Many circumstances must 222 POLITICAL STRICTURES. tend to heighten the admiration of this last exploit. The General was inveigled within the barricades, and then made prisoner, and told that if the advancing troops did not retire or lay down their arms he and his suite should be shot. Upon the approach of the troops, in despite of his threat, an insurgent aimed a musket at the General ; but a woman, uninspired with the spirit of Madame Le Blanc, threw herself before him and shielded him with her person ; the rebel tore her away, deliberately stepped back a few paces, took a cool aim and shot the General in the abdomen, the cruellest wound that he could inflict. Another discharged a fusil at the forehead of the aide- de-camp, and while the youth was shrieking with the anguish of the wound, his skull pierced by the bullet, and his eyes scorched by the fire, a companion hacked him with a hatchet, and they then amused themselves with de- facing the corpse, so that not a trace of the human visage remained. The names of these wretches have escaped our memory : but Young Ireland will treasure them up for imitation with Madame Le Blanc. The murder of the Archbishop of Paris, too, must have its honour in Young Ireland, though not so fine as chopping off heads and in- flicting torturing wounds. The use of nails and rough or sharp- edged pieces of metal for bullets must delight the imagination of the readers of the ' Felon ' and the ' Tribune,' and with extreme unction must they have read that the insurgents had re- course to the burning vitriol which their Mitchell had recommended. In a word, all that has made the rest of the world thrill with horror seems to have made the dis- ciples of Mitchell thrill with pleasure and burn with POLITICAL STRICTURES. 223 emulation. Oh ! that they had but some red-coat pri- soners, some of whose heads might be chopped off by the fair hands of Erin's daughters, while others might be shot at leisure in the most sensitive places, maimed, mutilated, and in death turned to obscene mockery ! It is a peculiarity of Irish rebellion that it counts so much on the co-operation of women, who are to be no- thing less than unsexed for its purposes. Women are to squirt vitriol, and women are to put on hoops, not hoops on their own persons, but hoops on the persons of Her Majesty's soldiers, hoops wrapped round with tow steeped in turpentine and fired. In a word, the women of Ireland are to be an army of Furies in the rebellion which is to come on after the harvest. Now, it seems strange that Irishmen, who are not the least confident of man- kind, never depend on their own hands for what they propose in the way of outbreak. At one moment they look to America, at another to France, for help, and at last, in default of these, they begin to count on what the women can do for them, animated with the spirit of the poissardes of '93. Surely it would be better for the men to draw a little more on their own daring than to unsex the women for the destruction of the Saxon. Bold men send the women to the rear when they go to war. Young Ireland proposes to put the ladies in the front of the battle, exacting of them a courage more than mascu- line, and a wickedness more than human. The ' Felon ' newspaper has run its short course. An apter name should be chosen for the next organ of the Mitchell doctrines. The ' Fiend ' should be the title. No other name can justly represent the spirit and objects of 224 POLITICAL STRICTURES. the lessons that have outraged all humanity in a part of the Irish Press. It is well for the world that the wicked- ness of the writers so far outruns their daring. They far surpass Marat in truculent sanguinary imagination, but they are mice in action. — (1848.) PRIVILEGES OF PARLIAMENT. We confess ourselves very conservative when the privi- leges of the Commons are concerned, and we are es- pecially jealous of committing these in any manner or degree to judicial keeping ; for the tendency of the Judges has ever been adverse to popular privileges, wherever they have had the power of defining their scope. THE DROPPED MEASURES. A minister is like the tavern waiter of Joe Miller, who, having to serve a Scotch gentleman with a pint of wine, was desired to decant it in the presence of the canny guest. He did so ; then, having filled the measure of the decanter with apparent care and scrupulousness, was asked by the customer if both' were exactly equal in quantity; and having given the strongest assurances in the affirmative, hinting that the portion in the decanter was rather the better of the two, ' In that case,' said the Scotsman, c give me the half in the black bottle, for I fancy it most.' So, at the beginning of a session, some gentleman should ask the first butler which are to be the decanted and which the black-bottle portions of business, and they should claim for their share the moiety which is intended POLITICAL STRICTURES. 225 to be reserved or put by, as it is invariably, like the Scotchman's chosen half of the bottle, 4 fancied the most.' One of the favourite thoughts of the human mind is the early doom of excellence. Sophocles has it, and one of his characters deplores that the heroes of the Trojan war have passed away while Thersites survives. Shakespeare says, 'This sorrow's heavenly, it strikes where it does love ; ' another poet, ' Heaven sends its favourites early doom.' And it would seem to be with bills as with humanity. Those that live stand in the pillory ; those that drop into the limbo of abortive legislation have goodly epitaphs inscribed upon them, assigning all the virtues and the tribute of a nation's tears. — (1848.) THE BALLOT. This question, however, will not be settled by argu- ment. It will be settled, and is all but settled, by prac- tical experience. He who wears the shoe best knows where it pinches, and it is in vain that the shoemaker assures him that the make is perfection, the measure exact, and the pain imaginary. Open voting is felt to be exposure to intimidation .and injury, and the security for successful bribery. It is doomed. The adoption of the ballot is now only a question of time, and the un-English practice of secret voting will be resorted to as the only effective safeguard against the thoroughly English practices of bullying and bribing (1848.) We do not contend that the frankness of open voting has not its recommendations ; we acknowledge that it ha>. and rate them highly. If open voting consisted with Q 226 POLITICAL STRICTURES. honest voting, open voting would be, out of all doubt, preferable. But we propose recourse to the ballot be- cause the openness of the vote is fatal in a multitude of cases to the sincere choice. The ballot is the crypt of conscience, the refuge against the foul influences. The resort to it is stigmatised as cowardly. It is precisely as cowardly as the resort to bolts and bars against the thief — strictly analogous in this, that, though not complete securities, they are important obstacles to attack. — (1849.) THE TALKING NUISANCE. Eoger Bacon, having succeeded in making a talking head, was so wearied, says the chronicler, with its per- petual tittle-tattle that he dashed it to pieces. The tittle- tattle of England's talking head is a more serious nuisance than that of Eoger Bacon ; but as we cannot do without it, instead of knocking it to pieces, we have to consider contrivances for putting the break, as it were, on its palaver. There was a time when the House could protect itself against its bores, but the bores were then few, whereas now their name is Legion. Constituencies have indeed lately evinced a decided preference for bores, so much so that we believe it would be a recommendation, in many places, for a candidate to profess the faculties of boring, which consist in ready-witlessness, ready verbosity, and prate without object and without end. The bores of the greatest mark in the present Parliament are Mr. Spooner, Mr. Newdegate, Col. Sibthorp, Mr. G. Thompson, Mr. Urquhart, and Mr. Anstey. Of these afflicting persons we regard Col. Sibthorp as a model, and often the wish escapes us : Oh that all bores were like the member for Lincoln ! for POLITICAL STRICTURES. 227 his ineptness is as brief as wit. He seldom exceeds three lines in the reports, rarely indeed does he reach a dozen. No bore draws so little on the patience of the House, no bore wastes so little of the public time. To be sure he has nothing worth hearing to say, but the nothing he has to say he says in few words, which is a rare grace. He accurately, indeed, fulfils Solomon's description of a cer- tain character, for his bolt is soon shot. Compare him with Mr. Urquhart, or Mr. Anstey, or Mr. GL Thompson, and you will know how to value him, and rate him as a model bore, a pattern to all who have nothing to say, but platitudes or extravagances, to be chary of words as they are void of sense. — (1848.) THE YEAR OF TRIALS. Hundreds of pens are now at work to say the worst of the passing year, the year of troubles, the year of distress, the year of commotions, the year of the complication of everything that is bad, the lengthened Saturnalia of the evil spirits. Yet there is a satisfactory and cheering view to be taken of this black year, and it is that England has passed through its trials as bravely as she has done, weathering the storm with comparatively so little damage, and with the first abatement of its violence manifesting a buoyancy beyond the most sanguine hope. There has been much distress, much suffering ; but it is only amazing that there was not more in such a complica- tion of evils and embarrassments; and the tendency to improvement, even before the recovery of trade on the Continent, denotes the wonderful elastic energy bearing up against all depression. With commerce already reviv- a2 228 POLITICAL STRICTURES. ing, what may we not expect when the settlement of affairs on the Continent reopens its markets, and with the advantage which our manufacturers must possess over rivals whose business has been paralysed by political and social convulsions? Everything has been put to the severest trial this mo- mentous year, and everything has stood the proof; — the sense of the country, its attachment to order, its loyalty in the most enlarged and exalted meaning of the word, have held it firm and undisturbed amidst the shock of revolutions ; and its vast resources and commercial energies, directed with prudence, have enabled it to meet and overcome the most gigantic difficulties, not unscathed indeed — that was impossible, but with an amount of loss and suffering incomparably less than a priori could have been calculated upon by the most sanguine : Quod optanti divum promittere nemo Auderet. The vessel which has so weathered so tremendous a tempest can have been in no bad trim, and in no incapable hands. Yet there are people who talk of the failure of free trade, as if free trade could have had a trial other than the unfairest in the general paralysis of commerce. The thing to be wondered at is, not that our commerce de- clined, but that it declined no more than it did, and rallied so promptly as it is doing. The bark of free trade was launched in a tempest, and the proof of its virtue is its battling with and surviving the storm. If it has struggled so well through such adverse circumstances, POLITICAL STRICTURES. 229 what may it not be expected to do when favoured by more tranquil times, and the returning tide of commerce ? Free trade in a convulsed, disordered world, following upon three years of scarcity at home, could not indeed work the miracle of making prosperity ; but it has suc- ceeded in resisting ruin, and making the least of inevitable loss. What would the system of monopoly have done in the same circumstances? It could not have lived an hour ; it could not have existed ; the circumstances would have doomed it to instant abolition. The first whiff and wind of the troubles would have puffed the Corn Laws away. Free trade was granted just at the moment when grim necessity would have shortly forced it upon the legislature, had it been composed exclusively of Bentincks and Sibthorps. It has not worked impossibilities ; but the restrictive system had the fault that it would not have worked at all, nor lived longer than a sieve on the waves of the Atlantic— (1848.) THE OUTRAGE ON THE QUEEN". 1 It was excellently remarked by Lord Lansdowne, in the few words he addressed to the House of Lords on the subject of the outrage to which Her Majesty has again been exposed, that there are offences of a nature so odious and disgusting, and at the same time so paltry and con- temptible, that it is impossible to speak of them either with the seriousness which their malignity requires or with the contempt which their absurdity excites in every reasonable mind. 1 An Irishman named Hamilton fired a pistol at Her Majesty while driv- ing across Constitution Hill on her birthday.— (Ed.) 230 POLITICAL STRICTURES. Difficult as it is to take the proper medium in cases of this sort, it has nevertheless been taken with the best result in the instance before us. The universal burst of indignation which met the foul outrage of Saturday showed with what unabated respect and attachment the Queen's character is regarded by all classes of her subjects ; and the quiet manner in which the law has since been left to take its course is the best security Her Majesty could have received against a repetition of the dastardly offence. There has been nothing of the procedure which flatters the diseased and vulgar appetites for notoriety. There has been no feeding of the excitements which are most apt to generate such crimes. If a craving for eclat formed part of the motive to this last atrocity, the unhappy mis- creant has been thoroughly baulked. Not an indication of the excitement of Saturday was observable on Monday, if we except a few not very creditable newspaper placards posted up to , attract stray customers. The outrage has been stripped of everything that had a tendency to take it out of the ordinary and most commonplace course of justice. No theatre has been erected, at the Privy Coun- cil or elsewhere, for the indulgence of heroics of any kind. Not the least remarkable circumstance in the series of attempts against the security and peace of the Sovereign, of which we this week record the most con- temptible, has been Her Majesty's unruffled and calm composure in the midst of general and painful excitement. It is an example which the law now imitates, and with the best effect. POLITICAL STRICTURES. 231 No comment on the previous life or circumstances of the culprit is called for. It is clear that he had no motive for what he did except, perhaps, his wish to make himself a day's wonder and obtain a provision without labour at the public expense. In the first he has been baulked already, and in the second his disappointment will be still more severe. We are almost tempted to regret that the chastisement which awaits his crime could not have been inflicted on the spot ; but the whipping will be of the best possible example when it comes, on more formal proof of the prisoner's wanton brutality. We had occasion to remark only last week on the excellent fitness of such a punishment, if so administered as at once to carry disgrace and exclude sympathy, for delinquencies of a brutal and unmanly character. Such crimes are thus met upon their own level, and the depraved and degraded nature is put under the check of a counter discipline as degrading, as humiliating, and base. The possibility of any serious attempt upon Her Majesty's life is not assumed in these remarks. History contains instances of rulers whose existences have been of more or less value to the people ruled : but no example is recorded of a life so bound up with the most important interests of every class of the people as that of the present Sovereign of England. A greater calamity to the world, in its ex- isting state, could hardly be imagined than any serious danger to what is so precious and so dear to millions over the whole earth. But hardly of less importance than life itself is the sense of security which gives peace to life, and we should have been prepared to advocate 232 POLITICAL STRICTURES. any measure of extreme severity by which this object in Her Majesty's case might have been best obtained. Hap- pily such measures are not called for. — (1849.) MR. DISRAELI AND THE FARMERS. As the parish clerk made it a rule not to weep at mis- fortunes out of his own parish, so Mr. Disraeli explains- that he makes it a rule not to talk politics out of his own county ; but the desire to see ' a genuine body of English yeomen,' which, it seems, can only be met with in Essex, has induced him to deviate from his rule, and to attend a certain Agricultural and Conservative Club at Heding- ham. In. the Facetia? of Hierocles it is written that a scholar in a tempest at sea bound himself to an anchor, observing that it would be strange indeed if what had saved many a stout ship would not serve his turn. The anchor was this wiseacre's sinking fund. But sinking is not always to be eschewed. The tendency to float requires coun- teraction for some purposes. Men who go down to the bottom of the sea with the diving apparatus use heavy weights attached to their shoulders and feet. These are their sinking funds. Mr. Disraeli finds the agricultural interest too buoyant, and is for ballasting it, to send it down to those depths in which it may find the pearls and treasures of Conservatism. — (1849.) THE UNPROTECTED FARMER. When Punch shall have finished his diverting Scenes from the Life of an Unprotected Female, we hope he will amuse the public with Scenes from the Life of the Unprotected POLITICAL STRICTURES. 233 Farmer. An objection to our suggestion may be that it would be too much of a parallel, and that the unprotected farmer would be nothing more than the unprotected female in top boots, corduroys, and dingy upper Benjamin. The helplessness of the two is indeed much alike ; the vast alarm at every little difficulty ; the propensity to look for assistance and extrication from embarrassment to any- thing but self-exertion ; the readiness to be the dupe of any impostor offering help, combined with a large fund of distrust misdirected, — all these are common to both. The farmer is now in precisely the predicament of the Unprotected Female in the perilous adventure of effecting a crossing, the transitionary stage. Like the other help- less unprotected being, he is aghast at the different alarms raised around him ; he stands stock still, when he ought to move steadily on ; he makes a blind rush, when he ought quietly to wait his time and opportunity ; he is beset with impostors tendering advice and assistance ; upon hold- ing up his finger he is surrounded by rival conductors, and fiercely contended for. Disraeli, Lord Stanhope, Feargus O'Connor, Cobden, Bright, strive to carry him off in their respective vehicles, and the Unprotected is torn to pieces in the tumult of conflicting guides. Not only are the situations of the Unprotected Female of Punch strictly analogous to those of the Unprotected Farmer of the United. Kingdom, but the very dialogue appropriate to the one is often suitable to the other, changing merely the name of Female to Farmer. With this variation observe how a passage from the Margate adventure speaks the feelings of the agrest mind, and the solicitations addressed to them : 234 POLITICAL STRICTURES. ' Unprotected Farmer. What a poor unprotected farmer is exposed to, nobody would think. 'Mr. Disraeli. Why should any farmer be unpro- tected ? What would not one dare to be the protector of a farmer ? ' The moral of Punch's Unprotected Female is, that women are in the habit of having so much protection thrown around them that, when they happen to be obliged to shift for themselves without it, they are utterly helpless, void of common sense and common under- standing, destitute of resource, full of vain fears, never ready for anything, ever in a state the opposite to the prepared, and falling into bad hands, instead of acting discreetly and independently for themselves. But Unprotected Females cannot always proceed in this awkward way ; every day's experience without protection advances them in the art of getting on like reasonable beings. They do not always stick in the middle of crossings, they are not always the dupe of impostors saving them from imaginary dangers ; and the unprotected farmer will not be behind his unprotected sister in profit- ing by the new practice of taking care of himself, instead of being, as they advertise at low lodging-houses, done /or, as formerly, in more senses than one. Like the Unprotected Female, the Unprotected Farmer upon the first encounter with his troubles is overwhelmed and in the last depths of despair; but he has only to look around him and to sec throngs of folks getting on expertly and well, who have also in their time known what it was to pass from the protected state, and POLITICAL STRICTURES. learnt to shift incomparably better for themselves. The beginning cannot be made without its rubs and annoy- ances ; but with their first shock the worst is over, and the faculty of adaptation has its wholesome com- mencement, In the transitional stage, in effecting the passage of the crossing, the first feeling of the Unprotected Farmer, like that of the Unprotected Female, is an im- petuous desire to be carried back, and an earnest prayer for a restoration to the former status ; but this cannot be. To roll on. not to turn back, is the destiny of the world ; and to reconcile the Unprotected Farmer to this necessity he must remember what was his condition as a protected farmer, in which state his language was never other than the language of complaint, full of representations of dis- tress, and groans of impending ruin. He has been crying- wolf all the days of his life. We will not deny that a pinch has come upon him ; we always foresaw and foretold that he must undergo it ; and three years ago, when he was getting high prices, and when the manufacturers were suffering, we did not conceal the truth that the farmer's comparative prosperity was as little to be taken as evidence of the working of the new commercial policy as the distress of the trading interests, and that the farmer could not escape some pains in the change from the restrictive to the free-trade system. A combination of fortuitous circumstances has aggravated the hardships of the middle passage ; and it cannot be fairly taken as an example of what is to be expected under free trade, any more than the Unprotected Female's predicament in the midst of the omnibuses and cabs at Charing Cross is to 236 POLITICAL STRICTURES. be taken as the specimen of the tenor of an unprotected female's life. We may indeed say to the farmer for his consolation in the language of Burns, Tho' losses and crosses Be lessons right severe, There's wit there, ye'll get there, Ye'll find nae other where. (1849.) THE BUDGET MORALISED. Who would be a Chancellor of the Exchequer with a surplus ? A dog with a bone in his mouth, with a hungry pack in pursuit of him, sure of a snap from every tooth, is to be envied in comparison with him. Every man's hand, every man's voice and vote, are against him. Whatever he does he must do wrong. He has to please everybody, and angry disappointments menace him in every quarter. Every taxed article finds a voice, which cries out to him that its relief is the one thing needful. Hops, soap, newspaper stamps, paper, windows, tea, tobacco, timber, attorneys' certificates, bricks, stamp duties, malt, each makes out the best claims, and a refusal seems monstrous. But yet, what is a million and a half among so many? Nothing short of a miracle can satisfy all. The many disappointed claimants become savage malcontents, and rage against the financial man. And he has brought it all on himself. For this he had toiled late and early ; for this he has pinched and screwed, and pared; for this he has economised and nursed the public means, husbanding resources so as to make much of little. The end of all is that he is hunted like a hare, every pursuer being set on having his part of the coveted substance. Alas! how he must lament 'the POLITICAL STRICTURES. 237 fortunate old times when lie was so unfortunate,' the happy peaceful days when he sat at ease on an empty chest, and when, with a deficiency, he could sing before the thief. No Disraeli then made motions for the transfer of a million and a half of local burdens to the consolidated fund. No Drummond could have mustered a minority of a score for a reduction of establishments. No remission of duties on hops or abolition of malt-tax was threatened. But now that we have waxed fat we kick, and kick the financial man who has fattened us. A Government is like an individual in the insecure countries of the East, whose life is in danger the moment it is discovered that he is rich. The rule of prudence is to be poor. A Government's enriching itself is the same thing as fattening itself for the knife. When it is indigent it moves no appetites. It may face lions as safely as Don Quixote did, because it never occurred to the lions that the knight of the dolorous countenance was good to eat. Time was when the tooth of no interest cared for Sir C. ' Wood, when each thought itself well off to escape the satisfac- tion of his wants ; but now the case is altered ; he has become succulent, and a pack have been in full cry after him. For our own parts, we are just like the rest of the world as to the budget, certainly not any better, we fondly hope not worse. That is to say, we should have been best pleased with the removal of our own taxes, holding that there is nothing like leather, and that the diffusion of the knowledge we impart is better even than bricks ; but, if our paper may not be cheapened and 238 POLITICAL STRICTURES. advertisements reduced, we had as lief see bricks have the preference as any other claimant ; nay, more, we believe that the choice has been wisely made for the benefit of the poor, for the improved comfort of their dwellings, where so much reformation is needed for cleanli- ness, health, and morals. At the disposal of the rest of the surplus we have no inclination to carp or cavil. It is easy to argue that something better might have been done, but quite certain that, whatever it might have been, it would have been open to not less objection. Anything more oTacious than this cannot be said of a Chancellor of the Exchequer who had saved a couple of millions, and earned the discontents thence accruing. We hope this lesson will not make him more cautious in future, and return to deficiencies — the only state in which the public is grateful for not being called upon to make them good. — (1849.) MARTIAL LAW. Sir Henry Ward is praised for the promptitude with which he proclaimed martial law. ' What is martial law? ' asks Colonel Thompson. To which we beg to answer, Martial law is not the law of justice. Martial law dis- penses with the procedure which has been found the best for attaining the ends of justice. Martial law prefers dispatch to the discovery of the truth. Martial law is im- patient, and eager to make examples ; and not very nice whet her or not they may happen to be made upon the persons meriting punishment. But what are we saying? [s ii not administered by 'officers and gentlemen of honour.' and is it to be conceded, or imagined, or whis- pered in Gath thai Colonel Trollopc or Captain King can POLITICAL STRICTURES. 230 be capable of error ? Bowing to this unanswerable argu- ment, we must then ask why martial law, which is so much more expeditious, and withal simple, is not the customary law, and why this short-cut to justice is re- served for extraordinary occasions ? It is better or worse than the civil procedure. If better, why does it not supersede the worse ? If worse, why is it so lightly re- sorted to, and so much commended ? In surgery, the parallel to martial law would be turning off the surgeon, and employing the carpenter in lieu of him to perform amputations and difficult operations. — (1850.) DOWNFALL OF THE KUSSELL ADMINISTRATION. ' All things are faults in the conduct of an unfortunate man,' says Marmontel ; ' even in the eyes of his friends, his miscarriages are accounted errors ; he is treated as a fallen child is treated by its mother, chastised for its mis- hap.' Of the truth of this remark Lord John Eussell is the present example. He has fallen, and all are agreed that he is greatly to blame for falling ; but hardly any two men agree about the immediate cause of his fall. ' It was the Durham letter,' says one. 'Not a jot,' replies another ; ' the Durham letter was quite right, and would have strengthened him prodigiously if it had been followed up by a vigorous anti-Papal measure ; it was the paltry bill that destroyed him.' ' The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill,' interposes a third, ' did just enough in doing next to nothing ; — no, it was the house tax in the budget that did the mischief. 7 ' The house tax might have been got over,' puts in another ; c but the proposal of the income tax, with all its injustices unmitigated, doomed Lord John.' 240 POLITICAL STRICTURES. 'Not a whit,' rejoins a radical reformer, ' the income tax is popular, especially with people who don't pay it ; Lord John's opposition to Locke King's motion sealed his fate.' ' Locke King's division was a flea-bite,' cries a staunch Protestant ; ' the Pope has done it all.' ' Who killed Cock Eobin ? ' is a question calling forth a tumult of conflicting responses. Thou canst not say we did it, say the Protectionists. The hundred Eeformers are strenuous in their denial of any hand in the catas- trophe, and protest that they only pushed Lord John on, and had no part in pushing him down. The Manchester party, too, now protest that nothing was further from their wishes than the event which throws everything into confusion and uncertainty. All shrink from the responsi- bility of any hand in the mischief, contemplating the consequences ; but, if these consequences had been more duly considered, when lines of action tending to bring them about were needlessly and recklessly pursued, more forbearant and prudent counsels would have estopped what we have now to lament. Last session we warned some of the Free-traders that, in joining with the Pro- tectionists to harass and embarrass the Government on economic questions, they were acting like the man astride of the arm of a sign-post, who is busily sawing asunder the beam that supports him. We said then, ' They know not what they do. They are short-sighted; they are self-sufficient ; they think they are outwitting their allies for the nonce. They are only outwitting themselves. The biters will be the bitten.'— (1851.) POLITICAL STRICTURES. 241 A NEW ALLY. The common cry against Lord Palmerston was that he had alienated all the allies of England, and left her friend- less in the world. In America, however, we had the King of the Musquitoes in the closest confederacy with us, and, not satisfied with this potent ally, Lord Palmerston had taken measures to raise up a new potentate, bound to us by the ties of gratitude, in King Akitoye I., of Lagos. It cannot, then, be said that we have not two strings to our bow. With the Musquitoes and Lagos on our side, can we not defy the world ? We have set up King Akitoye in business at a very small expense, only some eighty killed and wounded. Kosoko, the expelled brother of this Akitoye, had usurped the throne, and our strict observance of the rule of non- interference in the affairs of other nations does not make us neutral spectators of usurpations where we can do what we like with what is not our own ; nor do we give oppres- sors, if weak, credit for the best intentions ; and finding that Kosoko was not only a bad man to his brother, but — what is worse, and the most unpardonable of all crimes — a bad man to the blacks, orders were given to destroy his capital, which has been done, and Akitoye set up on the ruins. This is of course a great triumph to humanity, cheaply purchased at the price of the killed and wounded. Christmas was the season appropriately selected for this work of charity and brotherly love; and the Bloodhound, whose name figures so aptly in philanthropic operations on the coast of Africa, was the vessel foremost in the service. Well, Her Majesty has a few brave subjects the R 212 POLITICAL ST1UCTUBES. less, but she has an ally the more in King Akitoye. Lagos is the set off to the Kaffir war ; it balances the African account. — (1851.) THE DERBY ADMINISTRATION. The mother of a family who had a French coxcomb on a visit at her house, observing that Monsieur paid very marked attentions to her daughter, asked him what his intentions were ; to which, unhesitatingly, Monsieur replied, ' Decidedly not honourable.' Now it would be a sad thing to provoke such an explanation as this. How much better to enjoy the bliss of ignorance, and to revel for a few months in a fool's paradise. Ill fares the mortal man Too much who knows. Let every man think the best of Lord Derby's Adminis- tration. Let one-half the country believe it staunch Pro- tectionist, the other convert to Free-trade. Let no one seek to penetrate the mystery. Sufficient for the day will be the evil thereof. Let us all be deceived, and happy in our respective delusions. There was a pragmatic ambassador in the time of the first George, who wrote to his Court, ' Some say that the Pretender is dead, others say that he is not dead; for my part, I believe neither the one nor the other.' This tertium quid will be a very convenient opinion for the present occasion. Some say that the Derby Ministry is Protectionist, others say that it is not ; for our part, we believe neither the one nor the other. The Ministry is a Mystery, and woe to the (Edipus who presumes to solve the riddle. Davus's is the country's part.— (1851.) POLITICAL STRICTURES. 243 THE MYSTIFICATION. The two opposite parties cannot agree to bear and forbear for a season, except with an understanding that one of the two is to be the victim at the end of the armistice. Lord Derby puts himself, like Macheath, between Polly and Lucy, declaring, While you thus tease me together, To neither a word will I say. But the end must be the choice of one of the two rivals after the other has been beguiled into patience and inaction. iEsop tells us of a wolf which had taken possession of a cave to rear a litter of whelps. In answer to the request of the owner of the place that the wolf would provide her- self with other quarters, she pleaded the helplessness of her young family, and begged for time to enable her to bring up her whelps. The prayer was granted, and at the expiration of the term, when possession was demanded, the reply was, ' You gave me time for the growth of my young ; they are now grown up and strong, and you may turn me out if you can beat me and my whole family.' Lord Derby's statement amounts simply to this, that he ' bides his time.' He is not at present strong enough, and asks to be allowed to get stronger. — (1851.) THE ATTACKS ON PKINCE ALBERT. . quo cecidit sub crimine ? Quisnam Delator? quibus indiciis? quo teste probavit ? Nil liorum. Juvenal. Most pernicious is the trite saying that there never is much smoke without some fire. As reasonably might it be k2 244 POLITICAL STRICTURES. said that there cannot be much falsehood without some truth. The very nursing mother of calumny is the proverbial inference accrediting it from mere volume of rumour. The slanderer is encouraged by the foreknowledge that he has only to scatter his imputations far and wide to obtain some belief in them; he foreknows that much noise will be taken to argue substance, and that he has only to fill the air with calumny, and that people will take it in and breathe it out again, and pass it thus from mouth to mouth. There is an offence common in society, which is to calumny what in Law misprision is to treason. The misprision of calumny is the entertainment of it upon the grounds of the pestilent saying we have quoted, that there must be some truth at the bottom of it because of its magnitude ; and in this way everyone helps on the lie to additional credit. And, as it grows in falsehood and malignity, larger and larger is the allowance for the fire smouldering under so much smoke. We repeat that nothing can be more irrational, more mischievous, more unjust and cruel than this rule of credence, which mightily encourages the assailant of reputation, and makes the activity of his attacks secure its success, up at least to a very injurious point. Most perverse indeed is the proneness of the world to think of the truth that may be in common defamatory rumours, instead of the falsehood that must be in them. There is nothing more certain than that a fact and the report of it are never in exact correspondence. There is sure to l)e exaggeration ; nay, so much of course is ex- aggeration that, if any fact were reported in the precise POLITICAL STRICTURES. 245 language of truth, it would be misunderstood, large allow- ance being always made in the interpretation of the. narrative for the usual excess in expression. How much better, then, it would be if people would think of the large amount of falsehood which enters into all they hear, instead of the particle of truth which may be, or may not be, at the bottom of a piece of ill-natured gossip. A few weeks ago it was our ungracious task to dispute the seasonableness and fitness of a statue in honour of Prince Albert. We have now to protest against throwing down the reputation of the Prince, if not upon mere suspicion, upon no better ground than on dits and stories, carrying on the face of them this stamp of falsehood, that they must have been divulged by the persons implicated in them, whose motives to concealment must have been the very strongest. Is it to be believed that, if Prince Albert had unconstitutionally intermeddled in the councils of the nation, the Ministers, whose duty it is not to suffer such interference, would have been the very persons to proclaim the betrayal of their trust and their base ser- vility ? And by whom else could the fact be promul- gated ? We have seen it superficially remarked that, Prince Albert being a Privy Councillor, the Queen may consti- tutionally take his advice on affairs of State. But, if Her Majesty did so, the Minister responsible, to whose counsels Her Majesty preferred the Prince Consort's, should make his bow and retire. Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli are Privy Councillors, and the Queen has the undoubted right of recourse to their advice if Her Majesty thinks fit ; but 246 POLITICAL STRICTURES. upon such a step Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone would resign. Suspicion, then, of undue interference can only mount up to Prince Albert upon the preliminary conviction that Her Majesty's Ministers have betrayed their trust. If there has 'been any wrong practice, it is they who have to answer for suffering it, and upon them should first fall the storm of indignation. Blame cannot justly touch Prince Albert till the Ministry be convicted of having failed to protect and assert their constitutional rights. And this brings us to a fair question of credibility. Is it to be believed that such men as compose the present Cabinet would be so servile, so abject, as to submit to the interferences with their functions which are alleged to have been of habitual practice ? In order to begin thinking ill of the Prince Consort, how much worse must we think of all Her Majesty's responsible advisers, severally and collectively? Let people whose minds are inflamed by the idea of foreign interference ask themselves fairly why they should suppose such men as Lord Lansdowne, Lord John Eussell, Lord Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, Sir James Graham, Lord Granville, the Duke of Newcastle, destitute of the British feeling, British spirit, and we will say British jealousy, which are so powerfully stirred in their own breasts by a mere rumour. If the idea is so offensive to •John Bull, let him think what the fact would have been to Ministers degraded personally by the meddling with their duties which also violates constitutional rule. Wc respect the British jealousy of foreign interference; nay, we share in it strongly : but let us beware that no Iago practises on tins passion for mixed motives of selfishness POLITICAL STRICTURES. 247 and malignity. And we cannot but be struck by the fact that the bitterest attacks on the Prince Consort, for alleged sympathies with despotic powers and policy, pro- ceed from the old champions of despotism ; from the inve- terate foes of liberty in every province of politics and in every part of the world. When we see the assaults on the character of the Prince from these quarters, they make us think, to account for them, of the good we know of His Royal Highness, and not of the evil that may be imagined. They make us dwell on what he has clone for social improvement, for humanity, for arts, for the comfort of industry, and upon his enlightened liberal views — liberal not in the narrow party meaning of the word, but in its large original sense. — (1854.) LORD ELLENBOROUGH. A young Pickle dropped his drumstick into a well. He had a shrewd suspicion that people would not be prevailed on to go down into a well to recover a drum- stick, so he laid hold of all the plate he could find and threw it after the drumstick into the well. The alarm was raised that the plate was missing ; the police were sent for ; little master rushed in with the news that there was something shining at the bottom of the well. The salvers, spoons, tureens, &c., were clearly seen where young Pickle had thrown them ; ladders were. got, and the plate was all fished up ; and, as the last ladle was recovered, little master called to the servant at the bottom of the well, ' John, as you are down there, you may as well bring up my drumstick.' The gates of Somnauth would seem to be Lord Ellen- 248 POLITICAL STRICTURES. borough's drumstick. Dost Mahomrned would appear to have been expelled, Shah Soojah set up, thousands of lives thrown away, terrible disasters suffered, and as ter- rible retaliation inflicted, for no other end than the re- covery and restoration of the gates of Juggurnath's temple. Or, if this were not the express object of the Affghan war, it would appear that the accomplishment of such an exploit surpassed in importance any other object that had been con- templated, and that the feat incidental to the ostensible design incomparably transcended it in consequence, and amply atoned for the miscarriage of it with all the losses and reverses. We have lavished a vast deal of blood and treasure in pursuance of a policy which Lord Ellen- borough has reprobated ; but, to make' amends, or more than amends, we have got back, for a filthy, obscene idol, its long-lost gates. Eeally, seeing what we see, it seems to us that the best use that could have been made of the gates would have been to have shut up Lord Ellenborough within them, for the restraint which Hamlet recommends for Polonius. There has been one point in which Lord Ellenborough has been thought to have conceited himself a Samson ; and, not satisfied with the charm that lies in his hair, has lie intended to complete the resemblance by carrying off the gates of the city ? If so, what is to come next ? The whole tiling looks like a burlesque. — (1843.) The ' Allgcmeine Zeitung' gives the following account of the much-favoured idol that has been the only gainer by the Affghan war : — POLITICAL STRICTURES. 249 ' Patan Somnauth must not, as has been done by some of the English papers, be confounded with the temple of Juggurnath, which is situated at the opposite side of India. ' The city of Patan (the Chosen One), so called, accord- ing to Abul Pasel, on account of its beautiful site, received its surname of Somnauth (more properly Svayambu Naut, or the Self-Created God) on account of a famous statue of Siva, venerated as one of the holiest idols of all India. This statue used to be bathed twice a day in the holy water of the Gauges, brought expressly for that purpose to the temple. Two thousand Brahmins were attached to the service of the temple, and, to charm the leisure of these reverend gentlemen, 500 bayaderes and 300 musicians were likewise devoted to the service of the idol. Three hundred barbers derived their income from the piety of the visitors, for every true believer who went to perform his devotions in the interior of the sacred edifice was obliged to submit to the ceremony of shaving.' We have copied this information chiefly for the last fact, which will serve to reassure and comfort those who have been troubled with fears that Lord Ellenborough was about to turn idolater. No one who has ever seen Lord Ellenborough can believe him a convert to an idolatry that requires the sacrifice of a head of hair. Between him and the worship that supports three hundred barbers there lies a sea of Macassar Oil, an ocean of Curling Fluid. There is not a man in the world so clear of any cult employing the barber as the Proclaimer-General. The three hundred barbers of Siva could be potted in Lord Ellenborough's bear's grease. He wears as much 250 POLITICAL STRICTURES. hair as the three hundred barbers of Siva ever cut oft. He is the personified antithesis of the idolatry delighting in cropped or bald heads. It may be asked how he came to honour the Hindoo god of hair-cutting ; and the answer is, because he, of all men living, felt that he might do so without any suspicion of a propensity to become one of his cropped votaries. It may be, too, that what has been taken for the tribute • of respect was, in fact, defiance, and that Lord Ellenborough sent the hair- cutting divinity his gates to indicate that it was time for him to shut up shop ; the example of the full beauties of a head of hair being before the people of Hindostan in the admired person of their Governor-General. It is indeed reported that the priests of Siva, in conformity with the Eastern practice of making a return for presents, intend to send Lord Ellenborough the pair of scissors which he has lacked the use of for the last forty years ; and that the three hundred barbers are to make the pro- cession to present them. It will be a fine sight to see them in the face of each other, the three hundred cutters and the Great Uncut. How perfect the adjustment of supply and demand. — (1843.) Mr. Vernon Smith having touched on the subject of Lord Ellenborough's proceedings as to the gates of Som- nauthj in a very clever speech on a Motion for Papers, Mr. Bingham Baring entered into a defence of the Governor-General ; in which lie laboured with more zeal than success, and with less scruples than either, to prove POLITICAL STRICTURES. 251 that the conduct of Lord Elleuborough had been in every respect in question faultless. Sir Eobert Peel made a speech one-half the one way, one-half the other. The first half was devoted to the defence of Lord Ellenborough, the latter half to a con- fession of misconduct on his part. Sir Eobert has proceeded in the vindication of his Governor-General precisely as Gay recommends people to treat a cucumber, that is, first to dress it with great care, and, when that is done, to throw it away. In the outset Sir Eobert Peel denied the charge of impiety and favouring idolatry ; and in candour we must admit that he did succeed in showing that the Governor- General had held an even hand between idolatry and Christianity ; that, as the homely proverb expresses it, he did not make fish of one and flesh of the other. Sir Eobert pleaded, as a set-off against the proclama- tion about the honours to the furniture of idolatry, the circular to the clergy — ' Entreating them to offer up in their churches, at such convenient time as they might appoint, their humble thanksgiving to Almighty God, to whose paternal good- ness and mercy the restoration of the blessing of peace alone was attributable.' It is very fortunate that the Governor-General, in that circular to the clergy, did not desire thanks to be given for the restoration of the gates of the idol, as well as for the blessing of peace, especially as in his proclamation he had treated the recovery of those gates as worth the price of a war, inasmuch as it was boastfully declared the main object and result of it. 252 POLITICAL STRICTURES. If, as Sir Eobert Peel would have us, we are to com- pare the proclamation and the circular ; the compliment to idolatry and the homage to Christianity ; we must con- fess that there appears much more unction in the former. But Sir Eobert asserts that the gates were to be con- sidered as a military trophy only, and not as any religious symbol. Why, a tiling is only a trophy with relation to what have been its uses. A pair of gates carried off from a temple could only be a trophy as the sign of the triumph over, and insult to, a hated creed. The restoration turns the triumph and insult the other way, with the addition of the barbarism of the desecration of a tomb. If the Duke of Wellington had sent the mitre of the Primate of France to England, it could not have been accepted as a trophy, except as a sign of insult to the Catholic Church. Both Mr. Bingham Baring and Sir Eobert Peel have contended that the Mahometans of India will not feel affronted by the desecration of Mahmoud's tomb, as they delight in the humiliation of their old enemies and vanquishers, the Affghans. It might as well be argued that any outrageous insult to the Catholic religion, when our army was in France, could not have been unacceptable to the Irish soldiery in Her Majesty's service, because they fought the French with as hearty good-will as their Protestant brethren. But what would have been the feelings of the British Catholics if any utensil or vessel devoted to the uses of the Catholic worship had been made a trophy and paraded as a trophy? They would not have seen in it a trophy, in the glory of which they had an equal share. They would have POLITICAL STRICTURES, 253 seen in it only a wanton and barbarous insult to their religion, and would have felt that their share in the trophy was only that of disgrace and humiliation. If, then, a trophy can only be such with relation to what have been its uses, whence it has derived its sacredness, value or importance, it matters not, as far as the question of senti- ment is concerned, whether it has changed masters for the first time or not ; and in its restoration it carries with it all the offence to religion on the one side that it did in its original capture to the other. After Sir Eobert Peel had disputed the justice of the censures passed on his Governor-General, after he had laboured to show that none of the objections alleged applied to his conduct, after he had soaped and rubbed and scrubbed his blackamoor, and taken all pains to make him as white as an angel, out comes the admission with respect to the proclamation — 4 He must say, however, with reference to it, that he could not hold one language in that House with regard to it, and another language out of doors. He at once admitted that it had attracted the attention of the Government, and it had been thought necessary to make such representations to India with respect to it as were thought necessary. He could not write to the Governor- General of India on this subject, and at once publish his opinion, if it carried a free expression of opinion with reference to this subject as a matter of religious dissen- sion, without being aware that it must be attended with very great danger. Indeed, he might add that in this point of view it was a subject almost too delicate to allude to as a matter of discussion.' 254 POLITICAL STRICTURES. A subject too delicate, indeed. Too indelicate he means, — the gates of Somnauth having been the gates of the temple of the filthiest obscenity that ever polluted the earth. They had five hundred wives of flesh and blood, being in fact the portals of the priests' harem. They are now in a widowed state : but Lord Ellenborough was not aware of that misfortune. But, seriously, if Sir Eobert Peel saw reason to blame the proclamation in his despatches to the author, why does he now defend it against every objection raised against it ? What palpable dishonesty is this ! And, after such an example, what is there which these Tory Minis- ters will not defend in their places in Parliament, even though they may have censured it in their private com- munications from their official chambers ? After all, says Sir Eobert, you are blaming one act of the Governor-General ; a remark which provokes the retort of Talleyrand to the same defence : but when is this one act to have an end ? It is a piece in one act — burlesques are never in more than one act — an extrava- ganza, like ' Tom Thumb ' or ' Bombastes Furioso ' ; but the one act is intolerably long, and the public begin to cry, Off, off ; manager, manager ; an apology, an apology. Certainly, when Lord Ellenborough sees the turn of Sir Eobert Peel's vindication of him, provoking, nay challenging, inquiry into his doings beyond the Somnauth proclamation, lie must say, with the character in the 'School for Scandal,' that lie feels lost indeed when Candour undertakes 1 1 is defence. We have defended a part, an important part, of Lord Ellenb< dough's Administration, the evacuation of AfTghan- POLITICAL STRICTURES. 255 stan (not the barbarities attending it) ; we had and we have no disposition to take an unfavourable view of his government : but his enormous and dangerous follies have made the only passage in his policy which we approved, (questionable as that was in manner and spirit, though right in the main,) appear now but as a lucid interval in a career of madness. The folly is contagious, and has given rise to the greatest puerility that the House of Commons has perhaps ever been the scene of, manifold and numerous as its absurdities have been ; the grave controversy about the character of Sultan Mahmoud, who has rested in his tomb for eight centuries ! In order to defend Lord Ellenbrough, Sir Eobert Peel said some very severe things on the doings of this man of yesterday, Sultan Mahmoud of the eleventh century, the worst of which was that the wealth of India had tempted him to invade it. Our possession of the country is of course referable to a very different motive. Lord Ellen- borough shows that we went there only to protect and honour its idolatries. — (1843.) What is the restoration of the gates without the resto- ration of the temple to which to hang them ? How worthy of a people's love is a Government which gives them a door and refuses the building which it claimed gratitude for refurnishing ! What greater insult to the deity of the Hindoos than to present him with a door when he is without a house ; to offer Siva board when he wants lodging? 25G rOLITICAL STRICTURES. Everyone knows the old glee — Glorious Apollo from on high beheld us, Wand'ring to find a temple for his praise ; He Polyhymnia hither sent to guard us, &c. The Hindoos have been made to feel precisely this sentiment by the Governor-General's proclamation. Siva is their Apollo, and Ellenborongh their Polyhymnia, whose productions the great Duke therefore appropriately calls 6 the song of triumph.' But, when the breach of promise of temple becomes known to them, how bitter will be their disappointment. It is like a present of a comb to a bald man, a knee- buckle to a Highlander, a set of sympathetic dinner-tables to a man without a house or a sixpence to get a dinner. When a profligate nobleman was charged by his wife with allowing five hundred a-year to an actress, he replied with vivacity, 'Well, if I do allow 6001. a-year, I suppose I don't pay her.' Lord Ellenborough may make the same defence to the reproach of promising to restore the gates to the restored temple of Somnauth. If he does promise it, he supposes that he cannot perform it. After all, then, the Mahometans may not have so much reason for umbrage, and may have the laugh on their side, seeing the barren, impertinent tribute which, with so much ado, has been rendered to the Hindoos, as if only to make them feel the decay of their religion under British auspices. We have great satisfaction in pointing out this effect, as we are fond of defending Lord Ellen- borough. Ee has the art of pleasing and displeasing, in turns, both parts of the population. He does honour to the Temple of Somnauth ; and the Hindoos are elate and POLITICAL STRICTURES. 257 the Mahometans are cast down : but lo ! there is no temple, and there is to be no temple, and the unattached and un- attachable gates are mere lumber, and, what is worse, desecrated by their uses at Mahmoud's tomb ; and the Hindoos are disappointed and mortified, and the Maho- metans scoff. So blunder balances blunder. But what is to be done with the gates ? By analogy their destination should be clear. They are the relicts, the widows of the departed Temple of Somnauth, and should be consumed in a suttee, the funeral pile being lighted with Lord Ellenborough's proclamation. The thing would then end as it began — in smoke. — (1843.) We find ourselves in a predicament. After having written a most satisfactory article of explanation and justification, we have to tack a petard of a postscript to it blowing all our statements to atoms. The last news from India informs us that the temple of Siva no longer exists, that there are no Brahmins, no bayaderes, no musicians, and no three hundred barbers. But, after all, what difference does that make ? If the Proclaimer-General thought that the idol, the temple, the Brahmins, the bayaderes, and the three hundred barbers did exist, his motives were the same whether they existed or not, and our demonstration that they did not incline him to worship at a hair-cutting shrine remains good. But what is the Proclaimer-General to do now ? He is in the perplexity to which the favourite American phrase applies — he cannot ' fix ' the gates ' anyhow.' He can much more easily unhinge all India. The gates are 2S8 POLITICAL STRICTURES. without a temple, without an idol, without priests, with- out bayaderes, without the three hundred barbers. The Proclaimer-General has thus brought both Mahmoud and Siva to most ridiculous straits, the tomb of the one looking like an open-mouthed fool for want of gates, and the other having a pair of gates on his hands, but no temple to put them to. As the Cherubim, when he was invited to take a seat, modestly excused himself, saying that he had not the wherewith, so Siva, to the proffer of his gates, must reply that he has not the wherewith for the hanging of them. And to make the thing complete in its way, everything being wanting, the sandal-wood gates have no sandal in them, — nothing but scandal, and plenty of that. One of the Indian papers says — ' Whither are the gates to be conducted ? The temple of Somnauth is in ruins. The little that remains of it has been converted into a Mahomedan mosque. Not only has the remembrance of the temple been utterly lost, but the temple itself has ceased to exist as a Hindoo sanc- tuary, and there is literally no building at Somnauth to which the gates can be affixed, excepting a Mahomedan mosque. When the gates have been transmitted with all honour through Sirhind, and Eajwarra, and Malwa, and Guzerat, to what establishment of priests is the sacred deposit to be given? There is not a Hindoo Brahmin there to welcome them back. The whole population of the town is Mahomedan. The proclamation speaks of a " restored temple." Who is to restore it? Is it in- tended that the British Government shall be at the expense of turning a Mahomedan shrine into an idol- POLITICAL STRICTURES. 259 . — __ _ , — , atrous temple, in order that it may serve as a monument of its victories in Affghanistan ? Will the Governor- General procure afresh idol, and set the Brahmins to re- consecrate the defiled gates ? ' It is to be observed that the Proclaimer-General states that the gates will be transmitted to ' the restored temple of Somnauth,' so that he must have contemplated the re- storation of the shrine for the obscenest idolatry. Another Indian paper says — 6 Lord Ellenborough knew, or ought to have known, that the temple of Somnauth was dedicated to Siva, and the odious Lingum worship in its most detestable impuri- ties ; he knew it to be a complete ruin, and his order, if it mean anything, appears to mean the restoration of the temple and shrine under the most publicly announced approbation and patronage of the Governor-General, and, of course, we presume, at the expense of the British Government.' From the defence of the Proclaimer-General, which that devout nobleman, Lord Stanley, has already made, we feel far from certain that the worst fears of our friends in India will not be realised. We are not without the most dismal apprehensions that in the votes for the ser- vices of the year the grant to Maynooth will be followed by one to Somnauth. — (1843.) Ax elderly gentleman with the military mania is as un- pitiable a case as one of the same years in the measles, the hooping cough, the chicken pox, or the kindred 260 POLITICAL STRICTURES. scarlatina. ' He will never get over it,' people cry ; ' why did he not have it sooner ? ' The military mania certainly ought to be taken early. Boys get over it in a couple of years or so : but, when it seizes on a gentleman past fifty, it fastens obstinately on his constitution, and the chances are that he will carry it with him to the grave. Major Sturgeon is an eminent example in point. The Major did not begin his exercise till forty, and at fifty, as we all know, he did not care a flea-bite for the noise of the guns, and was never happy but when smelling powder. Lord Ellenborough's is a case of the same kind. He took to soldiering at a more advanced age than the Major, and all his pleasure now is in an army. Camps and cantonments he speaks of with the enthusiasm of the Major, who would however not have omitted the canteen to complete the alliteration. What will become of him when he comes home? His friends are not without their fears that he will 'list. In taking his leave of India, it will be seen he de- clared that all his sorrow was in parting with the Army. Major Sturgeon would have said precisely the same on quitting Brentford, the scene of so many brilliant achieve- ments. Feeling himself all a soldier, as the Sturgeon family always do, Lord Ellcnborough became exceedingly pro- ional in his views of the means of retaining the Indian Empire, and protested there was ' nothing like leather ' for the purpose. He generously assured the brave companions of his toils that they might be satisfied with his successor, POLITICAL STRICTURES. 261 because lie was even a better soldier than himself, and above all, because the Duke of Wellington had recom- mended him, and he would have the advice and support of the great Captain. As Lord Ellenborough himself had the same guarantees of excellence in the Duke's favour, his impartial estimate of them in his successor is no very roundabout way of attesting his own worth. The Civil Service and the Government are treated with equal contempt by the soldier untived. His hatred for the first is intimated in his declaration that all his regret is at quitting the Army ; and as for the second, he says that his successor is to be confided in, not because of the wisdom of the power appointing him, but because the Duke of Wellington, who has no authority in the matter, advised or approved the nomination ! This is what the Scotch call the ' Claw me and I'll claw you' system. The Duke vouches for his Ellen- borough, and his Ellenborough vouches for the infalli- bility of his Duke.— (1844.) LOKD GOUGH. A very dull Member of Parliament, having stammered through a marvellously stupid speech, was heard, as he reseated himself, to ejaculate, ' Non nobis , Domine, non nobis, seel tuo nomini gloria eletur? Committing the same sort of mistake, Lord Gough commences an account of his most unsatisfactory operations with an assignment of their mighty success to the special pleasure of Providence. Non nobis, non nobis, ' it has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe to the British arms the most successful issue to the extensive combinations rendered necessary for the 262 POLITICAL STRICTURES. purpose of effecting the passage of the Chenab, the defeat and dispersion of the Sikh force under the insurgent Eajah Shere Singh, and the numerous Sikh Sirdars who had the temerity to set at defiance the British power.' So solemn and devout an exordium as this, borrowed from Nelson, prepared the public for a victory as decisive as the one which the naval hero so eloquently attributed to the blessing of Providence ; but sad indeed is the discrepancy between the swelling introduction and the upshot of the intelligence, which is simply that the enemy has got away unscathed, after mauling our troops grievously in a skirmish, and that the General has crossed the Chenab ! So, in Scott's 'Old Mortality,' Mawse Headrigg ex- claims, ' By the help of the Lord I've leapt over the ditch.' Hierocles tells us of a wiseacre who, seeing a flock of birds on a tree, shook the tree, thinking that they would fall down like fruit, and was mightily amazed when he saw them soar away upwards. Lord Gough's diversion by General Thackwell was shaking the tree with a like success. — (1849.) ' I came, I saw, I conquered,' was the boast of Caesar. I came, I did not see, I did not conquer, should have been the bulletin of Lord Gough. He came; he made no reconnaissance, he shut his eyes, he put down his head, he rushed at the enemy like a mad bull. A runaway corps was addressed by a great captain thus : c Gentlemen, you are mistaken ; the enemy is behind, not before yon.' The same mistake may not POLITICAL STRICTURES. 2G3 unnaturally have been committed by General Pope's brigade, for the General whom they had far more reason to fear than Sheer Singh was their own Commander-in- Chief.— (1849.) THE VIRTUES OF A NAME. The Marquis of Tweeddale is charged with having un- justly deprived some Sepoy troops of certain allowances ; that, mutiny having followed, he yielded the point in dis- pute, and the regiment returned to its duty, and did duty ; but nevertheless that, nine months afterwards, the principal ringleaders were put on their trial by court- martial, thirteen sentenced to banishment for life, and two shot. Now such an accusation as this in Parliament is only a text for the praise of the Marquis of Tweeddale. The Marquis of Tweeddale, says Sir John Hobhouse, is too much of a gallant soldier to be chargeable with cruelty, and too much of an honest man to shift from himself responsibility fairly belonging to him. The Marquis of Tweeddale, quoth Sir Kobert Peel, from all he had seen, heard, or known of the Marquis of Tweeddale during a long and distinguished career under the Duke of Wellington, had inspired him with a strong conviction that the noble lord would be the last man who would have been guilty of oppression, or chargeable with an excess of military discipline. His tendencies were tendencies of kindness towards the soldier. Briefer, and to precisely the same purpose, it would be simply to affirm that the Marquis of Tweeddale is the Marquis of Tweeddale, and there is an answer thorough and complete i 204 POLITICAL STRICTURES. to any charge. Nothing is to be believed against the Marquis of Tweecldale ; the Marquis of Tweeddale from the Tweeddale nature is to be presumed impeccable. The accused in all cases of this sort before Parliament is not only entitled to the presumption of innocence, but to the attribution of every virtue under the sun. The accuser, on the other hand, is always actuated by some undue and malignant motive. He would never have preferred the charge but for a quarrel ; and this circum- stance of course makes the truth or falsehood of the charge a matter of indifference to public feeling and the ends of justice. It has been settled over and over again that time cures injustice. If the thing passed some four or five years ago, there is no need of words about it. There is a short statute of limitations to the humanities. The answer to any question about the matter is, why has the thing slumbered so long, and why is it mooted now? It is always too late or too early. But what time can there be for inquiring into the conduct of a Marquis of Tweed- dale, who, being Marquis of Tweeddale, is incapable of anything wrong, and a pattern of all the virtues ? Sir John Hobhouse departed from the true and established parliamentary line of vindication when he referred to the time that has elapsed without demand for inquiry, in- stead of resting his case solely on the decisive grounds of the impossibility of fault or error in the Marquis of Tweeddale. The Marquis of Tweeddale can do no wrong. What more needs be said? The Marquis of Tweeddale is great, and Sir John Hobhouse is his prophet! Bis- millah ! POLITICAL STRICTURES. 265 When we examine the account of the Marquis of Tweeddale's conduct, we find it in remarkable conformity with the greatest examples. Homer tells us that kings lay up their anger in their breasts, and wait their conve- nient opportunities of venting it. So, it seems, did the Marquis of Tweeddale. He rescinded his order stopping allowances, and the mutiny he had provoked was at an end, and the men returned to their duty, imagining, no doubt, that all was overlooked ; little suspecting the kingly mind with which they had to do, big with vengeance biding its time. It is singular that Sir Eobert Peel, in viewing the various evidences of justice and mercy in the proceedings of the Marquis of Tweeddale, overlooked this point of conformity with the usages of the greatest in the husbandry of wrath. But Sir Eobert, to make up for that omission, extracts a grace from the delay of trial, and sees in it the strongest presumption for the temper and deliberateness of the proceedings, clear of all heat and precipitation. So Polyphemus put men by for a time, and beat their brains out at the suitable season without any passion, showing thereby that there could be no species of injustice in his doings. But, again, we must ask, why reason the matter ? why resort to inferences to show that the Marquis of Tweed- dale has not been in fault, when you have commenced with the conclusion that the Marquis of Tweeddale is incapable of wrong ? And after all, as Sir Eobert says, only two were shot, only two ! Think of that, good people ; only two shot and a baker's dozen banished for life. What moderation ! 2G6 POLITICAL STRICTURES. What clemency ! And the two who were so mercifully shot had been allowed to enjoy nine months of life un- troubled with the fear of death, or even the expectation of punishment, owing to the deliberate, cool method in which this matchless Marquis of Tweeddale takes his measures for attaining the ends of justice by a handsome circuit. And mark the public economy of this mode of proceeding. Duty for nine months was exacted and had from the men, before bullets were despatched through their brains. Had they been shot forthwith, this advan- tage would have been lost, making the most of the cul- prits, and taking the most out of them before taking life away from them. So, in France, they work their oxen to the last before they kill them for beef. A common objection to capital punishment is that the worst thing you can make of a man is a corpse ; but the expedient of taking nine months' duty out of him before despatching him, pro tanto, diminishes that objection. During the whole of the discussion of this matter, not a word was said of the order which occasioned the mutiny, and which is alleged, without contradiction, to have been unjust, and withdrawn as indefensible, after the worst consequences had been produced by it. Now, if there are any human minds so constituted as to conceive it possible that the Marquis of Tweeddale can be capable of error, they may be very likely to contend that the question, whether the proceeding that produced mutiny was just or not, has a very important bearing on the question whether the extreme rigour of punishment for mutiny, provoked by unfair treatment, was warrant- able or not. And they may ask, supposing the Marquis POLITICAL STRICTURES. 267 of Tweedclale to have been in fault in the first instance, how he could reconcile it to his conscience to inflict the extreme penalty on men whose crime had been the direct fruit of his own wrong. But in this hypothesis we are breaking in upon the foregone conclusion upon which Sir Eobert Peel and Sir John Hobhouse so firmly and inexpugnably take their stand, that the Marquis of Tweeddale can do no wrong, and that his name is a deci- sive answer to all impeachment. — (1849.) THE VALUE OF INDIA DIRECTORS. The dilemma in which the casuists placed the character of Lucretia applies to the East Indian Directory : Si casta, quare trucidata ; si 11011 casta, quare laudata ? If it has worked L so w r ell, why meddle with it ? why not let well alone ? why innovate, for the mere sake of innovation ? Our representative system is confessed faulty, and next year is appointed for its reformation. But the constitu- tion of this East Indian Directory is to be judged by its fruits, which are pronounced such as no other tree of government in the world has borne. Nevertheless, we have a self-condemned Parliament sitting in judgment on this paragon, and entertaining proposals of change. Would it not be more sensible to make it our own, if it be what it is represented, like the young man who, when his mother desired him to look out for a governess with every accomplishment and merit under the sun, replied : * When I have the good fortune to find such an one I will make her, not your servant, but my wife ' ? If the votes of a few scores of old ladies and gentle- men holding India stock are of a virtue to produce a 268 POLITICAL STRICTURES. Directory capable of the wisest government over 150 millions of people, without any special qualifications in such directors, without any peculiar knowledge or ap- titude, why should we cleave to our town and county constituencies, which are found so fallible, or so corrupt in their choices ? If the Court of Directors has done so much better, on the whole, than the Imperial Parliament, why not transfer to the former the small addition of the management of the United Kingdom with its depen- dencies ? Thirty millions would not be much of an addition to the subjects under the administration of the Company ; and what is managed so well at a distance ought, a fortiori, to be done still better at home, or near at hand. When Canning defended the old Boroughmongery on precisely the same ground that the double Government of India has been defended, namely, that it had worked well and produced certain great men. he consistently resisted change, declining the lottery of legislation. But now, with greater vouchers for the perfection of the Indian Government, innovation is proposed without any principle of reformation. If faults, such as want of local know- ledge and experience, had been confessed, and traced to the ignorance of the Directory, the proposal to diminish the amount of such ignorance would be intelligible, how- ever insufficient for the object ; reminding us, as it indeed does in that respect, of Horace Walpole's anecdote of the Gunpowder Plot. The Lord Chamberlain was sent to examine the vaults under the Parliament House, and, returning with his report, said lie had found four-and- twenty barrels of gunpowder, that he had removed six POLITICAL STRICTURES. 2G9 of them, and hoped the other eighteen would do no harm. But in removing half a dozen of the ignorant directors, like the six barrels of gunpowder, how do we know that harm may not be done ? If ignorance has hitherto con- sisted with so excellent an administration, how do we know that it is not necessary and essential to the effect ? Certain it is that it is either a good or a bad element. If the one, why diminish it ? If the other, why retain so large a preponderance of it, nay, or any particle of it ? A POLITICAL PARTY MISSING. A paragraph lately went the round of the journals headed 'A Kussian Army Missing,' — a strange piece of news : but our domestic intelligence contains one, just as curious, namely, that the great Conservative party is in the same predicament, missing like the Muscovite host, and a subject of a thousand anxious inquiries and specu- lations. In truth, however, the party was always so much in the habit of going astray that we cannot but wonder at the degree of surprise attached just now to an occurrence so usual. It is certainly not for us to propose or under- take a voyage of discovery after the lost Conservatives, who it seems are not able to conserve even themselves. We are neither their brethren nor their keepers ; but at the same time we shall be glad to hear of their safety, for there is room enough in the world of politics for us all, and there is nothing in creation without its uses, — not even a Spooner. As to the whereabouts of the party at the present moment we have a shrewd suspicion of our own. Our 270 POLITICAL STRICTURES. notion is, they are at sea. They want a policy, and they are at sea to find one ; but as they have little or nothing in the way of character, weight, or principle to trade on, their chance of bringing home a fair cargo is exceedingly slender. If their venture prove good, it will be a con- firmation of what the witty clown says to Duke Orsino, — 6 1 would have men of such "constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything, and their intents everywhere, for that's it that always makes a good voyage of nothing.' If not at sea, we really cannot conjecture where the Conservatives can possibly be. At this season we were wont to hear their voices in the counties, at least in the agricultural shires ; but now there is not so much as a Tory mouse stirring, even in Bucks. The Irish bogs have no account to give of them. Even Enniskillen is mute. Had they been lost in a Scotch mist, with Sir Archibald Alison, some of the thousand sportsmen in the moors would have heard their crow, or seen something of them. One thing is very certain, that a brace of Conservatives now would be quite in season, and bring a handsome price, were it only for stuffing and placing in a museum. It sounds odd to hear journals calling themselves Con- servative disputing about the existence of a Conservative party, and, actually denying the existence of a policy bearing the name. If there is no policy there can be no party, and, if there be no party, how come there to be newspapers professing to represent it ? Conservatism is, in fact, extinct everywhere just now, as much in the Press as it is in Parliament. A Conservative press would create a Conservative party, if there were a Conservative policy POLITICAL STRICTURES. 271 to uphold. The principles are not forthcoming. There is nothing to be done in the way of Conservatism, for nothing is attacked from any quarter that any man of the least respectability will undertake to defend. The real truth is that the war with public abuses is carried on much too gently to require a standing army of politicians for their protection ; and the party in office must be much more liberal and energetic than it is at present, before we shall see an opposition reorganised to support things as they are, under any of the old party names and pretexts. An honest Conservative would easily console himself for the prostration of his cause in Parliament. So far from discovering, in its decline and fall, a rampant Liberalism, threatening the institutions of the country, he would only discern a satisfactory proof that Eeformers are not very busy. Such a man would find comfort in reflecting that Conservatism itself could scarcely be less of a disturber than the Liberalism now ascendant ; and why then should he covet office, seeing that its present possessors are practically as much Conservative as himself? It is rather for us to regret the state of things which by doing so little in the line of public improvement has com- pletely destroyed the occupation of those whose function in the State was either to prevent amelioration altogether, or to reduce the amount of it as low as possible. We confess we should like to see Liberalism in that active state which would be more sure to call some modification or other of Toryism into life and activity also. We dis- like the torpor of opposition resulting in no small degree from the want of energy in office. The missing party, no 272 POLITICAL STRICTURES. matter how far they may now be at sea, would soon appear again in the offing, if there were good reason to believe that the spirit of progress was about to animate the Government. We would recall the Conservatives by giving them something to do in the way of resisting or minimising reformation. We would give them a policy again by returning to the policy of useful change that originally gave them a political existence. Their presence, even in the most obstructive form of Toryism, is a healthier symptom than their absence, caused by the poverty of the element of useful change. — (1856.) MR. ROEBUCK'S LIVERPOOL SPEECH. ' Give me footing out of the world, and I will move the world,' said Archimedes. In the world of politics Mr. Eoebuck is in the same predicament as Archimedes. Con- fined to the world, he cannot move the world. He can- not find a plant for his lever clear of corruption. There is rottenness everywhere. If an upright man enters on the stage of politics he does not maintain his rectitude long. He falls at the temptation of a card to the Queen's ball, and thenceforth crawls on his belly. Mr. Eoebuck finds himself amongst reptiles, and asks for honest up- right men. With a little band of the wise and incorrupt- ible he sees that wonders could be done, but how are they to be got ? or, harder still, being got, how are they to be secured ? how preserved ? how kept sweet and whole- some amidst the pervading corruption ? A man may be, as Hamlet phrases it, indifferent honest, but he has a wife who sighs for admission into the world that calls itself great, or he has a daughter who pines for the Queen's POLITICAL STRICTURES. 273 ball. A member of Parliament is beset with more temp- tations than St. Antony. He may be content to dine off cold shoulder of mutton, like Andrew Marvel ; he may be proof against place, against titles, against ribbons, but nevertheless may succumb to a Court card, relieving him from the female discontent that has so long troubled his peace. Such and many more of as mean a kind are the influences which Mr. Eoebuck describes as prevalent, and vitiating the representative system. And where is the cure, what the remedy ? It is easy to admonish con- stituencies to make better choices, but by what process are they to prove their candidates ? How are they to iind out beforehand whether a man's public virtue is stubborn enough to resist the temptation of a Minister's dinners, or the seduction of the Queen's balls, or any other of the baits that Mr. Eoebuck has particularised ? The fact is that Mr. Eoebuck proves too much. If matters were as he describes them, public virtue must be given up as an impossibility. When we hear Mr. Eoebuck's declarations of the state of things in which he is cast, we are irresistibly reminded of FalstafF's lamentations of the decline of valour which has left him alone in posses- sion of that quality. ' Go thy ways, old Jack, die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood be not forgotten upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhanged in England.' We do not mean to imply that Mr. Eoebuck is a pretender to what he does not possess, like Jack Falstaff, but he is a little fanfaron of his virtues. His estimate of himself is a lofty one, and he asks why other men cannot be as honest and true, as he is in his own conscientious judg- T 274 POLITICAL STRICTURES. ment. Now, as we have before observed, if another J. A Eoebuck appeared on the political stage, his double in every respect, Mr. Eoebuck would not be satisfied with him, and would find something amiss either in his talents or his qualities. There is no brotherhood in politics for Mr. Eoebuck. He is in that field a very Cain. We acquit him of ill-feeling ; the error is one of judgment. His mind is exaggerative, and, raising a standard of merit above human capability, it condemns all who fall short of it. If a standard of excellence be raised preposterously high, the judgment upon all measured by it will be naught, and they will be rejected as pigmies and mis- shapen dwarfs. The world is never made better by tell- ing it it is bad. That lesson has been preached to it in all times without a jot diminishing the occasion. Dis- tinguishing the good that is in it is far more to the purpose than all confounding condemnations of the evil. Mrs. Stowe's Topsy is the type of a blackened world, always convinced of its wickedness, and never mending. Most unfortunate it is that, when Mr. Eoebuck holds forth on Eeform, he makes men despair in precise propor- tion to his carrying them with him in his sombre views. He shows, if he succeeds in showing anything at all, that there is a want which cannot be supplied by men, such as mortal men now are, as Homer expresses it in the language of disparagement, the most ancient and uni- versal in the world. Let it not be supposed that we underrate Mr. Eoebuck in combating his error of underrating his fellow-actors on the political stage. We value and honour Mr. Eoe- POLITICAL STRICTURES. 275 buck highly for his brave specialty. Fear never con- trols his voice, nor any paltry deferences. He is the bravest of public champions, but far from an unerring public censor. The passion which serves him in opening a special impeachment leads him astray when he assumes judicial attributes. It is desirable that there should always be such a man in the House of Commons, and never has there been a better for the special service than Mr. Eoebuck, none more upright, more able, more courageous, none also, as the hackneyed essay has it, more 'original and unaccommodating. ' — (1857\) THE LOVES OF THE FINANCIERS. Mr. Gladstone is evidently weary of his political bachelor's life. He has been going a- wooing, like the frog in the ballad, and has found, we are happy to say, a helpmate perfectly to his fancy in the amiable and ac- complished Mademoiselle Disraeli, just returned from Paris, where she had been to give the last polish to her education. It was not good for Gladstone to be alone. We can imagine him addressing his new flame in a stanza of Shelley's : Nothing in this world is single ; All things by decree divine In each other's being mingle : "Why not I in thine ? Who is the conqueror now ? The political Arcadia is a country with ups and downs in it, as Mr. Gladstone at length experiences — vanquished in his turn, and kneeling and cooing where he before triumphed and crowed. Sentimentally speaking, we most admire the part the fair Disraeli plays in this romance of reality, the best T 2 276 POLITICAL STRICTURES. love-tale of the season. There is something so fine in re- taliating on a foe and a victor by the conquest of his affections. It is very pleasing also to find that money-matters (the well-known cause of the ancient difference) have been ar- ranged, as lawyers say, in the most satisfactory manner. Financial impediments no longer exist, those standing diffi- culties in the paths of lovers ; their notions of income and expenditure are critically the same ; and it is understood that mutual toleration removes all obstacles of a religious nature to a speedy and happy union. It is quite interesting to trace the petits soins of the adoring swain through the smitten Gladstone's speech or serenade of Tuesday. He sees something nice or just in all his Disraeli's statements, he touches and touches his pictures, waters his flowers, brings out his points, and delights to point out all the hidden or neglected beauties. Does his Dizzie make a vow ? Gladstone echoes it. Has his Dizzie a resolution that will not be Gladstone's also ? How tender and touching is all this. It makes one young again, and we feel as if violets and roses were springing under our feet in January. Dear Gladdie ! Dearest Dizzie ! — 6 Ma belle ! ' — c Ma mie ! ' But we understand it is covenanted between the parties, with pleasant reference to their old quarrel, that when he cries * Budget,' she is to cry, 'Mum!'— (1857.) lord John russell's services. We doubt if there will be found a more cheerful or prouder page in English domestic history than that which will record the numerous enlightened measures of which POLITICAL STRICTURES. 277 Lord John Eussell was either the prophet, the advocate, or the author. Where is the statesman who can point to any such list of victories in the cause of the people ? His life is part of the story of the nation's progress. His career is a line running parallel with the march of our freedom and civilisation ; or rather identical with it. His name is associated with all the political improvements of the last quarter of a century, No living Englishman, in short, has done so many great things, great in the sense of usefulness, the best sense of greatness. The metro- polis of England will pause ere it rejects such proved ability and sterling merit, soliciting its suffrages for no personal object of lucre or ambition, but only to be en- abled from the same vantage-ground to persevere in the same cause of enlightened patriotism. Lord John Eussell is untouched by the principal objections to the vote that led to the dissolution. He is accused by nobody of form- ing unworthy combinations. He is far above impeach- ment of faction. If he opposed the Government on one question, he supported it on others ; he supports it now ; he recommends it to the country as the best Government that is practicable in existing circumstances, and places the policy of maintaining it foremost among the ruling con- siderations of the crisis. — (1857.) THE STOP- GAP. Max is dearer to the gods than to himself, says the Eoman Poet. And certainly dearer to its opponents than to itself is the present Government. Indeed the opposition to it is not an opposition in the adverse sense of the word, but an opposition like that in mechanics, 278 POLITICAL STRICTURES. which serves for support. It is a Ministry shored up. Most curious, indeed, not to say whimsical, are the dis- positions regarding this Administration. Nobody wanted it in, and nobody wants it out. On the contrary, the hare in Gay's fable had not more friends or more need of them. The truth is, that Lord Derby stops a gap. His Government is borne, not for anything in it, but for what it keeps out. It stands like a dead wall between men and something they like worse. It keeps out Lord Palmerston, or it keeps out Lord John Eussell, for anti- pathy is now everything, and to thwart and balk some Mrs. Grundy is now the great object on the Liberal side of the House of Commons. ' I like my grandson,' said an old lord who had no love for his successor, ' because he is my enemy's enemy.' And many a member sitting on the Speaker's left likes Lord Derby's Ministry for a similar reason. It is adverse to what he is adverse to. For the great consideration now is not the service of the country — indeed it is almost held that the country wants nothing, and will do well enough in any hands — but the one thing studied is personal grudge. Nobody likes any- body ; everybody is against anybody's accession to power. It is an ostracism, a proscription. Our representatives, like the old man in the fable, have thrown down the bundle of sticks and involved death, but no farther runs the parallel, for they remain content with what Bacon calls the privative, the absence of both evil and good. One is angry with Lord Palmerston, another cannot forgive Lord John Eussell, and so on, and so they com- pound for Lord Derby. He contents the piques and jealousies. Such being the case, anxious has been the POLITICAL STltlCTUltES. 279 wish that he should hold on in order to keep out, and much excellent counsel has he had to that end. The patient was to be kept quite quiet. He was to do nothing, not to stir, not to speak. He was to live on the delicacies his pre- decessors had left behind them. Had this regimen been strictly observed all would have been well, but unhappily, the incontinence of Lord Ellenborough has spoiled all. The father of a very foolish young man had been so often vexed by his son's exposures of himself, that he told him he would not take him into company except on the con- dition that he should never open his mouth except to put food into it. The youth promised obedience, but, at the first trial, it was not long before the young gentleman cried out from the bottom of a dinner table to the father at the top, ' Father ! father ! they have found me out ; a gentleman here says I am a ninny.' He had spoken, and the truth was revealed. And so the India Bill has spoken the wisdom of this Administration. Alas ! why did they not, as advised, stick to the leav- ings of their predecessors ? What demon prompted these choice Conservatives to innovate for their ruin ? A little duffing they might indeed have practised with safety. But what is duffing ? we may be asked. Duffing, as all atten- tive readers of the police reports know, is the art of giving such a gloss and air of novelty to old clothes, as to pass them off for new. A few days ago a man com- plained that he had bought a coat of a Jew as new, which it turned out he had sold him only a few days before at the price of rag. A little duffing might have passed off Lord Palmerston's India Bill as new, and Lord Derby's : but Lord Ellenborough would not content him- 280 POLITICAL STRICTURES. self with so modest an expedient, and, instead of merely raising the nap and freshening the hue, he must forsooth clap on his preposterous lace and embroidery. Einc illce lachrymce. It is easy now, no doubt, to rip up and rip off all the misplaced garniture, and to stand upon the borrowed article in its simplicity ; but, though the nonsense is dropped, the indication remains, and people ask, ' Is this the sense by which we are to be governed ? ' The first specimen of the capacity of the Ministry is the marvellous absurdity of the India Bill. Lord Derby pleads that there was no time to do better. We read in Guizot's ' Memoirs ' that, when Louis XVIII. impatiently asked M. de Marbois for a certain Bill, the Minister answered, ' I am ashamed to tell your Majesty that it is ready.' The India Bill is an impromptu as unfortunate as it is cumbrous. Men ask, how the Government which acts so is to be kept on its legs. It seems to say with the Irish derangement of tenses, 'I will fall and no one shall help me.' Men, whose ruling desire is to keep out Lord Palm erston, and others whose ruling desire is to keep out Lord John Eussell, — and these are the two great desires that divide and possess the Liberal camp — are aghast at the result of the remarkable coup d'essai of the India Bill. They ask with consternation, what now stands between them and the restoration of a Liberal government, involving the re- establishment of Lord Palmerston, ay, and of Lord John Kussell too, in power ? For, as we have before ob- served, the main consideration now is men not measures — the men not to be preferred for the service of the country, but the men to be excluded for the satisfaction POLITICAL STRICTURES. 281 of piques and jealousies. How long this is to last, we know not, but this we do know that, whenever it ceases, down goes Lord Derby's Government. — (1858.) THE D0N"C ASTER DODGE. ' Nothing that is not a real crime, makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconstancy.' — Addison. Lord Derby is in a dilemma like that of Buridan's ass, between the two equal bundles of fodder. His experience of the incompatibilities of sportsmanship and statesman- ship having, as his friends affirm, driven him to the conclusion that he ought to renounce either the one or the other, the advantages and disadvantages of the two courses are so equally balanced that he no sooner re- solves to adopt either alternative than he straightway veers round to the other. It is understood that his first resolution was to sell off his Cabinet. ' For an auction of Ministers, Lucian afforded him a precedent in his auction of Philosophers : and surely, if a man may sell his sires, he may be allowed to sell his son ; but after the sorry be- haviour of one of his best bipeds at Slough, though as ' notorious a roarer ' as Streamer himself, the whole lot were so depreciated that his lordship changed his mind, and determined to part with his stud. No sooner, how- ever, were his racers brought to the hammer, and a few of the least valuable actually disposed of, than the inconstant fit must have come on again, for he astonished the public by buying the remainder in himself. Nothing can be plainer than his lordship's difficulties. Suppose he had voluntarily cleared out his stables at Knowsley, and any 282 POLITICAL STRICTURES. untoward event in politics during next session had cleared out the stalls in Downing Street, without respect to his wishes or inclinations, what an awkward position he would have been placed in, with neither Houyhnhnms nor Yahoos, neither a stud nor a ministry. With either our Premier might be happy, but with neither there would not be a more disconsolate human being in the Queen's dominions. With either occupation, indeed, he must always enjoy no small share of the pleasures of both, for his lordship has always been a sportsman in politics, and we need not go beyond his last dodge the other day at Doncaster to prove that there never was a wilier poli- tician on the turf. But, with both occupations gone, Lord Derby himself would be no more. His fall would be heavier than Lucifer's, for he would fall from two heavens at once. There is a constancy therefore in the seeming inconstancy. The stable mind is palpable in his lordship's very instability. The knocking down of Toxophilite, for instance, to anyone but his owner might have been the knocking down of the Prime Minister himself. When it came to the point it was not to be thought of ; it was nothing short of a moral impossibility. His lordship could bear the thought of Toxophilite going any number of times, but not of Toxophilite gone, for then he felt he should be gone himself. If the auction of his lordship's political stock had proceeded, according to the first inten- tions, there is no reason to think he would have felt any- thing like the same pangs at the thought of parting with the best of them. We wonder what would have been the reserve price set on his Chancellor of the Exchequer, for instance ; or whether there would have been any reserva- POLITICAL STRICTURES. 282 tion at all. We suspect that, in the case of not a few of his parliamentary coursers, the auctioneer would have had orders to sell peremptorily. But the very best among them could not be expected to go off very well, for, though much too fast for their party, there is perhaps only one of the number that pos- sesses the speed required by the public, combined at least with the sure-footed qualities equally desirable in a Minister. We are by no means certain, however, that Lord Derby does not still meditate trying an auction of his men. This we infer from the rather ostentatious exhibi- tions going on up and down the country of the Ministerial paces. * Progress ' is the word in the language of the po- litical turf. From the recent speeches of some leading Conservative touters, there is really some reason to con- jecture that their chief is not only desirous to dispose of his Yahoo stud by public cant (a word most appropriate to the occasion), but that he even expects to have radical bidders. Supposing Messrs. Tattersall get orders to sell the members of her Majesty's Government, it is curious to ob- serve with what slight variation the same bill of sale would answer. At the first glance over the catalogue given last Saturday in the columns of the 'Times,' we actually thought we were reading a list of the Ministry. We have already mentioned the horse which from the description of ' the roarer ' we mistook for Mr. Disraeli. By Longbow we fancied that the auctioneer intended Lord Chelmsford. The Antiquary looked exceedingly like Lord John Man- ners ; if not, there was Wood-Nymph hitting off his lord- ship exactly in his office of the Woods and Forests. The 284 POLITICAL STRICTURES. only difficulty we felt about the ' Caricature filly ' arose from the number of caricatures of Eeformers out of whom we had to choose. Mutineer stood, of course, for one of the few genuine Liberals in the Cabinet, who are neces- sarily in a state of chronic mutiny against their chief. We have our notion which we shall keep to ourselves, who was designed by ' the Meanee colt with nothing particular about him,' as also by Boomerang, ' whom nobody would bid for,' and that ' mean and not over-sound looking grey, BirdbolV As to Toxophilite, described as ' the lion of the sale,' from the high reserved price set upon him, it was impossible to doubt for a moment that Lord Stanley was intended ; and, setting aside the natural pride of the sire, we saw in this only another proof of Lord Derby's shrewdness in all such matters, his Minister for India being decidedly worth all the rest of the Cabinet put together. The sum named for so good a steed seemed extremely moderate, especially, as Mr. Tattersall justly ob- served, ' considering the value of his engagements, which, with health, he seems certain to win.' — (1858.) THE DOUBLE MALMESBURY. ' Dm you ever hear me preach ' ? asked Coleridge of Charles Lamb. ' I never heard you do anything else,' was the reply. As unconscious of his practice as Coleridge, Lord Malmesbury asks whether he has ever been found advis- ing foreign Powers on the Italian question, the truth apparent in the Blue Book being, that he has done nothing else. But no one appears to know so little of what Lord Malmesbury has written as Lord Malmesbury himself ; POLITICAL STRICTURES. 285 and if he looks at the volume of despatches he will per- haps be astonished to find how much he has played the monitor. Perhaps the fact may be accounted for in this way, that giving advice is a work of charity like giving alms, and the right hand does not know what the left hand has been doing. Certain it is that he evinces a strange ignorance of the character and tendency of his own despatches, so much so that one would be disposed to think Malmesbury the Mentor of foreign States and Malmesbury the critic of Lord John Eussell two different and very opposite persons. The responsibility of advising, against which we have lately heard such edifying lectures, was carried pretty far when the Austrian march against Piedmont was delayed four days at the instance of England. The Emperor Francis Joseph might attribute all his disasters to that yielding to the counsels of this country. It was holding his hand exactly when he might have struck with some effect. On the whole, excepting the affair of the Charles et Georges, Lord Malmesbury as Foreign Secretary acquitted himself creditably, and what he has done well is the more appreciated because it was so little expected of him. This reaction of opinion he evidently takes at more than its worth, and he plays the part of a political Malvolio cross gartered, and conceiting the public enamoured of him. To Lord John Eussell and such men he says, ' Go hang yourselves all, you are idle shallow things : I am not of your element' — (1859.) 286 THE CHURCH. CHAPTER EI. THE CHURCH. CONTRITION AND EGG- SAUCE. How is the world changed ! Time was, when contri- tion showed itself in beating the breast, tearing the hair, rending the garments, and screaming with energy. Now, the most pious man of the age proposes to settle the nation's long score of sins with one day of salt fish and egg-sauce. What penitence ! See twenty millions of sinners expiating their sins with fine large flakes of New- foundland cod, smothered in an egg-sauce rich with cream and stimulant with mustard, every glutton, as he gobbles it down, only remarking what a fine vehicle egg- sauce is for mustard ; and certainly it is so. If we ever write a tragedy, it shall be called ' Contrition ; ' and the hero, after a tissue of enormities, shall, by way of catastrophe, in the fifth act, order salt fish and egg-sauce in addition to his customary meal. — (1827.) THE BISHOPS. Our known zeal for the Church will not permit us to remain silent on some severe observations of Bentham on the wealth acquired by the clergy, in apparent THE CHURCH. 287 contempt or defiance of the scriptural maxim that ' it were easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.' The fault insinuated, if we are not egregiously mistaken, is in fact the sublimest virtue of our priests. Considering the great danger of wealth, they zealously strive to strip the people of so grievous an impediment to the salvation of souls. In performing this meritorious service, they of course sacrifice themselves ; but in this there is no kind of inconsistency. It is their heroism to suck the poison out of our pockets — to save us, and perish ! The public purpose and the personal practice of men may obviously be in complete opposition, without any kind of inconsis- tency. The intention of soldiers is to protect us from violence ; but for this very end the soldier himself falls by the sword. The physician is of all men the least careful of his health. Or an apter but homelier illustra- tion : the clerk at the White Horse Cellar or Golden Cross puts the whole world in train to travel, he indi- vidually being perhaps the most stationary person in London. Just so it is with our reverend clerks. They expedite us without ever stirring a step towards the same goal themselves. For this they surely merit our grati- tude rather than sarcasms. When a bishop dies worth £400,000, we should regard him as the absorbent of a poison that would have swollen up ten men to a needle- eye impracticability. Here is a clear saving of nine souls out of ten. In Ireland there are whole populations whose cows, pigs, and potatoes are so carefully looked to by the clergy that they would march through the eye of a needle by generations a-breast ; while in the Church 288 THE CHURCH. there are camels in abundance a vast deal too corpulent to go through a bodkin, and which will find only one pair oi gates wide enough for their bloated proportions. Still, we repeat, the greater their merit. The mouse in the meal- cask, who lived so well as to grow too large to repass the hole, and who thus fattened himself into a prisoner, was merely a gluttonous creature ; but he would have deserved a far different, a divine character, had he devoured the meal to keep some fellow mice of a safe size— (1827.) Doctor Paris somewhere observes that the originals of the cabbage and cauliflower are not to be recognised in uncultivated nature. A Bishop of the present age has no more likeness to a Bishop of the New Testament and the Primitive Church, than a cauliflower or a red cabbage is like any spontaneous production of the field. It has taken 1800 years to bring Bishops to their present figure. The horticulturists can show nothing like it in the aggran- disement of gooseberries. The cultivation is simple enough, too — hot-housing and the manure of Mammon. — (1827.) Mr. Bowles thinks that Bishops should be rich in a country where blacking-men live in palaces. What ana- logy does he perceive between the two conditions? Blacking is certainly in free use in the Church just now, and it is laid on without much polish. But, to keep to the argument, we cannot perceive why the bishops should set forth in their lives a practical contradiction to the THE CHURCH. 289 precepts of the gospel against riches, because blacking- men inhabit palaces. When Calonne asked Vestris his terms for an engage- ment at the Theatre Eoyal, the dancer modestly demanded 100,000 francs a-year. The Minister exclaimed against the exorbitance of such terms, and observed that the King did not pay his Marshals at so high a rate ; upon which Vestris coolly replied — ' That is nothing to me. You may then tell His Majesty that he has only (/aire darner ses Marechaux) to make his Marshals dance.' 1 The same retort applies to the bishops. If they want to be as rich as blacking-men, let them make blacking ; and it really is not much out of their present line. The handwriting on the wall points out their trade : Try Warren, try Turner. We can conceive the name that a Phillpotts would make in blacking. How he would shine ! We shall next be told that the Archbishop of Canter- bury is uneasy because Taglioni is better paid for dancing, or that Dr. Phillpotts thinks it hard that Paganini makes more money by playing on one string, or that Bishop Blomfield envies Crockford's fortune, and desires to keep a finer house— (1827.) 1 This illustration was supplied by Count d'Orsay, who writes : — ' My dear Fonblanque, — As you wish for the anecdote, here it is. M. de Calonne, le Ministre, desirant engager le grand Vestris pour le Th&itre Eoyal, lui demanda qu'elles tStaient ses pre" tensions pe*cuniaires. u Je demande," re- pondit il, " cent mille francs par an." " Mais, mon Dieu ! M. Vestris, c'est exor- bitant. Sa Majeste* n'y consentira jamais, car elle ne paye pas autant ses marechaux de France." " Cela m'est bien indifferent. Vous direz alors a sa Majeste qu'elle n'a que faire danser ses marechaux." Yours faithfully, d'Orsay.'— (Ed.) U 290 THE CHURCH. It appears, by Probates at Doctors'Commons, that since 1818 the personal property of twenty-four English Bishops, who have died within the last twenty years, amounts to the enormous sum of one million six hundred and forty- nine thousand pounds, or an average of nearly seventy thousand pounds for each Bishop. This, however, is merely the personal property as sworn to (and sworn to, in all probability, rather under than over the mark), and the value of the real property remains to be conjectured, and also the amount of dowers to daughters, and gifts during the lifetime of the holy men to sons, nephews, and other relatives. The value of the real property, which does not appear, may safely be inferred to exceed by far that of the personal, for the Bishops would naturally rather avoid the public display of their vast accumulations in the shape of personal property coming under general view in the Probates at Doctors' Commons. But, in many cases, we are not left to conjecture, for it is known that the real property was very considerable of Barrington, Cornwallis, Sparkes, and Tomline ; the last very great. Whether we put these things together, or whether we look separately and apart at the personal property of twenty- four Bishops amounting to one million six hundred and forty-nine thousand pounds, — a mere drop from the sacred fountain ; a scrap only of the Eight Eeverend Doctors' Commons, — we are filled with admiration of the distribu- tion of things in the 'Poor Man's Church.' For how much does the datum we have got leave us to consider and reflect upon ? It is like the piece of gold sticking to the sieve in the story of the ' Forty Thieves/ THE CHURCH. 291 We remember a thirsty soul who used to play both sides at backgammon for a glass of punch, which, whether black or white won, he swallowed with infinite compla- cency at the victory ; and it is possible that the Bishops, holding their two hands in ignorance of each other's doings, may have given from one to the other, and taken to themselves the credit of charity, as the toper did the punch for the transaction in which loss and gain were balanced. That the charities of the holy men have, in their own opinions at least, been exceedingly onerous, appears cer- tainly in this fact, that they have conceived themselves driven to quarter their sons, kinsmen, and connexions on the Church, whether fitted for it or not, instead of provi- ding for them out of their own ample fortunes. — (1838.) We have often had occasion to marvel at the extra- ordinary warmth of Churchmen, especially when the Bishops of Exeter and London have been engaged in any dispute with their clergy or others ; and oddly enough, in glancing over the pages of a new elementary work on natural philosophy, 1 the solution of this phenomenon occurred to us. The passage which threw a light on the subject is this : — 6 A black tea-pot is the very worst vessel that can be adapted for the preparation of that grateful beverage, tea. 1 The Student's Manual of Natural Philosophy, by C. Tomlinson. Parker, Strand. tj2 292 THE CHURCH. A silver tea-pot, exceedingly bright, is best adapted to the purpose. It has been said that the introduction of a tea-pot many years ago made of black unglazed earthen- ware has produced a loss to the British nation of millions of money.' The question instantly struck us, why are Churchmen black, then ? We reasoned at once from the colour of a tea-pot to the colour of a Phillpott, and we found the same law applicable to both. The principle is, that the superficial qualities which promote reflection are inimical to absorption of heat, and the radiating power is in direct proportion to that of absorption. Now, there are no such absorbents as Bishops, and the superficial qualities of their black cloth are inimical to reflection : but for radiating heat they are as incontinent as the black tea-pots aforesaid. The black tea-pots do not make good tea, because, instead of retaining their heat for what is put into them, they part with it outwards ; the black Churchmen have precisely the same fault. Instead of retaining their warmth for the charity and holiness with which they are charged, they throw out their heat on external objects, and lose the internal tem- perature necessary to extract the virtue of good-will to men, with the lessons of which they are stored. A Phillpotts with the leaves of Scripture in him inculcating charity, heating all around him while his charity gets cold in the same proportion, is like the black unglazed earthen- ware tea-pot, radiating or throwing out the heat which it should keep within to draw the goodness from its contents, and thus failing to perform its tnfH function. And this is THE CHURCH. 293 because both vessels are of the wrong colour for their offices. The bright polished surfaces are those which absorb and radiate least and reflect most ; and, for a familiar ex- ample, the Manual before us instances fire-irons, which, if bright and polished, absorb scarcely any heat from the fire near which they are placed, while a dull unpolished set often become too hot to handle. Which sort of fire- irons some of the shovels, tongs, and pokers of the hier- archy are, it is quite unnecessary to explain. But so true is it, morally as well as materially, that the bright and polished are slowest to heat, and that their great powers of reflection are in inverse proportion to those of absorp- tion. With most of our Bishops, by fault no doubt of their black colour, on the contrary, the powers of absorp- tion are great, those of reflection small. Whose mischievous device was it to make ; the cloth ' black ? Angels are painted fair, and clad in robes of purest white. The arch-enemy is black for absorption and radi- ation of his fires. The Churchmen have strangely mistaken their livery. Why are they not white, bright like polished silver ? Who has to answer for having introduced the black unglazed earthenware tea-pots of the Church ? The error, which has perhaps cost us not less in the loss of charity than the black tea-pots in wasted tea-leaves, should be corrected without loss of time ; and, to begin, it would be well to try the effect of giving such a colour of candour to Bishop Phillpotts as white-lead can bestow. To stop his absorption and radiation of heat would be a great gain, and a great saving of the proprieties undoubtedly. — (1838.) 294 THE CHURCH. Despots in the East put out the eyes of men whose rivalry they dread. The bigot party in the Church of England, refining on the same policy, would hold Dis- senters in darkness. Next to causing blindness is the expedient of withholding enlightenment. A prince in Persia deprives people obnoxious to him of a sense ; pre- lates in England would deny the objects of their jealousy instruction in the best uses of their faculties. Make a satrap in the East of a Bishop B, and he puts out the eyes of folks unpleasant to him with a red-hot iron ; meta- morphose the satrap into a Bishop, clothe him with lawn sleeves, and put a mitre on his head ; and, instead of poking an iron into people's eyes, he is content with refusing them the lights for the right guidance and im- provement of their powers of perception and reflection. These are but modifications of the same barbarous policy ; resources of the same merciless jealousy. When we see the part taken by Bishops against national enlightenment, it appears to us as though the mitre were worn expressly as the extinguisher to the lights of the age (and certainly with much frankness they set the example of putting the extinguisher on their own heads) ; and a measure for the improvement of intellectual cul- ture, as proposed by ministers, is regarded by the mitre with the kind of aversion with which we might imagine the candlestick extinguisher to look upon the office of its sectarian neighbour, the snuffers. In the costume of the High Church, indeed, types of remarkable directness and significance may be fancied when it is in its paroxysms of jealous rage ; and one of THE CHURCH. 295 not the least curious is, that the episcopal head is crowned with either a mitre to extinguish light, or the shovel- hat, whose application seems to be to heap coals on fires which burn not to illumine but to inflame. — (1839.) Lord Brougham has made confession that in the part which he has taken against the beer-houses he has been the tool of the Bishops. Why the Bishops should entertain so inordinate an antipathy to the beer-shops, we could never understand. In the case of the prelate who first commenced hostilities there seems to be some reason for the antipathy, for the Bishop of Bath and Wells was titularly destined to be the antagonist of beer. But, if names have the force of things, there is another mild ornament of the Bench who should have felt himself hung up like a sign, as it were, to en- courage good cheer, and to act the part of the tapster's friend ; need we say that we mean Phillpotts ? a name which is manifestly either a corruption of the English Eillpots, or a hybrid compound of the Greek (piXog and the English pots, signifying a friend to pots and potations. It is a remarkable fact that the existence of crime and sin in the world before the date of the Beer Act appears to be utterly forgotten by the Bishops and their mouth- pieces. Public-houses are now talked of as if they were the temples of innocence, where no impure thoughts or evil purposes could be entertained. Going to the public- house seems now accounted as next, m the order of good habits, to going to church. — (1839.) 296 THE CHURCH. A free Church of England would be a far more im- posing spectacle than the Free Kirk of Scotland. There was a subdued homeliness about the Exodus of the Pres- byterians ; but a Tractarian Exodus would rival, in the splendour of its robes and stately music, its hierarchical dignitaries and dependencies, that of the stoled and mitred bearers of the ark. Much we fear, however, that such an imposing spectacle is not destined for the profane eyes of this generation. It is a well-known law in physics that the force of attraction increases in proportion to the magnitude of the attracting body. It was comparatively easy for poor Presbyters to withdraw their bodies, by an effort of the will, from small manses, glebes of a couple of acres, and paltry two hun- dreds or three hundreds a-year. But to lift ponderous bishops and dignified clergy from broad men sal demesnes, huge cathedrals, and masses of gold counted by annual thousands, would be scarcely less difficult than to counter- act the attraction which holds us all fast to the ' great globe itself.'— (1847.) When a Bishop taken in battle was claimed by the Pope, the captor, in reply, sent the coat of mail in which the militant prelate was clad, asking, ' Is this the garment of thy son ? ' We are disposed to put a similar question to the heads of the Church, when we read certain proceed- ings in our Courts ; and with reference especially to an action, Brooks v. Rookes, we would ask the Bishop of the diocese, ' Is this the suit of thy son?' — (1849.) THE CHURCH. 297 ' The Brahraens among the Hindus/ says the his- torian of British India, ' have acquired and maintained an authority more commanding and extensive than the priests have been able to engross among any other por- tion of mankind.' We are disposed to question this assertion, seeing how closely parallel to the state and privileges of the Brah- mens are those of our favoured Bishops. Mill, presently afterwards, informs us that the first among the duties is to honour the Brahmens, and that the slightest disrespect to one of this sacred order is the most atrocious of crimes. And is not also disrespect, real or pretended, to any of our Prelates, treated and resented as the most atrocious of crimes ? 6 For contumelious language to a Brahmen,' says the law of Menu, c a Sudra must have an iron style, ten fingers long, thrust red-hot into his mouth ; and for offering to give instruction to priests, hot oil must be poured into his mouth and ears.' For contumelious language to a Bishop the hot-iron style is not thrust into the mouth with us, but, instead of it, Sir Benjamin Hall was the other day subjected to the hot-iron style of the ' Times/ in an article of torture full ten fingers long. The offer of instruction to priests is resented here pretty much as in Hindostan, and Bishop Blomfield is the executioner who pours hot oil into the offender's ears. c For striking a Brahmen even with a blade of grass, or overpowering him in argument, the offender must soothe him by falling prostrate.' 298 THE CHURCH. This penally is always clamorously demanded on those frequent occasions in the two Houses of Parliament, when any member has the temerity to confute a Bishop. Having recounted the extraordinary privileges and prerogatives of the Brahmens, Mill proceeds to observe : 'With these advantages, it would be extraordinary had the Brahmens neglected themselves in so important a cir- cumstance as the command of property.' Have the Bishops ? 4 It is an essential part of the religion of the Hindus to confer gifts upon the Brahmens. This is a precept more frequently repeated than any other in the sacred books.' Here certainly there is a difference, for there is no such precept in our sacred books, but the very contrary. A Pagan, however, who was utterly ignorant of our Scrip- tures, might not unreasonably infer, from the episcopal state, that our Gospel specially enjoined the acquisition of wealth as the root of all good ; that it inculcated pride, and recommended purple and fine linen for its clothing ; and that, m token of their devout faith in these lessons, the Bishops wear the lawn on their own sleeves, and put their servants into the livery of the imperial hue devoted to the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. But there is another difference in the passage last quoted between the Brahmens and our Bishops. Our Bishops do not ask for gifts, they take ; they help them- selves, and liberally enough. If you want to know how, and how largely, you will* see it written in the Blue- books. THE CHURCH. 299 'When treasure is found, which, from the general practice of concealment and the state of society, must have been a frequent event, the Brahmen may retain whatever his good fortune places in his hands.' The Bishop does the same when a Horfield lease or any other good thing falls in. The Brahmen was superior to the Sovereign, as the Bishop of Exeter claims to be, by virtue of his holy office, supreme over which is only Heaven itself. The British Brahmens must not be called to account for transactions for which other orders of men would be held severely responsible. The established rule for the treatment of impugnments of British Brahmens is this : To carry to the account of the accuser all the opprobrium belonging to the acts charged. If H. prove that British Brahmens have taken what they have no fair claim to, and that the Church has suffered wrong thereby, H. is treated as a sacrilegious thief, and the hue and cry are raised after him. It is in vain for him to ask whether the facts are right or wrong. The answer is, that hostility to religion must be the motive for the charge. There is no hostility to religion, on the other hand, in any act a British Brahmen may commit, however much it may be detrimental to the Church and the spiritual instruction of the people. What he may do, though it may stint and starve the religious ministration, cannot be hostile to religion ; but the re- presentation of it, or exposure, as it is coarsely called, is always denounced as hostile to religion. A profane Pagan dramatist took another view of ar- 300 THE CHURCH. raigmnent for misdeeds. Sophocles makes Electra reply to a charge of abusive language in lines thus rendered by Milton: 'Tis you that say it, not I j you do the deeds, And your unrighteous deeds find me the words. But this plea is not allowed to hold good in the particular case of charges against the British Brahmen. The Eomish Brahmens in some particulars more closely resemble their brethren in India than the British. A short time ago several Italian gentlemen were thrown into gaol for the offence of reading the Bible. See how the parallel offence was treated in Hinclostan : 'If,' says the Gentoo Code, 'a man of the Sooder reads the beids of the Shaster, or the Pooran, to a Brah- men, a Chether, or a Bin, then the Magistrate shall heat some bitter oil, and pour it into the aforesaid Sooder's mouth ; and if a Sooder listens to the beids of the Shas- ter, then the oil, heated as before, shall be poured into his ears, and areez and wax shall be melted together, and the orifices of his ears shall be stopped therewith. If a Sooder gets by heart the beids of the Shaster, the Magistrate shall put him to death. If a Sooder always performs w T orship and the jugg, the Magistrate shall put him to death.' The Eomish Brahmens do not go quite these lengths ; at least, not at present. — (1851.) A jolly Judge of former days used to maintain that all wines were good, some better than others, but none THE CHURCH. 301 bad. And so, too, it seems to be with Bishops. All Bishops are good ; some better than others, perhaps, but none bad. Whether a Bishop is as busy as a bee, or whether there are no outward and visible signs of his ex- istence, is all the same. In either ease the diocese has nothing to complain of. Some years ago it was a question for the curious whether there was extant a Bishop of Ely. The only sign of his existence was the regular collection of the revenue. The dues were looked to, but the duties had totally disappeared. As Bel's divinity was proved from his eating much meat, so the Bishop of Ely's ex- istence was demonstrated from his pocketing much money. And we have now on the Episcopal Bench some who do much, overmuch it may be ; some who do little ; and some who do absolutely nothing. But it makes no difference to the dioceses, all are equally well governed. Are there, then, no bad Bishops ? is such a thing impossi- ble ? or are there no good ones ? Once upon a time Berne depended for its prosperity upon certain bears, which were potently believed to be indispensable to its very existence. The bears (be sure) were handsomely endowed, and maintained like Bishops. It chanced that they all died from over-feeding before suc- cessors could be provided. There was an end of Berne. The inhabitants were in despair. The misfortune was without remedy. The canton was desolate, and looked for instant dissolution. But to their astonishment the sun rose the next day, and things took their course just as if bears were not indispensable to the well-being of Berne. And it was soon discovered that Berne could do as well without bears as with bears, saving the expense of their 302 THE CHURCH. keep to boot. Berne was thenceforth satisfied with hav- ing its bears for the future in its armorial bearings. Some of our sees are in the state of Berne bereft of its bears. They have Bishops in such a state as to be the same thing to them as no Bishops, excepting as to the maintenance of the same. They have become as well reconciled to this condition of things as the folks of Berne to the loss of their bears. The King Log dynasty in the Church is indeed far from unacceptable. This happy state of things is disturbed to some extent by a Bill pro- viding for the retirement of the Bishops of London and Durham, These holy men do not resign their bishoprics on the ground of incapacity to perform their duties, leaving it with the State to make such provision for them as it may think fit ; but they resign on conditions, and pretty hand- some conditions ; thus plainly implying that they would continue to hold the sees, for the discharge of the duties of which they are confessedly incompetent, if the quid pro quo were not granted. Advanced as they are in age, they are not for taking no heed of the morrow, nor for being- fed like the young ravens, to which diet they much prefer the allowance of the cormorant. We cannot but admit the force of the objections which Lord Eedesdale urged against this arrangement, which he urged should never be regarded in the light of bargains. Men should not say, 1 Give a little more and I will do it ; give a little less and I will not do it ' ; but they should come forward and say, i I am incapable of performing the duties which my office imposes on me, and I wish to resign that office. Give me enough to live upon, and that is all I require. , THE CHURCH. 303 He had no hesitation in saying this arrangement was of the character of a bargain and partook of a simoniacal character. Of course such an occasion as this for bepraising the two Bishops was not thrown away. ' Good things,' says Bacon, ' are never seen in their full beauty till they turn their backs and be going away.' Dr. Maltby, being in this posture, presents to admiration his liberality in money matters ; Dr. Blomfield his temper and moderation. It would have touched a heart of stone to hear the Primate holding forth on the virtues of the Bishop of London. But we were especially struck with this topic of laudation, and argument for a thumping pension : ' If the Bishop of London had thought himself at liberty to use his episcopal income for the purpose of making to himself a fortune or of aggrandising his family, he might easily have become independent of any retiring salary.' We are thus to understand that a Bishop is not under an imperative obligation to minister to charities, but that, as a matter of calculation, he may safely do so with the lively expectation that the Legislature will one day make it up to him, so that it shall cost him nothing in effect. He may cast his bread upon the waters, and fish up a fat pension in return. There are other Bishops who have been exceedingly careful in providing for their progeny, and whose conduct in that respect is not thought censurable by their brethren. Nor would their pensions, if pensioned they were to be, be diminished one stiver in consideration of their notorious nepotism. But Bishops are exceptions to all rules, and, whatever they do, they are equally good and deserving of 304 THE CHURCH. handsome provisions. There is always a reason fair for filhng their pockets again. — (1856.) CHURCH RATES. A Scotchman, who had stoutly maintained that the vines of his native land produced, without the aid of the hot-house, as fine grapes, to his taste, as any under the sun, added the important explanation of his judgment, 6 But I must premise that I like the grapes a wee sour.' A frank admission of this kind would solve the opposi- tion to the project for the abolition of Church Eates. Ministers may talk of the sweets of peace and concord, but there are some amongst us who ' like the grapes a wee sour.'— (1827.) EPISCOPAL CATECHISM. Why do the Bishops in- Because the words of sist that wealth is necessary Christ are — ' How hard is to maintain the respect of it for them that trust in the clergy in the eyes of the riches to enter into the world; and why do they kingdom of God! It is take for their own share easier for a camel to go £150,000 a-year ? through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.' Why is purple the livery Because purple and fine of the Bishops ; and why linen are the scriptural do they wear lawn sleeves ? symbols of ' the pomps and vanities and sinful lusts of the flesh ' from which Bishops pray to be delivered. THE CHURCH. SOI Why are the Bishops Because it is written in sworn on their consecration the Gospel, . c Swear not at to perform certain duties ? all.' Why is it held that the rich bishoprics are the prizes necessary to tempt men into the service of religion ? Because Paul teach es that , if a man desire the office of a Bishop, he desireth a good work j and because he says that a Bishop should not be greedy of filthy lucre. Why is the prospect of translations to richer sees open to Bishops ? Because Paul taught Timothy that the love of money is the root of all evil, and warned the men of God to flee those things. Why is the voluntary principle so abhorred by the Bishops ; and why do they allege that to support the Church by voluntary con- tributions would be against the glory of God ? Because David set the example of the voluntary principle at the building of the Temple, and it is written that the people having made their offerings willingly they rejoiced, because, with perfect heart, they offered willingly to the Lord ; and also because in the New Testament all the services to the Founder of Christianity are spontaneous. — (1827.) x 306 THE CHURCH. THE BITTEE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. Me. Plumptee's Bill for the Bitter Observance of the Sabbath has passed the second reading. Its false, partial, and Pharisaical character appears in the inconsistency between the general prohibition proposed and the pre- amble ; the keeping of the Lord's Day (according, of course, to the letter of the Scriptural commandment) being the professed object of the preamble, and the general prohi- bition, to carry it into effect, carefully omitting the kind of labour necessary to the comforts and luxuries of the rich, the kind of labour specially named in the Mosaic commandment, the labour of man-servants and maid- servants. But the Pharisee, Mr. Plumptre, limits his prohibition to any manner of labour, or any work in the way of trade or business, keeping shop, buying or selling ; so that there is nothing against menial labour, though ex- pressly forbidden in the law of Moses, upon which this piece of hypocritical legislation proceeds. If omnibuses and stage-coaches are not to run on Sun- days, let chains be placed across every street, and the turnpike-gates closed throughout the country; for, if travel- ling or driving about on Sundays be a profanation of the Sabbath, it should be forbidden equally to rich and poor ; and, if the protection of drivers and cads against Sunday labour be desirable, as much consideration at least is due to gentlemen's servants, coachmen, grooms, &c. If Sunday baking is to be prohibited, let a clause be proposed impos- ing heavy penalties on any person or persons requiring any cook, or other domestic servant, to perforin any culinary office on Sunday, and making hot dinners THE GEUBCH. 307 seizable and forfeit. But a more comprehensive enact- ment, embodying the principle of the Bill and carrying it into full and impartial effect, would be the prohibition of any kind of menial service on the Sabbath day, and to fine heavily any master or mistress giving any orders to servants. Soldiers and sailors should also be released from duty of any sort ; and also the police, for what right has Society to employ them on Sundays, any more than bakers or vintners, if it be sinful ? As for the thieves, if they choose to pursue their avocations on Sunday there is no help for it, for policemen have souls to be saved as well as their neighbours, and . consciences, we have no doubt, quite as tender about Sunday labour. Let the Guards, too, be asked whether they have not scruples about doing duty in sentry-boxes on Sundays, and it will be found that their case is not less hard than that of the bakers. If it be proposed to close public-houses and inns, let an amendment be proposed for shutting up the clubs, for closing the Zoological Gardens, the Parks, and Kensington Gardens. Certain Bishops, who frequent clubs during the hours of Divine service for the purpose of eating their hot luncheons, may find such an enactment an intolerable grievance ; but the cooks of clubs have souls to be saved, and consciences to be consulted, as well as those persons about whose protection the Agnewites profess so vehement a concern. — (1838.) Let it not be supposed for one moment that, in op- posing a fault in one direction, we favour one in another. x2 308 THE CHURCH. We object sti'ongly to any work on the Sabbath which can be dispensed with, without sacrificing the comforts and recreations cheering the day of rest. We look upon the Sabbath as a blessed institution, which should be jealously guarded against invasion ; and we hold that all that can be done to diminish toil without diminishing the innocent enjoyments of those who have only one day in seven for enjoyment is good; but Some must watch while some do sleep, Thus runs the world away ; and, as the ease and innocent recreations of the manv can only be had by the toil of some of their number, let care only be had that there is no more toil than is necessary for the main object. — (1843.) Sir Andrew Agnew has had the impertinence to ad- monish the Queen as to the observance of the Sabbath. The lecture is conveyed in a letter to Lord Aberdeen, which we must suppose his Lordship must have seen the propriety of returning to the writer. The foolish Knight declares that Scotland is a ' strict Sabbath-observing country, in the true Scriptural sense of the word ;' the whole question between it and Eng- land being, which is the true Scriptural sense of the word, since some of the highest authorities regard the Mosaic observance of the Sabbath as contrary to the precepts of the New Testament. The Pharisee's letter deals in that free and familiar use of holy names and references which is highly pro- fane, and in one place he presumes to pray that ' the THE CHURCH. 309 Sabbath may be a sign between God and Her Majesty, whereby Her Majesty may know that He is the Lord her God.' As the Sabbath here meant is the strict Scotch Sabbath, the direct implication is that, when Her Majesty does not observe that Sabbath, she betrays that she does not know her God. The insolence, the spiritual conceit, the puritanical cant, the presumption, the profaneness of this are all on a par. There is one characteristic trait of worldliness in the epistle. After having assigned all godliness to Scotland, the Pharisee intimates plainly enough that the example of the Court may, one way or the other, influence the habits of the people ; thereby implying that the hold of the asserted Scriptural rule is so slight on the minds of the people, or the influence of a Court so much stronger than the Scriptural authority, that the custom of ages might be shaken by the passing spectacle of a devia- tion from it in great personages. He writes indeed of ' the overwhelming moral influence of the example of the Court.' And is the moral influence so ' overwhelming ' in i a Sabbath- observing country in the true Scriptural sense of the word ' ? He thus does the people of Scot- land the injustice of supposing that there is not amongst them a moral and a religious authority superior to any example of a Court. But this inconsistency is the con- sequence of the sycophancy which is as natural to this sort of character, as its insolence and presumption ; and the Pharisee, however audaciously he may aspire to Heaven, is never long without creeping on his belly to some earthly idol.— (1844.) 310 THE CHURCH. Several articles on the interruption of railway travel- ling on Sunday in Scotland may be in the remembrance of our readers, in which, amongst other objections to this puritanical rule, we suggested the very possible case of its preventing the attendance on the sick or dying. This apprehension has been signally and most cruelly verified. The Duchess of Sutherland having received intelligence that her father, Lord Carlisle, was in imminent danger, hastened from Dunrobin Castle to Perth, where she arrived on Sunday morning in time for the mail train. To her Grace's astonishment and dismay, she was informed that travelling on Sunday was not permitted. The object of the Duchess's journey was stated to the officers of the Company ; but the reply was peremptory, that the Directors' rule against Sunday travelling could not on any plea be infringed. The train went off with the mail and empty carriages, leaving the afflicted daughter weeping on the platform. Was this Christianity, was it charity, was it common humanity ? The Duchess had recourse to hiring a steam-boat to cross the ferry and make her way to Edinburgh, and thence on to Castle Howard ; but, so delayed, before she arrived her father had expired. The pharisees of the railway had prevented the dying father's last leave of his child, the afflicted daughter's consolation of soothing his last moments. Again we ask, was this Christianity, was it charity, was it common humanity ? We tell these men of spiritual conceit that there was in the daughter's mission to a dying father's bedside all the piety which their hollow THE CHURCH. 311 rule of form and observance really wants, and that they have refused ministration to the holiest purpose, and dese- crated the Sabbath by a brutal inhumanity. We are not to be told that they could not have contemplated the case. They may not have contemplated the case in the person of a lady of rank, but in the ordinary course of events the same case must be of frequent occurrence among the humble and the poor, who cannot make known or heeded the wound to their feelings. In this instance the pharisaical nature of the rule is beyond all question, as servants were employed upon the train whether passengers travelled by it or not ; and the pretence of sparing toil cannot be put forth. And observe the inconsistent consequences : because the Duchess was not allowed to travel in the train, she was compelled to have recourse to a steam-vessel, and to put in requisition the services of her engineers and crew, who would have had their rest on the Sabbath if the train had taken passengers. And thus this puritanical rigour defeats its professed object ; we say its professed object, for the true object is merely to swell and pamper the spiritual conceit of the pharisees. The strictest of these Agnewites does not scruple to use his and his servants' legs on Sunday ; and what matters it in point of principle whether locomotion is effected by con- veyance in a train or walking, the mail-train putting in requisition the work of servants on the Sabbath, whether passengers go by it or not ? If Lord Carlisle had been lying at the point of death a league from Perth, would Ins daughter's hastening her steps to the spot have been a profanation of the Sabbath ; and if not, how could her 312 THE CHURCH. travelling in a train, have been an act of profanation, it being merely another mode of locomotion ? The plea of the employment of servants will not avail in this instance, for the mail service put them in requisition equally. Let us suppose that the railroads, which have super- seded posting, did not exist : what would have been thought of an innkeeper who refused post-horses to a person hurrying to a dying parent ? Would he not have been execrated, and for the prevention of a repetition of such a cruelty would not his license even, his means of livelihood, have been withdrawn ? The example of the Perth puritanism is but, however, an extreme example of the inhumanity ; and many other minor inhumanities — bad enough though minor — are inci- dental to the same suspension of communication, stopping the harmless innocent pleasures and healthful recreations. Every line ought to be compelled by law to convey passengers in the mail trains on Sunday. Interest suffices to provide the means of communication on week days : but to control puritanical crotchets the law should oblige companies to observe the duties of humanity on the Sabbath, in forwarding attendance on the sick, and in giving the artisan, clerk, student, &c, who have toiled in dark chambers and foetid atmosphere, change of scene and wholesome air. We have heard that the Scotch directors of the Perth Company are not to blame for the prohibition of Sunday travelling, but that it has been the result of a very dis- honest manoeuvre for ascendency, in which some southern gentlemen have played a most dirty part. — (1848.) THE CHURCH. 313 THE ABBEY AND BYRON S STATUE. Colonel Leicester Stanhope has petitioned the two Houses of Parliament to interfere against the bigotry of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, and open the doors of the Abbey to a statue in honour of Lord Byron, subscribed for by men of all parties, executed by the great Thorwaldsen, and now lying in a packing-case at the Custom-house, where it has already lain upwards of four years. It is perfectly true that Lord Byron's religious opinions were not known to his most intimate friends, and for the best of all possible reasons, because Lord Byron himself did not know them. Nor should we affect to conceal that it is as the author of ' Don Juan ' equally as the author of c Cain ' that Lord Byron is thus treated. But a claim for admission into Westminster Abbey rests on grounds over which religious belief, or personal infirmity of cha- racter, have seldom, in the most barbarous ages, been suffered to have control ; and the refusal to admit the claim in the present instance carries bigotry and barbarism to their most monstrous pitch. We are no enthusiastic admirers of the noble poet, either in his writings or character : but his title to a place in Westminster Abbey, judged by the major- ity of poets who have places there, is surely indisputable. If Dr. Ireland and his friends set up any personal claim over the Abbey as a chapel for private prayers — on which plea alone could they sustain this refusal — they should act consistently by craving permission to turn out at the same time the statues of all the infidels, Eoman Catholics, or religion-less or vicious men, who already occupy niches 314 THE CHURCH. there ; very many, if not the majority of whom, we will venture to add, were neither so great as Lord Byron in their genius, nor so prudent in their vices. This is not a pleasant subject, nor do we think it necessary to pursue it farther, for we cannot doubt that at the very first op- portunity the reproach and disgrace which have been cast upon our nation in the eyes of intelligent foreigners by this gross bigotry of our Very Eeverend Dean and Chapter will be effaced by higher authority than theirs. Mean- while Colonel Stanhope deserves high praise for calling public attention to the matter. — (1838.) BY HOOK OR BY CROOK. There is no business more difficult than that of selling a sermon ; but see how cleverly the thing is done, by hook or by crook, by giving out that the preacher has been dismissed from a Court Chaplaincy in consequence of de- livering a certain discourse. The story is presently contradicted, but the sermon is in demand throughout the country. How Warren and Eowland must envy such a hit as this. It is of the highest genius in the art of puffing, and, successful as it has been, it is so unique in its nature as not to allow of imitation or repetition. The instance nearest to it is that mentioned by Horace Wal- pole, of a couple of China jars which had been for a long time in vain exposed for sale. It chanced that one of them was cracked by the shock of an earthquake ; upon which the shopkeeper demanded for the damaged jar ten times the price that he had asked before for the sound pair ; and, advertising it as the only China jar cracked by the great earthquake, he presently got a purchaser. Dr. THE CHURCH. 315 Hook has had the advantage of passing for a cracked jar — a divine broken by a Court-quake — and all the gobe- mouche world has been curious to see the crack in his discourse. — (1838.) THE DANGERS OF SOBRIETY. The Tories have hit upon a new source of danger to the State and the Protestant interest, in the progress that has been made in temperance in Ireland, under the auspices of a Eoman Catholic priest, or friar, named Mathew. Opposed to reformations in general, the Tories make no exception in the case of drunken habits. Mr. Litton considers the growing disuse of whiskey in his native country an ' awful ' symptom. Ireland is becoming frightfully sober, as well as horribly loyal and peaceable. Certain it is she was never eminent for any of these qualities in the happy days of Tory power. In Ireland the Tories are not for standing in the ancient ways, but for staggering in them. The shebeen- house partakes the reverence paid to the Established Church. In a war with the whiskey shops they see a crusade against the Protestant faith itself. ' Awful ' is the only adjective fit to paint the state of a country where the people are beginning to abstain from the use of ardent spirits. We now learn, for the first time, that intemperance is a Protestant quality, and sobriety a Popish one. Perhaps the Tories hate temperance because it is a cardinal virtue. Mr. Litton carries out the No-Popery principle to this extreme length. 316 THE CHUBCE. Mathew, the apostle of temperance, will make few proselytes among the Tories ; indeed, we have not yet heard of his having preached to either the parsons or the corporations, doubtless through despair of converting either from their bibulous and jolly ways. The Irish parsons interpret literally the command to ' labour in the vineyard.' They keep the grape for themselves, and would bestow the grape-shot upon the people. It was certainly a daring impertinence on the part of a Popish priest to be the first to step forward to preach abstinence and sobriety. Father Mathew should have waited until some clergyman of the Establishment set him the example ; but this is only one more instance of the encroaching spirit of the Church of Home. It is quite too bad not to allow the clergy of the State-religion to lead the way in a single enterprise of philanthropy. — (1840.) The ' Times' has taken up this subject of new alarm in its best strain. It draws the worst inferences from ' the desertion of the dram shop ; ' it points out the dangers of ' a temporary dereliction of the use of whiskey ;' it argues that sobriety is the worst of all signs in Ireland, who, according to its reasoning, is never peaceable unless she is dead drunk. What is to be done in this case ? How is the danger to be met ? The Irish Church, itself a model of excess, has failed in the function which it was best calculated to perform, that of keeping up habits of intemperance. What have the clergy been about? Where are the Bcresfords, the O'Sullivans, the M'Neilles ? What are they THE CHURCH. 317 doing ? How have their examples lost . their force ? While they were fighting for their tithes, the dangers of temperance were unknown, unheard of. This frightful change to sobriety is one of the direct consequences of the commutation. Be the cause what it may, sobriety to a frightful extent exists ; and how is it to be cured ? Various expedients have occurred to us. First, there is the opium trade of the East India Company at present at a stand, and might not Ireland* be made to swallow it ? If so, the Emerald Isle would serve as a place of ease to China. Lord Stanley could frame an Opium Coercion Act which might be effective. It should impose heavy penalties on all persons able to stand after dark, and empower constables to search houses between sun and sun and apprehend any people found in their beds, or able to give an account of themselves. For the first offence fine and imprisonment should be awarded ; but any man found sober twice should be transported. Such a measure would not be without its merits : but we confess that there is something of innovation in it which displeases us, and we should prefer a scheme more strictly analogous with the existing institutions of Ireland. There is now unhappily a surplus of Whiskey as well as of Church, and why not adopt the system for the one case which is preserved in the other ? The people won't take whiskey. Whose fault is that ? Surely not the fault of the whiskey or the whiskey shops. The analogy is at hand ; the people won't take Protestant doctrines : 318 THE CHURCH. but is that any reason for letting the Protestant Church diminish ? Endow the whiskey shops. Charge the teetotallers for the whiskey, whether they drink it or not. Let there be well-paid publicans to fill gills of whiskey whether there be customers to swill the liquor or not ; keep up the whiskey establishment in every district for the one or two jolly fellows who may remain, or, if there be none, for the chance that a toper may arise. Incur not the risk that in any parish there may be one thirsty soul, and he unprovided with a dram. Find a Toby Fillpots, and put him in a dram palace at the head of the whiskey establishment. And here let us direct attention to the prophetic dispensation of Bishop Phillpotts' name, which has cried aloud the remedy against the evil that has now befallen the third part of the United Kingdom, — if united we can call a kingdom distracted with sobriety ; two- thirds of which are as drunk as ever, and the third altogether given up to temperance, abandoned to tee- totalism, steeped to the lips in water. — (1840.) ROAST PAPIST. We have heard of a temperate English gentleman who warned his friends, when they went to dine with him, that they were only to expect two dishes, for he never had more : but the guests who reckoned even on this choice were disappointed.; for the two dishes turned out to be two legs of mutton, and both roasted. The only difference was, that one was at the top and the other at the bottom. So with the resolutions of the London THE CHUBGH. 319 Protestant Operative Society. They have no idea of serving up anything beyond a roasted Papist. Every course is the same. — (1840.) INTOLERANT CHARITY. Miss Sellon, the professed Sister of Mercy, has erased Lord Campbell's name from the list of contributors to the charities she administers, on the ground of his par- ticipation in the judgment on the Gorham case. 1 The Eoman satirist charged the Jews with an intoler- ance so narrow and unfeeling that out of their own sect they would not point the way to the traveller, nor show the thirsty the desired spring. Miss Sellon has surpassed this imputed extreme of the bitterest bigotry, for she will not allow the distressed to be succoured by those who do not join in her theological dogmas, and will have no partners in doing good who deviate a particle from her interpretation of the doctrines of the Church. Is this the spirit of mercy whose quality is not strained? Is it the spirit of charity, is it the spirit of Christianity, which deprecates the judgment of the erring upon the erring brother ? Alas ! the Sister of Mercy turns out to be a misnomer ; she is the Sister of Bigotry, the Sister of Phillpotts. But Miss Sellon out-Phillpotts Phillpotts. The Bishop 1 The dignified reply of Lord Campbell to Miss Sellon's communication concluded with this paragraph : — ' I must confess that you do not seem to me to have made any way in proving that my concurrence in the decision of the Judicial Committee in the Gorham case should disqualify me humbly to assist you in taking care of orphans, in providing a Christian education for the children of worthless parents, and in mitigating the physical sufferings of our fellow-creatures.' — (Ed.) 320 THE CHURCH. of Exeter is too true a son of the Church to allow doctrinal scruples to disturb the order of handing round charity plates or collecting offerings. The Church has never scrutinised the sources of contributions for its pious uses. It has taken no narrow views of pecuniary sub- scriptions : its views have been of the width of its pocket. It has in its great liberality levied rates for the * support of its buildings indifferently upon Dissenters of all classes. It has never said to any man, Turk or Jew, ' You are no son of mine, and I will have none of your money.' On the contrary, it has shown itself so superior to any such prejudice as to have distrained for the dues of nonconforming defaulters, and to have sold up the Bibles of sectarian recusants to pay its demands. Miss Sellon deigns to pray for the heretic whose con- tributions to works of charity she spurns as pollution. The priestess is an apt pupil of Dr. Phillpotts who, when he was waging fierce war with the late Lord Grey, taught his children to pray morning and night for the lost Whig Earl. In the same spirit it is recorded of Lord Herbert of Cherbury that he always forgave his enemies because he had a persuasion that thereby God would punish them so much the more in the other world. In another respect Miss Sellon shows at whose feet she has been deriving her inspirations, not of the gentlest kind. The idea of a Sister of Mercy is associated with humility as much as with loving tenderness. In Miss Sellon's letters we only see that humility which pride apes, and a spiritual conceit the most overweening and arrogant. She makes lowly reverences ; but her heart is THE CHURCH. 321 up, and she takes her place upon the pinnacle of High Church to look down with the pity not of mercy, but of pride, on all who stand beneath that saintly level. We have before now rendered an ungrudging tribute to the secular services this lady has rendered to society in succouring the sick. She has stooped to the lowly office of the nurse with the grace of charity : but let her not be seen to rise like Sextus with the keys of St. Peter in her hand. The pretension to infallibility ill assorts with the profession of meekness and humility. — (1850.) CLERICAL TUFT-HUNTING. A popular preacher at one of the newly-endowed churches of Belgravia, who is usually most extreme and damnatory in denouncing all aspirations after worldly honours and distinctions, surprised his hearers not a little last Sunday, by desiring their ' Prayers for a Nobleman of this congregation.' This aristocratic and exclusive announcement was the more singular (in both senses of the word) because it has rarely happened of late that there have not been several persons in the district who, unfortunately, required a similar intercession for Divine mercy. Either, therefore, there must have been a mar- vellously sudden cessation of disease in the neighbourhood, or we must come to the conclusion that our discriminating minister deviated in this instance from the principle so rigidly inculcated by him on ordinary occasions, of the equality of all men before the throne of God ; and con- sidered that plebeian invalids were no fit company, even in prayer, for a sick lord. There is, however, one pre- cedent, we believe, for this formula. A country curate, Y 322 THE CHURCH. probably in the celebrated village of Bray, was called on to perform, in behalf of a matron of quality, that peculiar service of the church which is appointed for fair conva- lescents, just recovered from ' interesting situations.' But, fearing lest his titled and fashionable parishioner might be offended at being called or classed as a mere woman, he thus implored the Divine protection for her : ' Lord, save this Lady, thy servant ! ' to which the clerk, deter- mined not to be behindhand with his master in courtly phraseology, responded — ' Who putteth her Ladyship's trust in thee.'— (1847.) We fear that the distinguished (and distinguishing) preacher, to whose new form of invoking prayers for the sick we drew the attention of our readers last week, has not availed himself, to its full extent, of the precedent with which we had so much pleasure in furnishing him. We listened with anxious attention last Sunday to the Thanksgiving, on the conclusion of the morning service, in hopes that the parenthetical application [particularly to his lordship, who now desires, etc.,] would have in- formed us of the restoration to health of c the nobleman ' so emphatically prayed for on the preceding Sunday. In this hope we were disappointed ; nor, on the other hand, were our prayers again required, in the same form of specification, for his lordship ; so that we are to this moment in a state of painful suspense as to the result. Now, it is but natural that a congregation should feel more anxiety to know the success of their prayers when they have been bespoken — cut out to measure, as it were THE CHURCH. 323 — for a particular and selected individual, than where the article is kept ready made, to be dealt out in the lump to the 01 XToXAo/'. Eeluctant, therefore, as we are to throw cold water on a system of classification and separation, which otherwise seems so peculiarly adapted to the spirit and simplicity of Protestant worship, and so admirably calculated to inculcate humility, at least in untitled sup- plicants ; still, we cannot shut our eyes to the inconsis- tency of thus individualising in sickness and generalising on recovery. So that, on the whole, we fear we must re- commend our discerning pastor to return to the vulgar form of praying for his sick sheep gregariously ; or, if he cannot reconcile it to his conscience to pen lord and com- moner in the same fold, at least to be consistent, and continue the separation to the end. If it be fit and proper that a nobleman be prayed for in solitary dignity and grandeur, it can scarcely be right that he should return thanks with the herd. Ill-natured people might imagine that the noble invalid wished for a monopoly in his own person of the advantages of prayer, but had no objection to let mere ordinary mortals share with him in the burthen of thanksgiving. — (1847.) THE EXCLUSIVE SYSTEM IN THE GRAVEYARD. The Bishops vehemently opposed the closing of the pestilential old graveyards, and, having happily failed in their endeavours to perpetuate those nuisances to the public health, they are now doing their best and their worst to obstruct the opening of new burial-grounds, according to the last Act of Parliament for the regulation of such places. For this purpose no pretext is too frivolous and t2 324 THE CHURCH. childish. Of course our Phillpotts is first and foremost in this perverse opposition to a great improvement. At Torrington a burial-ground has been prepared, pro- perly fenced and enclosed; but the Bishop of Exeter refuses to consecrate the part appropriated to the members of the Established Church, because the side which borders on the ground of the Dissenters is open, so that there is no separation of brick and mortar, or of carpentry, between the last resting-place of the orthodox and the schismatic. The holy man insists on a railing at least, as a boundary line to prevent any confusion or unsuitable co-mingling. He would have the dead know their places, and observe the distinction between the communion of the Church and the Meeting-house. The solid and substantial pale of the Church, in Bishop Phillpotts's view, is a wooden paling. A railing is what he would, with a typical meaning, put between Churchmen and Dissenters. ' Let there,' he would say, • be nothing but railing between them during life, and a railing even after death. Let railing be the alpha and omega of their relations. Set up a railing,' he stipulates, ' and I will consent to consecrate the ground.' The holy man is fearful that his blessing might extend and stray beyond the designed bounds, if there be not some stout palings or rails to confine it to its due narrow limits. He would rather put a blessing in a pound than let it stray — blessing beyond intention. We wonder where Bishop Phillpotts's world spiritual commences ? Where does he get away from church walls and railings, if be ever does get away from such divisions ? Can he conceive that the bodies of Churchmen and Dissenters may lumber in peace, and turn to common dust, without THE CHURCH. 325 some barrier of wood or stone between them ? Or does he believe that souls can never be in their right places without the help of the carpenter or the mason ? Must he stick to exclusion in the grave, and guard against mixed company like a master of the ceremonies for the church- yard ? Who knows but that he may have reserved seats for the favoured high Church, as he insists on a railing to set apart the despised Dissenters in their last resting- place.— (1856.) 32G THE LAW. CHAPTER IV. THE LAW. LEGAL MOKALITY. If falsehood were supposed to be an exhaustible body, nothing could be conceived more politic than the system of English law, which would in this case expend so many lies in its own forms and proceedings as to leave none for the use of rogues in evidence : but unfortunately such is not the moral philosophy ; and the witness who goes into one of our courts, the vital atmosphere of which is charged with fiction, is too likely to have his inward and latent mendacity provoked by the example. He sees, in the reputed sacred forms of justice, that the falsehood which is accounted convenient is not esteemed shameful ; and why, he considers, may not the individual man have his politic fictions as well as that abstraction of all possible human excellence, Justice? The end sanctions the means. We cannot touch pitch without defilement, and it is impossible that a people can be familiarised with falsehood, and reconciled to it on the pretence of its utility, without detriment to their morals. — (1827.) THE LAW. 327 THE IMMORALITY OF SUGGESTING THE PLEA OF fc NOT GUILTY.' In glancing over the ' Morning Chronicle ' of Saturday, two reports happened to strike our eyes of curiously opposite tendencies. In the one the Duke of Wellington affirmed that the foundation of justice was truth : truth its means, truth its end. In the other, the trial of a gentle- man who, in the alarm of an attack on his house, had unfortunately fired a shot at random which killed a servant, the prisoner having pleaded guilty, the Judge (Mr. Justice Cresswell) advised him not to plead guilty until he had heard the punishment awaiting his crime of incaution ; and proceeded to explain what the sentence would be, leaving it thus to the prisoner's choice to plead guilty with a knowledge of the consequences, or to plead not guilty and to take the chances of the law. Now what was the moral character of the Judge's suggestion ? ' The foundation, the means, the end of justice is truth,' says the Duke of Wellington. ' Stop,' says the Judge in effect to the prisoner, ' mind what you are about, don't tell the truth till you know what it will subject you to ; hear what the law is, and then take your choice of telling the truth and taking the punishment, or of telling a formal lie, which will give you the benefit of the uncertainties of the law, the chances of escaping justice.' Mr. Justice Cresswell, in this case, only did what other Judges have done before him ; the recommendation to withdraw the plea of guilty being very much the practice of the Bench : but what is a plea of guilty but the con- fession of the truth ? and is it decent for the very ministers of truth to suggest and recommend the suppression of it, 328 THE LAW. and the substitution of a lie, which may have the conveni- ence of defeating justice ? We remember more than one case in which acquittals followed the retractation of the plea of guilty. The criminals, on the persuasion of the Judge, took the benefit of the lie and the uncertainties of the law, and escaped justice. To avoid such a scandal to morality, would it not be well to discontinue the practice of requiring the prisoner to plead guilty or not guilty, and, passing that form, to proceed at once to the evidence ? In the case tried by Mr. Justice Cresswell the prisoner persisted in his conscientious plea, and was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to three months' imprison- ment. As his offence was one purely of accident, the sentence must be regarded as a severe one, especially when compared with others of the same class and of a worse complexion ; but it is doubtless intended to serve as an example to those who prefer the truth to taking their chances in the lottery of justice. — (1842.) Lawyers abhor any short cut to the truth. The pur- suit is the thing for their pleasure and profit, and all their rules are framed for making the most of it. Crime is to them precisely what the fox is to the sports- man; and the object is not to pounce on it and capture it at once, but to have a good run for it, and to exhibit skill and address in the chase. Whether the culprit or the fox escape or not is a matter of indifference, the run being the main thing. The punishment of crime is as foreign to the object of lawyers as the extirpation of the fox is to that of THE LAW. 329 sportsmen. The sportsman, because he hunts the fox, sees in the summary destruction of a fox by the hand of a clown an offence foul, strange, and unnatural, little short of murder. The lawyer treats crime in the same way. His business is the chase of it : but, in order that it may exist for the chase, he lays down rules protecting it against surprises and capture by any methods but those of the forensic field. One good turn deserves another, and, as the lawyer owes his business to crime, he naturally makes it his business to favour and spare it as much as possible. To seize and destroy it wherever it can be got at, seems to him as barbarous as shooting a bird sitting, or a hare in her form, does to the sportsman. The phrase, to give law for the allowance of a start, or any chance of escape, expresses the methods of lawyers in the pursuit of crime, and has doubtless been derived from their practice. Confession is a thing most hateful to law, for this stops its sport at the outset. It is the surrender of the fox to the hounds. ' We don't want your stinking body,' says the lawyer ; ' we want the run after the scent. Away with you, be off ; retract your admission, take the benefit of telling a lie, give us employment, and let us take our chance of hunting out, in our roundabout ways, the truth, which we will not take when it lies before us.' When a prisoner is examined before a magistrate, the first care of his worship is to caution the man to say nothing that may betray him, as if the great business of justice was to keep the truth from too prompt and dis- tinct a discovery. Police officers are looked coldly on, or rebuked, if they tender any confession, though not ex- 330 THE LAW. torted, but yielded in the evidence of confusion of guilt, or in the despair of concealment. They profit by these lessons and become the protectors of criminals. — (1843.) We want a new Book of Beauty — not any encroachment on the imperial purple of Lady Blessington. The sort of volume we propose should be bound in the professional livery, calfskin, and it should be a collection of the Beauties of Law. The frontispiece should present Sheen cutting his child's head off, of which he was duly found not guilty, because of a variance between the baptismal names of the child and the names in the indictment. The Beauties of Law are inexhaustible ; we can hardly read an assize report without discovering some new speci- men. The fox who met with a handsome mask remarked that it was a fine face, but it was a pity it had no brains ; but this criticism does not apply to the Beauties of Law, which fill us with the greater admiration because they are so utterly void of reason. A true Beauty of Law takes your breath away by its stark antagonism to com- mon sense. The Judges are the black Graces who wait upon the Beauties of Law ; it is their delight to set them forth in all their charms. Venus herself had not a more unsubstantial frothy origin than the Beauties of Law ; but the froth of which Venus came had some salt in it, of which the Beauties of Law are quite clear, though they seldom fail to put poor Justice in a sad pickle. We should much like to see some tableaux vivants of the Beauties of Law exhibiting their charms in opposi- THE LAW. 331 tion to the stern harsh features of Justice. The omni- potence of beauty is a hackneyed theme, excepting in the province of Law, in which it has not sufficiently been observed that there is not a crime that man can commit that some Beauty of Law cannot cover with its impunity. In the ' Times ' of Tuesday we met with a Beauty of Law that has thrown us into a fit of admiration. It is not a beauty of the highest caste : it is not a beauty that puts a face of innocence on murder : but in a humbler way it is prodigious, nevertheless. A man breaks the bones of his wife's nose, and strikes her on the head till she becomes insensible and remains so for two days, the woman at the time being in a state of pregnancy. He is indicted for an assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. Now comes a Beauty of Law to the rescue : ' Mr. O'Brien, at the close of the case, submitted that the count imputing a felonious intent could not be sup- ported, as there was no proof of any weapon or instru- ment having been made use of. 'The Common Serjeant said, that this had no doubt been ruled by the Judges, and if the jury thought there was no evidence of any instrument having been made use of, the prisoner could only be convicted of a common assault. 'The jury found the prisoner guilty of a common assault.' So that a powerful man with a fist like a sledge-hammer may break bones, and knock about a skull till insensibility is produced, and in the blind eye of the law it is but a common assault, and not an assault with intent to do 332 THE LAW. grievous bodily harm, though grievous bodily harm has been done, because, forsooth, an instrument has not been used. The felonious intent is to be inferred from the means, not from the actual effect ! But one powerful brute with his fist will do more grievous bodily harm than a puny one with a poker. A man's strength dis- penses with the recourse to an instrument to give effect to his malice, and therefore the law rules that he has not intended grievous bodily harm, but simply a common assault. The fact is. however, that a man using an instru- ment may often commit injuries beyond his intention, which is not so likely to be the case with one pounding with his naked fists. We wish the Judges who ruled the point could cor- poreally be subjected to the experiment, whether a vigorous pair of fists could be so employed as to effect a bodily harm as grievous as that producible by an instrument. A trial of this sort in banco, an able-bodied boxer pummelling their learned lordships, would be extremely satisfactory; and the result would probably be an amendment of the decision that an instrument is essential to an assault for grievous bodily harm, and the conviction that intent should be inferred from the fact rather than the means. — (1847.) Lawyers are not worse moralists than other men, except in their courts, where they evince a marvellous moral in- sensibility, or, perhaps we should rather say, immoral insensibility. It seems, indeed, as if their minds were so narrowed to the legal view of what is before them, that THE LAW. 333 the moral bearings were altogether unobserved by them. Thus we constantly see the most villainous lines of defence escaping any expression of reprobation, or, what is worse still, noticed with a gentle disapproval, treating an atro- cious wickedness as an indiscretion or impropriety. In a farce, upon a charge of enormous profligacy against a gallant, a lady cries, ' Oh fie ! you naughty man ; ' and in a farce very often played in our Courts of Justice, we hear this ' Oh fie ' repeated, as unsuitably as would be its application to the act of cutting a throat. — (1850.) Law has been likened very often to a polypus, whose arms and suckers are not separated easily from any object that once suffers its embrace. But the Greeks had an older legend about the polypus, which said that, to what- ever block or stone or other object such an animal should once attach itself, it would gradually transform into exact similarity therewith as to colour and substance, remaining thenceforward a polypus only in form. We fancy that transformations of this kind take place also with the polypus of Law. It must have grasped dishonesty till its form only is left, for its original substance is often quite impossible of detection. There appears to have been established an entente cor- diale between justice and crime, extremely pleasant to a section of the judges ; the bonhomie permitted by such an advanced state of civilisation in our Law courts being a much happier counteraction to the effects of a sedentary occupation than any habit of saying and looking severe things could possibly be. — (1851.) 334 THE LAW. PRIVILEGES OF COUNSEL. 1 For the honour or for the dishonour of the profession of the Law it should be known whether Mr. Phillips's speech in defence of Courvoisier, after the murderer had confessed his guilt to hirn, does or does not exceed the bounds of an advocate's license. It would be unjust to present it as an example of professional morality; the question is, whether it is, or is not, accordant with pro- fessional morality. To the report of the ' Times ' a remark is appended, in which it is presumed that the confession fc Entirely changed the line of defence intended to be taken by his counsel ; for it was generally rumoured that a severe attack would be made on the fellow-servants of the prisoner, and also on the police who were engaged in the investigation. ' The intended line of defence (query, lie of defence ?) was not changed by the communication in the two points mentioned. The cruellest insinuations were thrown out against the witness Sarah Mancer, and the foulest charges advanced against the police. 1 In this case Courvoisier, a Swiss valet, had been tried for the murder of his master, Lord William Russell. His counsel having- solemnly declared his belief in his client's innocence, and even thrown suspicion upon others, while he had the man's written confession of guilt in his possession, the 'Examiner' originated a discussion upon the limits of the privileges of counsel, which was warmly taken up by the bar. Writing to Mr. Forster on the sub- ject, Mr. Fonblanque says : ' Is Mr. P.'s conduct of Courvoisier's defence in accordance with professional rules, and if so, is the standard of professional conduct accordant with morality ? Put more tersely, is Mr. P. a disgrace to the bar, or is the license of the bar a disgrace to the morality of the country ? ' — (Ed.) THE LAW. 335 Mr. P. disclaimed the intention to criminate the female servants. No, forsooth ! ' God forbid that any breath of his should send tainted into the world persons perhaps depending for their sub- sistence upon their character. It was not his duty, nor his interest, nor his policy to do so.' But did he or did he not make the attempt in this passage ? — ' The prisoner had seen his master retire to his peaceful bed, and was alarmed in the morning by the housemaid, who was up before him, with a cry of robbery, and some dark, mysterious suggestion of murder. " Let us go," said she, " and see where my Lord is." He did confess that that expression struck him as extraordinary. If she had said, " Let us go and tell my Lord that the house is plundered," that would have been natural; but why should she suspect that anything had happened to his Lordship ? She saw her fellow-servant safe, no taint of blood about the house, and where did she expect to find her nmster? Why in his bed-room, to be sure. What was there to lead to a suspicion that he was hurt ? Courvoisier was safe, the cook was safe, and why should she suspect that her master was not safe too ? ' Here, too, was a direct attempt to shake the credit of the woman's evidence, and to induce the jury to believe that she had perjured herself. Then, as to the police, does it appear that Mr. P's. line of defence was altered in these attacks, the groundlessness of which he knew as well as his client's guilt? The witness Pearce is thus dealt with : — ; " Look here, Sir," said he to Courvoisier, " dare you 336 THE LAW. look me in the face ? " Merciful God ! was there any exhibition on earth so likely to strike him dumb with horror as the proofs of the murder lying before him, and that miscreant challenging him to look him in the face ? He did look him in the face, and answered him, " I see them, I know nothing about them ; my conscience is clear, I am innocent." ' The learned counsel animadverted in very strong terms upon the testimony of this witness, charging him with an attempt to intimidate the prisoner, and thereby to extort from him a confession of the murder. He also condemned the conduct of Mr. Mayne and Mr. Hobler in permitting Pearce to hold that inter- view with the prisoner. ' Such treatment was worthy only of the Inquisition. Yet the fellow who did all this told the Jury he expected to share in the plunder — the £450 reward — which was to be divided over the coffin of Courvoisier! He had hoped the days of blood-money were past.' Mr. P., when he uttered this tirade, knew that Pearce was right in fact, though not perhaps in form ; that he had confronted the murderer and dared him to deny his guilt : but Pearce is ' the miscreant,' and Courvoisier the injured innocent. # The attack upon Baldwin is still more unjustifiable ; and it is accompanied with a general charge of conspiracy against the prisoner, of whose guilt the speaker was cognisant : — 1 Next came Baldwin, who had done his best in the work of conspiracy to earn the wages of blood. He swore well and to the purpose — he did all he could to senda fellow- creature "unhouseled, unanointed, unaneled" THE LAW. 337 before his God. That man equivocated and shuffled, and lied on his oath as long as he could, pretending never to have heard of the reward because he was no scholar, although every wall in London was blazoned with it.' Next the character of Mrs. Piolaine was to be defamed, in order to procure the acquittal of the murderer. ; He (Mr. P.) hoped the Jury knew something of Leicester Place. If they did they knew the character of this hotel, with a billiard-room attached to it, wdiere, unlike at a respectable hotel, any stranger, not being a guest, might enter and gamble.' All these imputations, of different degrees of blackness, were flung out by Mr. P., in the hope of obtaining, by them, the acquittal of a man whom he knew to be a murderer of the blackest dye. In the ' Times ' report we find this emphatic assertion : ' The omniscient God alone knew who did this crime.' This was said by the man who himself knew who did the crime, and who profaned the name of the Deity by thrusting it into a solemn assertion, of the untruth of of which he was cognisant. Whether all this accords or not with professional morality, it is not for us to decide ; but, if it does, the public will probably be disposed to think that the pro- fession should change its name from the profession of the Law to the profession of the Lie. We should like to know the breadth of the distinction between an accomplice after the fact and an advocate who makes the most unscrupulous endeavours to pro- cure the acquittal of a man whom he knows to be an assassin. — (1840.) 338 THE LAW. Quite bad enough was Mr. P's. defence as it was ; yet, though condemned by the right sense of the public, it has had its advocates. In the most ingenious argument we have seen in vindication of it, the counsel is said to represent the prisoner, with the advantages of the know- ledge of the law, and skill in sifting evidence and giving due significance to facts ; and it is therefore contended that it is the counsel's duty to act for the prisoner as the prisoner would act for himself if he had his advocate's skill. Admitting this position, it does not thence follow that it is the duty of the advocate to have recourse to falsehood in defence of his client ; for the principle stated would only clothe the advocate with the rights and duties of the prisoner, and it cannot be the duty of the prisoner to lie even for his own defence. Society cannot prevent his lying ; the law must allow of his lying ; it must yield him the opportunity of lying, if he chooses to lie : but the impossibility of preventing the he and the opportunity of the lie do not render the lie a right or a duty. How, then, can it be contended that the advocate, knowing his client's guilt and the circumstances of it, has a duty to uphold falsehood which does not belong to his client ? We admit that there are grave objections to throwing up a brief. Cases, not probable but possible, may be imagined, in which a destroying weight of prejudice might be thrown upon an innocent client by such a step. A counsel might be moved by ill-will or corruption to ruin a prisoner by throwing up his brief, and thereby implying that he had discovered the guilt of his client. THE LAW. 339 An advocate might therefore feel bound by rule, even after a confession of guilt had been communicated to him, to go through with a defence : but in this case we contend that the advocate should scrupulously refrain from any line of defence, the effect of which would be to procure the acquittal of his client by criminating or destroying the characters of persons who had but borne true evidence against him. The defence should turn, in such case, on the sufficiency of the proof and on technical points, and not on the impugnment of honest evidence, or (worse still) on insinuations of guilt against the witnesses. The truth known to the advocate, through the confession, gives him the key to other truths, and clears evidence of suspicion which might have attached to it in his view, before the knowledge of his client's guilt gave the right reading of circumstances. Our objections to Mr. P.'s defence have applied to the points in which he became the assailant or accuser of witnesses whose truth he had no reason to suspect after Courvoisier's confession, and also to his solemn pretences of the murderer's innocence. Had he procured the acquittal of the guilty by this course, and transferred suspicion to the innocent, and placed them en their trial, the morality of his conduct would have been brought to a practical test. To judge of the attempt, imagine the success of it. Had he confined himself to weighing the sufficiency of evidence, and examining flaws in its links, he would at least have avoided wrong and danger to others in the defence of an assassin. The policy of Mr. P.'s course we question as much as its morality ; for jurors, having seen, in this example, z 2 340 THE LAW. the extremities to which his zeal for a client of whose guilt he is cognisant will carry him, will in all other instances be apt to suppose that he is pleading against his knowledge of the truths of the case. — (1840.) We have been told, on high authority, that the advocate belongs, body and soul, to his client ; that he is bound to make truth appear untruth, and untruth appear truth ; that to procure the acquittal of his client, with a know- ledge of his guilt, he is free to criminate the innocent, or in plain familiar phrase, that he is to stick at nothing to obtain a verdict qiwcunque mo do. And we have wit- nessed fine examples in conformity with these doctrines, to which, as by-gones should be by-gones, we will not now more particularly allude. It was but the other day, however, that a most tender and touching sight was pre- sented in Lord Carlisle's Court of Inquiry — Mr. Serjeant Wilkins weeping for Mr. Eamshay, his learned bewigged head bent to the table ' like a lily borne down by the hail.' Perhaps, prosaically, it was more like a cauliflower on a block, but let that pass. What we have to consider is the zeal, or the fee-compelling-force, which can bow a wiggcd head to the table, and make the eyes overflow with tears such as either genuine pity, or genuine onion, elicits — tears such as learned Serjeants shed. The eye that so weeps, however, must have seen a fee. An unfeed eye would on a similar occasion be as unmoved as a stone. The fee and the feelings go together ; the word feeling, in legal diction, being derived from fee. What the precise charge for weeping is we do not pretend to THE LAW. 341 know ; nor whether it is set down in the brief as an extra, like consultation, or a refresher : but of late years we have had several exhibitions of this black grace. Chitty wept for Thurtell, and Fitzroy Kelly for Taw ell, and lastly, Wilkins for Eamshay. Sweet sensibility ! says the tender-hearted reader ; but how is it that this same sen- sibility of the learned is so capricious, and that the same wigged man, who blubbers over one client so affectingly, will throw another overboard without a hesitation or a scruple ? Why make fish of one and flesh of another ? Why so strain the duty of advocate and client in some show cases, and loosen it in others, as we see in this example ? The complaisant husband who had napped during Csesar's visits, on finding that the same somnolency was expected from him by another gallant, said, ' I do not slumber for everybody.' Mr. Serjeant Wilkins does not sob for everybody ; but in common fairness and honesty he is bound to explain the rules of his service or dis- service to his clients, specifying for which of them he goes through thick and thin, and which he throws overboard. —(1851.) INEQUALITY IX PUNISHMENTS. Truly sings the old poet — Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage. With the appliances of all comforts and luxuries, a rich man may divest his residence in the Queen's Bench of all the harsher characteristics of a prison. He is less a pri- soner than a Governor-General on his voyage to India, and he has more resources for his entertainment, and 342 TEE LAW. more society. And such was the rigour of justice in the case of Lord W. 1 To the affluent nobleman six months' confinement was at worst but six months' privation of certain enjoyments ; it took nothing from his property ; it left him in condition as it found him. Not so nine months' imprisonment to the poor man, which is the amercement of nine months' in- dustry and its fruits. How enormous would seem a fine of £9,000 on a nobleman having £12,000 a-year ; and yet, practically, nine months' imprisonment, which is the loss of the earnings of nine months' industry to the poor man, is a far heavier sentence, for the labourer's estate is his industry, the wages of it his income. These are truisms, but they are truisms strangely disregarded by Justices who in so off-handed a style pass crushing sen- tences on the poor. In meting out imprisonment to the labouring- classes, magistrates seldom appear to advert to the injury which it does to the condition of the prisoners, besides the personal suffering. With a sentence of im- prisonment judges will fine a rich man perhaps in the proportion of a fiftieth part of his income ; but they do not remark that, in every sentence of imprisonment on a poor man who lives by his industry, they amerce him to the extent of the earnings lost to him through his con- finement ; and that six months' imprisonment is equivalent to half-a-year's income, besides the personal sufferings, and the impediment to future employment which is the probable consequence of having been in gaol. Circumspect and equal justice would reverse the rule 1 Sentenced to six months' imprisonment for a violent assault on the police. — (Ed.) THE LAW. 343 now observable in the punishment of rich and poor by imprisonment, and would deal out for parallel offences far larger terms of incarceration to persons in affluent or easy circumstances than to the labouring poor. — (1841.) For stealing a penny from a letter the carrier is trans- ported for life. For the Exchequer Bill fraud Mr. B. Smith is transported for life. Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other ; therefore the Exchequer Bill fraud and the robbery of the penny are, in the eye of the law, equal. Here the foot-rule fits both to a hair : but it is quite at fault when applied to the theft of the sovereign with the seven years' transportation. The lesson to carriers, according to Lord Denman, seems to be, that if they have set their minds on stealing they should take care to steal gold at least. A little stealing is a dangerous thing. Steal much, or filch not. — (1841). There appeared in the daily papers of last week the account of an indecent assault on a poor girl, followed by an attempt at violation. The parties accused were two gentlemen of fortune ; both were alleged to have committed an indecent assault, and the one who pro- ceeded afterwards to the criminal attempt threatened with violence a man who interfered to save the woman. The person charged with the minor offence has written to one of the morning papers, denying the truth of the statement, both as to the character of the outrage and the 344 THE LAW. defence, but there has been no contradiction as to the more serious case, which, intoxication having been pleaded, the magistrates (Mr. G. Baillie of Hanwell, and the Eev. Dr. Walmsley) disposed of summarily with the sentence of a fine of £5, or two months' imprisonment ! If the plea of intoxication is to be admitted in ex- tenuation of a criminal act, a man who is inclined to any outrage has only to qualify himself by drunkenness for attempting it with comparative impunity. But suppose that the condition of the parties had been reversed, and that, instead of a poor girl, a nobleman's daughter, who had chanced to fall in the way of a ruffianly costermonger, had been so indecently assaulted by him, will anyone believe that the two magistrates would have admitted the excuse of intoxication, and let the fellow off for a fine of five shillings ? And such a small penalty would to very poor men be heavier than £o to a person in the condition of the prisoner in the present case. What a farce, what an impudent mockery of justice, was the pretended alternative of the fine of £5 or two months' imprisonment, as if the magistrates had not known perfectly well that the gentleman would pay the penalty without the slightest inconvenience. The sentence only marks what the punishment would have been if the offender had been poor ; in which case he would, in default of the money, have been sent to gaol for the term mentioned. Men who can afford to throw away £5 for their pleasures may see in this example that for so moderate a sum they may offer the grossest of insults, and threaten THE LAW. 345 with the worst of injuries a girl in humble life, polluting her mind by the very attempt, to say nothing of the less grievance of the brutal violence to her person. But wrongs to the poor are not so thought of by worshipful justices. When we see the treatment of the poor, nothing ap- pears to us so wonderful as the existence of virtue amongst them. All the virtues the most difficult in their circumstances, exposed to temptation, are required and expected of them, while protection to the barriers of them is scornfully refused. To a gentleman how hor- rible would be the idea of his daughter struggling in the arms of a ruffian for half an hour .; but make the case that of a poor girl whose virtue is her all, and magistrates see in it only a trifle, like riding on the footpath or wrenching off knockers, sufficiently punished with a petty fine of £5 ! From this example profligates may learn that at- tempts at violation are more economical than seduction ; for, if they do not succeed in a transportable offence, they have only to say that they were drunk ; and, drunkenness covering a multitude of sins in the eyes of our sapient Justices, they escape with the fine of a sum that they would throw away for a trinket or any nonsense that might serve for their momentary amusement. — (1843.) Wiiex poor men escape a conviction, do we ever find judges rejoicing at it because of the situation of humble dependence in which they were placed ? No, the rejoic- ing is at the escape of the rich and independent — or the respectable, to use the much-abused word — and not at the escape of the poor and lowly, whose bread depends 346 THE LAW. on their characters, and who, branded by Justice, are doomed for ever either to ruin or to crime. Whether a poor man escapes or not, a harsh or hasty sentence is never treated as a matter of any sort of im- portance by the Bench : but great and loud is the expres- sion of joy when the rich escape with a mild judgment. —(1839.) THE LAW OF TKEASON. The law of treason is intended to throw the greatest degree of protection round the person of the Sovereign, as the person of the Sovereign is most exposed to danger : but is it not now certain that the law of treason protects the Sovereign less than the ordinary criminal law protects the meanest of her subjects? A prisoner arraigned for treason has a better chance of escape than any other offender under trial. And all the procedure flatters the diseased appetite for eclat and notoriety which prompted Oxford's attempt, and has probably also been one of the motives of Francis; 1 messengers hurrying hither and thither in search of Ministers, and the pomp and circumstance of examination before the Privy Council, instead of the quiet undramatic course of an examination in the nearest dingy police-office before the sort of magistrate who is the habitual terror of the sort of prisoner. All this is feeding the very excitement which makes the crime. Let there be no Privy Council theatre for the heroics. Ambitious crimes should not be met with State pageants reflecting 1 This refers to an alleged attack upon the Queen's life by a young man named John Francis, who, on August 30, 1842, fired a pistol at her on Constitution Hill — the identical spot upon which a mau named Oxford had made a similar attempt upon her life the year before. — (Ed.) THE LAW. 347 a dignity on them, but dragged down to the handling of justice in its ordinary, plain, e very-day course. Above all, let there be no flinching from the discovery of the fact, whatever it may be ; no evasion of the truth, no false pretext to compass impunity ; for these things are of the most pernicious and dangerous example. If there has been crime, let such a measure of punishment await it as the feelings of society will sanction. We deprecate equally severity and impunity : but we know that there is now much more danger of the latter than of the former. — (1842.) If Francis 1 had been sentenced at once to transportation for life to Norfolk Island, with hard labour, the severity of the punishment would have stood prominently out to view : but, as it is, what is escaped strikes the mind, in- stead of what is to be undergone ; and the thought is that Francis is not hanged, not that he has to suffer a life of toil and misery in perpetual exile. This is, however, an evil belonging to the law for which those charged with the superintendence of justice are not to be blamed, as they can only deal with the law as they find it, and of the two evils they must rather take those of the commutation of punishment than of a severity shocking to the feelings of society. The purpose of the law of treason is the desirable one of throwing the greatest degree of protection around the person of the Sovereign ; but, just in proportion as the law of treason is increased in severity for this end, it fails to serve to it ; and, then, with the mitigation of it, there comes in an appearance of leniency most inconsistent with 1 This man's sentence of death was, at the instance of the Queen herself, commuted to tansportation for life. — (En.) 348 THE LAW. the policy of justice, and liable to very dangerous inter- pretations. We much question the prudence of allotting to attempts against the life of the Sovereign the same measure of punishment as against the completion of the crime. It seems to us wise to hold open the locus penitentice short of murder ; for, in the very act of violence, a feeling of compunction, or the fear of incurring the last penalty, may stay the hand, or turn it from its deadly aim. On the other side, it is surely most impolitic to make a man, who has entered upon a treasonable attempt, apprehend that his punishment will be equally great whether he completes it or stops short of the last degree of guilt. The law of treason refuses this discrimination ; and, as we see, where it so refuses to discriminate, it ceases to be ap- plicable and operative, and then it has the mischief of all nominal punishments. The diseased passion for notoriety, which is one of the motives of the attacks on the Queen, requires some counter discipline of a humiliating and degrading kind in the pun- ishment. The procedure and law at present all flatter the craving for eclat, which it would be politic to balk. With this view, it has been suggested that the punishment of transportation, for the class of crimes in question, should be preceded by a public whipping, which would probably have the effect of curing the propensity to treason heroics. —(1842.) THE MODEL JUDGE. A tiiixg may be too good to be understood. Excel- lence may be rejected because of mistaken notions of what constitutes it. People have had an erroneous notion THE LAW. 349 of what a Judge should be 3 and they have cried out against Lord Abinger because he differed from their false standard ; but now they learn from Ministerial authorities in the House of Commons that Lord Abinger is the very pattern of a Judge, and that all that he did on the Special Commission which was thought wrong was deserving of the highest praise. The herald-painter, who had been painting lions in all sorts of attitudes all his life, went at last to the Tower to see the beasts whose figures he had been so busy about. When they were exhibited to him he peremptorily denied that they were lions, or anything resembling lions, and c 1 should know what lions are,' said he, ' for I have been painting lions all the days of my life, and these creatures are not in the slightest degree like the lions I have painted.' So we have now blazoned before us, in Ministerial speeches, the form and figure of the best of Judges rampant : but it brings us only to a perplexity like that of the herald-painter, for when we go to Westminster Hall we find the Judges there not in the slightest degree like the pattern Judge before us, and the question is whether they are Judges at all. — (1843.) NOT THE FIRST OF MEN. Voltaire having to introduce a very mediocre person, bearing the name of the father of the human race, an- nounced him as ' M. Adam, but not the first of men.' The chairman of the Middlesex Sessions is a cadet of the same family ; and unfortunately, for want of a Voltaire to teach him better, he has lived under the firm impression that he is the first of men, and with this preposterous notion 350 THE LAW. has played a long series of pranks of authority, which must have kept the angels, who are silly enough to weep at such exhibitions, in a pitiably tearful state for many a clay. It was a marvel to the Duchess de Maine that no one was ever right but herself : that no one is ever right but Mr. Serjeant Adams is no wonder to Mr. Serjeant Adams however, but a fact which he does not suffer to be disputed or doubted. He sits upon the bench as a Jove, the Jove of Midas in his chair, whose word, though absurd, must be law, and he launches mock sentence like a squib thunderbolt at contumacious prisoners, and snubs juries, rates counsel, lectures the Press, instructs the Legis- lature, and guides the public mind. How anything can go wrong in the world while there is a Serjeant Adams to put everything right, must be a matter of inexhaust- ible wonderment to himself at least. He is Fontaine's fly on the chariot wheel, ordering all, everlastingly sounding his tiny trumpet, and signalising the powers of his insect sting. The embodiment of an impertinence and ofliciousness so vast in a being so small is a curiosity in its way. — (1853.) THE COMFORTING COMPAEISON FOR CRIMINALS. It is the habit of some of our judges, in passing sentence for crimes the penalty of which has been mitigated, to draw a comparison between the punishment which the offender would have suffered under the old law and the milder one which lie lias to undergo, and to instruct him how fortunate he ought to think himself for having been cast upon these times of improved humanity. We must doubt the fitness of this congratulation, for such in effect THE LAW. 351 it is, and it is remarkable that the occasion for it is almost uniformly some extraordinarily atrocious case. An evil which necessarily attends mitigation of punish- ment is the comparison between the graver penalty abolished, and the milder one substituted, which makes the latter wear an appearance of relative lightness, or of an escape. The terror of the past punishment divests the new punishment of all awe, so long as the two are immediate objects of comparison. The milder penalty only begins to make itself feared in full force when the graver one it has superseded has passed into the limbo of the obsolete. This is a disadvantage insepa- rable from changes in the criminal law in the direction of mitigation ; but why do some of the judges take pains to aggravate an evil which to some extent is unavoidable ? Why admonish a miscreant in the dock that, if he had committed the same atrocity a short time ago, he would have been hanged instead of trans- ported? What is the reflection in the villain's mind, but that he is a very lucky fellow to have timed his guilt so conveniently for his neck ? And, instead of picturing to himself the pains of exile, his imagination dwells with complacency on the escape from the gallows, and he com- forts himself, at the judge's suggestion, with the thought how much worse the thing might have been, and how happy he should think himself it is no worse. Now does this sort of lesson square with the policy of justice? Is the deterring example assisted by sending a convict from the dock, to the utmost possible degree contented and reconciled to his punishment ? In the condemned cell what is the effect of a commuta- 352 THE LAW. tion of punishment from the capital to the secondary? The convict is in an ecstasy of joy. What cares he, what thinks he of transportation ? Not a jot ; his mind is full of what he has escaped, to the utter exclusion of any thought of what he has to suffer, which seems a grace in the comparison. The same comparison, with the same result in a less degree, takes place in the mind of the prisoner at the bar before whose imagination the judge has placed the past terrors of the gallows, with the effect of shutting out of view, or at least of much diminishing, the present awe of transportation. Boniface makes his guest's mouth water with the report of the dainties he would have regaled on if he had arrived at this or that earlier day. The judges we have in view, reversing this tantalising practice, tell the criminal how they would have hanged him if he had fallen into their hands a little earlier. The scoundrel thanks them for nothing, and blesses his stars that things have chanced as they have done. Would it not be better to avoid all reference to past severities, and to pass at once to the contemplation of the pains and ills of the present allotted punishment, un- relieved with any darker foil ? If it be the policy of judges to make light of existing punishments, undeniably they act consistently in com- paring them with the severer penalty superseded ; but, if it be the contrary policy to give all awe to secondary punishments, they should be presented apart with their own peculiar forms of terror, and without any reference to that favourite standard, the gallows, which, once intro- TEE LAW. 35 ■JO duced, dwarfs, in the vulgar mind, to insignificance the awe of all other penalties. — (1858.) CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. We foresee that Lord Brougham and Vaux will be a prodigious favourite w r ith the Church. His observation that there was nothing in the Bible prohibitory of the punishment of death for other crimes than murder, reminds us of the reason which the Newgate Ordinary, in Jonathan Wild, gives for his choice of punch, that it is a liquor nowhere spoken ill of in Scripture. — (1827.) A common effect of the severity of the Law is, to turn the humanity of society to the account of criminals, and to habituate men in the discharge of a most solemn duty to the violation of truth. In trying a pri- soner, regard is generally had to the nature of the punish- ment awaiting him, before inquiry is directed to the truth of the charge, and belief or disbelief of the evidence is proportioned to the probable character of the sentence. — (1827.) Opinions differ as to the punishment of death even for murder ; but all must agree that, if the punishment be continued at all, it should be carried into effect in the worst cases of murder : but we have seen it, apparently by some inexplicable caprice, remitted in some cases of a remarkably black nature, and enforced in others of a less barbarous complexion. For instance, no less than three A A 354 THE LAW. men lately suffered death for the murder of a poor old pensioner near Hertford, whom they had killed, without the intention to kill him, by blows in the act of robbing him. A correspondent of the ' Chronicle ' reminds us of another remarkable case of a butcher's boy who poisoned his mistress and obtained a pardon. It has certainly appeared to us that the prerogative of mercy has been marvellously ill-directed in certain very conspicuous instances, under the present Administra- tion ; but the great fault is in giving to a Minister so occupied as the Secretary of State for the Home Depart- ment a duty, the due performance of which would oc- cupy the whole time and care of a highly-skilled judicial functionary. What is termed the mercy of the Crown, when properly exercised, is essentially justice, a justice which the law would miscarry of in the special case ; and the application of it should be a strictly judicial function, entrusted to a minister responsible for its prudent ex- ercise, and responsible for it alone. — (1839.) It is of the last importance that there should be no mistake about the meaning of verdicts. 1 It is of the last importance that recommendations to mercy, proceeding from either doubts of the law or abhorrence of the punishment of death, should not be attributed by the 1 This refers to the trial of the Chartists for treason ; the argument of the ' Examiner' having gone to"prove that under the Treason Law juries were more perplexed than in ordinary criminal cases, and that it would tend to prevent a miscarriage of justice if these men were charged not with treason but with riot with attempt to murder. — (En.) THE LAW. 355 criminally-disposed to any feeling of indulgence for the crimes committed. It may be wise to spare the blood of the bloodthirsty : but the reason for sparing their blood should distinctly appear, and it should be clear that the remission of the extreme penalty is not referable to any indulgent view of the great crime attempted. We have always been adverse to the punishment of death, and never were we more hostile to it than at this moment, when it stands between justice and crime, making the one irresolute, and consequently emboldening the other. The punishment of death, repugnant as it is to the community, is becoming virtually a nominal punishment : but, as we have often argued, as a nominal punishment, it has the pernicious effect of masking the real secondary punishment, and depriving it of the terrors which should belong to it ; the escape from the sentence of death being what strikes the minds of the multitude, and not the infliction of the minor penalty, of which nothing is known. Further, when to the greatest crimes the secondary punishment is awarded, the common notion is too likely to be, not that the greatest penalty is too severe or too cruel for the greatest crimes, but that the offences which have been treated in arraignment as the greatest are really of a secondary criminality. — (1840.) It would be better, we repeat, to abolish the capital punishments than to enforce or remit them so capriciously. That the time will come for the abolition of them, we have no more doubt than of the steady progress of A A 2 356 THE LAW. society; and the preparative for the desirable consummation is the reservation of the punishment for the worst class of cases, and to them strictly and solely. But for this purpose an improvement in the law is necessary, which, as Lord John Eussell observes, confounds, under the description of murder, offences very different in nature and dye of guilt.— (1840.) Lord John Eussell argues that, before the Legislature abolishes capital punishments in cases in which it is but nominal, it is bound to take care to improve the system of secondary punishments ; but he fails to observe that the nominal punishment, which he will not abrogate till the secondary is improved, is taking from the secondary all that should be its prominent terrors, and throwing it into the background of the gallows, where it appears not with the awe of the greatest evil threatened, but, by comparison, as a refuge. The first step in the improvement of the secondary punishment would be the removal of the capital penalty, which now stands before it and makes it appear light by a false comparison. If you would give transportation or long imprisonment their greatest terrors, do not threaten death before you inflict them. If, on the other hand, you would give to the penal colony or the gaol the grace of places of refuge, record sentence of death, and tell the convict you might hang him before you proceed to transport or imprison him. Secondary punishments undoubtedly require consider- able improvement for their full efficacy; but the first THE LAW. 357 and easiest improvement is to open the distinct, the immediate view, of them, and to give them their due stern prominence as the appointed measure of crimes next to capital. This is to be done by removing the false pretence of a greater rigour, which lightens the aspect of the law's realities and creates a false show of uncertainty. We cannot agree with Lord John Eussell that this is a time for folding of hands and waiting for more experience. The experience already had directs us to the policy of giving the highest degree of awe and certainty to the penalty attached to crimes of the deepest dye ; and nothing would conduce more to this end than the limita- tion of the punishment of death to murder and treason, instead of hackneying its terrors, as now, by mock applications to other classes of offences. — (1840.) The abolitionists are falling into the fallacy of vitupe- ration with regard to those who are not prepared to come to their conclusions ; and Lord Nugent tells people who do not think it safe to abolish capital punishment in the case of murder, that they may shed blood like water, as if they entertained the most sanguinary propensities, and proposed the most extensive application of the punish- ment of death, instead of the narrowest. We have been amongst the oldest, and not the least for- ward or active, advocates of the mitigation of the criminal law : but we have always deemed the care for the safety of society the first duty of humanity ; and the kindness to the criminal that breaks down the protection of the inno- 358 THE LAW. cent seems to us to deserve no better name than that of thoughtless cruelty. — (1846.) To us it seems that the example that the criminal is put out of the world is all that is necessary to the ends and policy of justice ; that the salutary example is in the fact, not in the spectacle of carrying the sentence into effect, and that the less known of the details the better for the dignity of justice and the honour of humanity. We have done with the dissection of the criminal's body ; let the not less loathsome anatomy of the penalty follow. — (1849.) TRIAL BY JURY. A jury is of excellent use against the oppression of the Crown, as a wool-pack is of good service against a cannon shot; but we. employ juries for every- day purposes of justice, and, strange to say, prudent men do not walk about fortified with wool-packs against possible bullets. Would we abolish that glory of Britain, the Trial by Jury ? No, for we know not how to do without it, until the evil which makes evil good is removed. A government which proceeds not from the people, and consequently has not their confidence, compels cumbrous precautions against abuse. To revert to our former illustration, we must harness ourselves with wool-packs against danger from our Lord the King. Under these circumstances, the institution is not one to warrant pride. But, like the people of the Alps, we pique ourselves on our wens. — (1827.) TEE LAW. 359 EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES. The trial of Madame LafFarge 1 has terminated in a verdict of guilty under extenuating circumstances! If the woman be guilty, what can be the extenuatiDg circumstances? She is either completely innocent, or she is guilty of a murder the most cold-blooded and treacherous ; and the circumstances of the crime were circumstances of the most heinous aggravation. The verdict is either a cruel wrong to innocence, or it is an encouragement to assassination. The fact appears to be that a few theatrical airs upon a trial constitute what French juries call 'extenuating circumstances.' This is not the first verdict of guilty under extenuating circumstances upon cases of the murder of husbands by their wives. Interesting poisoners are not uncommon in France. If the husband be old and ugly and the wife young and spiritual, the circum- stances of poisoning him are ' extenuating.' We prefer the English verdict on the parallel case of the husband who had killed a shrew — sawed her right. This is at least intelligible, which the ' extenuating circumstances ' of the French are not. That Madame LafFarge poisoned her unfortunate husband, seems certain enough : but for what it served him right in the opinion of the Jury we are at a loss to divine, except indeed that he was incon- venient to a wife who had a young lover. But the lady acted her part theatrically, and a theatrical drapery in France covers a multitude of sins. 1 Tried in Paris for the murder of her husband by the administration of arsenic. — (Ed.) 360 THE LAW. The c Chronicle ' observes that there are now no less than nine or ten parricides in France who have been found guilty under extenuating circumstances ; and we have been reminded that the Jury, in delivering its verdict on one of them, explained that the circumstance extenuating the murder of the father was, that the prisoner had also before murdered his mother. — (1840.) THE LAWYERS AT LOGGERHEADS. A man who has said any enormously foolish thing never retracts. He lies by till some mention is made of it in which he may be sure to find some slight inaccuracy, upon which he raises an outcry of misrepresentation ; and the nonsense which he did talk is then lost sight of in the much ado about the nonsense which he did not talk. The House of Commons published a Eeport on the state of Newgate, in which the Inspector stated, amongst other examples of mismanagement, that an obscene book, published by Stockdale, was found in the possession of a prisoner. Upon this the virtuous Stockdale brought his series of actions for libel, and the Chief Justice Denman, in his judgment, remarked — 8 That the defamatory matter had no bearing on any question in Parliament, or that could arise there, and that the nature of the book had nothing on earth to do with the question as to hoiv prisons could best be regidated' A more enormous absurdity than this was surely never uttered. In Bacine's * Plaideurs ' there is nothing to equal it in extravagance. The inquiry of the Commons was whether the re^ula- THE LAW. 361 tion of Newgate was what it ought to be, or whether it required amendment, and the Chief Justice declared, ex cathedra, that the nature of a book found in the hands of a prisoner had nothing on earth to do with the question as to the regulation of the gaol, and that whether the book was obscene or decent could have no influence in determining how prisons could best be regulated. Why, the fact that the book was obscene was one of the evi- dences of defective regulation, and one of the grounds showing the necessity for an improved management. Suppose that instead of a bad book a woman of the town had been found with a prisoner, the Chief Justice, by a parity of reasoning, would have held that the character of the woman should not have been adverted to, as it was quite irrelevant to prison discipline whether the person was Mrs. Fry or Miss Millwood. According to the sage Chief Justice, the Keport should only have stated that a book was found, suppressing any mention of its character, and leaving people to suppose that it was the Bible, or the i Whole Duty of Man ; ' and this was to enlighten the public as to the state of Newgate, and to show the occasion for better regulations ! Cards were found ; and why were they called cards in the Eeport ; why not pasteboard ? A cribbage -board was found ; why was the use of the bit of wood with holes in it mentioned ? Porter was found ; why was its quality named ; why not described as a liquid ? It will be answered, naming the natures of these things did no injury to anyone's character ; but this is not so ; the presence of such things in the prison argued gross mis- conduct on the part of the managers of the gaol, and 362 THE LAW. hurt thein, we have no doubt, incomparably more than the charge of having published an obscene book hurt the virtuous publisher of ' Harriette Wilson's Memoirs. ' The dictum of Chief Justice Denman, reduced to a proposition, would be, that the nature of a thing is irre- levant to an inquiry whether the thing should be where it is found. Lord Denman does not retract a syllable of his monstrous proposition ; he avows his adherence to it, and repeats the shallow remark : ' And how could it at all bear upon the question as to the way in which a privilege of the House of Commons was exercised whether a particular man had in his possession an obscene book or not ? ' It is a privilege of the House to publish the grounds of its proceedings. It is a privilege of the House to show that it has grounds for improving the regulation of a gaol, by showing that things of a very improper character are found in such gaol. The fact of the character of the book bears on the question of privilege precisely as the fact of the character of the book was one of the circumstances on which the House was to prove that the exercise of its legislative authority in com- pelling better regulation was called for. Why is not an indictment, or a declaration, or evidence, impugning the characters of persons in Courts of Law, liable to prosecutions for libel, or for slander ? Because they are necessary to the proceedings of the Court ; and on the same ground precisely the publication of facts discreditable to individuals is privileged and protected by the Commons. THE LAW. 3G3 The character of a servant is a privileged communica- tion. The mistress of a family has to state that she found the woman who had the charge of her daughters in the habit of reading an indecent book. Has the nature of the book nothing to do with the question whether this was a privileged communication ? There can have been no disposition in any quarter to run down Lord Denman. When at the bar there was no man more beloved and esteemed. He was looked up to with respect as the very model of a high-minded gentleman. The best men of his time have been proud to call him friend. In private character no man ever stood higher. In his public career he has generally borne his faculties so as never to provoke to disparagement, or to an unfriendly questioning of his pretensions, ordinarily kept within the bounds of his merit and modesty. It has therefore been with pain and reluctance that persons having a sincere and deep respect for his general character have felt compelled to notice errors in his judicial career, such as his conduct in Lord Waldegrave's trial ; his ful- some compliments to Lord Cardigan, solemnly acquitted of an offence of which he had been notoriously guilty ; and lastly, his bearing in the conflict with the Commons, which has been as wanting in decorum as his decision has been in judgment. Besides these instances might be noted some examples of a leaning to the protection of strained or abused authority, which may be referable to that anxiety to appear clear of one bias which precipi- tates a man into another. It lias not been out of any disposition to find fault with Lord Denman that these errors have been censured, but notwithstanding the 364 THE 1AW. prepossession in his favour, and the expectation that his judicial career would be marked by the same qualities that had so honourably distinguished the preceding part of his life.— (1843.) ' THE BAE AXD THE PRESS. The Press and the Bar are at war. The gentlemen of the Western and the Oxford Circuits are of opinion that it is inconsistent with the dignity and independence of their body for any member of it to furnish reports to a news- paper. The Italians say that they never heard any talk of virtue till the English came amongst them, and the talk of the thing was probably no sign of its increased preva- lence. The Bar is always boasting of its honour and in- dependence. The other professions, the Army, the Navy, the Church, the Physicians and Surgeons, are not for ever talking of their honour and independence. A woman who is always boasting of her virtue gets suspected ; indeed there is an immodesty in the vaunt ; and men who are always prating of their honour and independence raise the question whether it is as much in their hearts as in their mouths. The talk of the honour of the Bar is too apt to remind one of the honour proverbial amongst thieves ; and in the two codes of honour, so far as they are known, the same principle is observable ; the limitation of the fair dealing to the class, and no extension of it to the public. The lawyer is not to do this or that to the lawyer : lie may do what he likes to the non-professional. No other body of men, excepting the electors of close THE LAW. 365 boroughs, make the same boast of their independence ; and, if their honour has no more reality, their moral plight must be rather a bad one. They are dependent on the attorneys ; and it is only a Komilly, a Scarlett, a Follett, who surmounts that dependence. Every junior barrister depends on the attorneys for the opportunity of exhibiting whatever knowledge and talents he may possess. Men established in practice, but not having the rare fame or fashion making their employment in every cause a matter of course, would lose their bread with the loss of the attorneys' favour. What in the world, then, is the peculiar independence of the Bar ? Of whom or of what is it that they are so specially independent ? If they talked to us of their dependence, we could un- derstand their arguments better. If, for instance, the gentlemen of the Western and Oxford Circuits alleged that regard to their dependence made it inexpedient to allow members of their body to report for newspapers, the plea would be at least intelligible ; the apprehension being that to the dependence on attorney may be added dependence on the reporter, who has opportunities of making or marring the fame recommending counsel to employment. And how is it that the Western and Oxford Circuits now for the first time feel their dignity and independence in danger from professional reporters ? Is the Bar more frail than formerly ? Are its dignity and independence less able to hold out against temptations to truckling? Have barristers less confidence in each other than for- merly ; are they more suspicious and jealous ; have they 366 THE LAW. less reliance and less reason for reliance on the dignity and independence about which they make such a noise ? In former days the Bar could take care of its dignity and honour, even though barristers reported for news- papers. In the days of Eomilly, Stephen and Starkey reported ; in more recent times, and compatibly with the aforesaid dignity and independence, a Campbell and a Talfourd have reported. The virtue of the Bar could bear it then. Is it feebler now ? The Clergy, when they are in anger at anything, put the d to it, and call out that the Church is in danger. The Bar cries that its virtue is in danger, a thing which no Scipio ever did. It is prudery that is justly suspected for taking fright at what should have no seductive force. A robust integrity demands no new safeguards, discovers no temptations where none had hitherto been felt. With reference to some recent cases of legal immorality, it will be said that the conduct in question was condemned by the profession as exceeding the Counsel's license ; but was the condemnation carried into any practical effect ? Were the advocates expelled the circuit, or disbarred, as having compromised the dignity of the profession ? Did their brethren shun them ? Was any mark of discoun- tenance put upon them ? On the very first opportunity one was raised to the Bench in the Court of Bankruptcy ; the other to the Solicitor-Generalship, whence he will probably pass to one of the highest seats in Judicature ! We are not sorry that the indiscreet conduct of a part of the Bar has called attention to its morality, which we consider most vicious and mischievous ; but we are also quite ready to admit that the sins of the profession are THE LAW. 86 ; generally confined to the profession, and that a body of men more honourable and more truthful than the lawyers are out of their Courts cannot be found. It is only in the place devoted to the investigation of truth that they are the advocates of falsehood for a guinea ; it is only in the very temple of Justice that they glory in procuring the triumph of the wrong-doer. We are acquainted with one honourable instance of revolt against the professional morality. A gentleman of superior abilities, advanced in his profession, high on his circuit if not leader of it, and making a handsome in- come, retired, made a sacrifice of all that he had spent half a life in labouring for, because he could not reconcile the licenses of the advocate with the notions of honour, justice, and morality. — (1845.) THE COUKT OF JENNERS. The Court of Arches is a Court impersonal. In other courts the judge frequently speaks of himself, but in the Court of Arches the President's name is never heard ; it is the Court that feels this and that, and does this and that. The Court was the other day ' disgusted,' and more re- cently it was ' indignant ; ' but a Court should know only one mood, that of justice, and the calmness and dispas- sionateness belonging to it. Disgust and indignation should be utterly foreign to the feelings of a Court of Law. But this Court of Arches is unlike any other Court. It is a Court with a large family tree planted in it. The Court has a son a Proctor, another an Advocate ; it has a son-in-law brother-in-law of a party in a suit, and two sons who are indebted to the same party for hospitality. 368 THE LAW, There is no other Court that presents such delightful domestic features. You are in that Court in the bosom of a family amongst whom reigns the most perfect concord." They are all Proctors, Advocates, &c, as like one another as so many peas. Take care, therefore, not to mistake the Judge for the Advocate, or the Advocate for the Judge. The Judge speaks in the name of the Court, because of the number of the Jenners, whose name is Legion. He is called Fust Jenner, a corruption of First Jenner, to signify that he stands first on the family list ; but to tell who is last Jenner would require a vast deal of counting, for there are Jenners without end in that Court. The Court has ceased to be known and described as the Court of Arches : an unmeaning- name ; it is now called the Court of Jenners. — (1848.) THE PALACE COURT. 1 The question that occurs to everyone, upon Jacob Omnium's exposure of the Palace Court, is why such a nuisance was allowed to survive the institution of the County Courts, which should have superseded it ? The Palace Court, with its monopolies of barristers and attor- neys, must have been bad enough at any and every time; but the establishment of the County Courts was actually calculated to make it worse ; and yet, for some unaccount- able reason, it was permitted to continue its existence after that measure of reformation. 1 It will be remembered how Mr. Iliggins, under his nom de plume of Jacob Omnium, exposed the iniquity of this Court in the ' Times/ and, aided by the fun and humour of Thackeray in 'Punch/ succeeded in getting it abolished. — (Editor.) THE LAW. 369 From the moment that a Court affording cheap justice was created, it obviously became the evil interest of the Palace Court to preserve its custom by bidding for plain- tiffs, and making the cost of resisting claims as heavy as possible to defendants. Its policy was to hold a dear shop in rivalry with the cheapness of the County Courts. ' Here we punish defendants,' might be the promise over the doors. 4 The Court for Plaintiffs,' should be its great advertise- ment. But so well is the thing understood that the common threat upon any demur against a demand is to put the party into the Palace Court : a menace full of significance, and which compels submission to many an extortionate claim. Every knave knows how to use the costs of the Palace Court so as to counsel submission ; and somehow or other it is remarked that plaintiffs are very successful in that Court, though it is not for a moment to be supposed that gratitude for bringing grist to the mill has anything to do with that circumstance. The phenomenon of the general success of plaintiffs has its effects, whatever may be the cause ; and claimants go where there is such an extraordinary run both of blind fortune and of blind justice for their class. Defendants in the same tribunal are of course looked upon with no friendly eye ; for how should they be regarded but witli an adverse feeling, when it is remarked that they are always in the wrong ? The honest attorneys and counsel naturally entertain a prejudice, if not some spice of ill- will, against a class of persons who come there to resist the fair claims upon them. Mr. Omnium's advocate was quite ashamed of his cause ; but, to be sure, he had not learnt the merits of it ; for this simple reason, probably, B B 370 THE LAW. that no defendant's case in the Palace Court is supposed to have any merits. It never occurred to Mr. Omnium's counsel that he could have right on his side ; and the learned gentleman did not know that his client was charged with the keep of a horse got out of his possession by swindling pretences, till the verdict was given against him, and the costs extorted Mr. Omnium's vehement pro- testations. This shows the sort of chance defendants have in that court, and that, the opinion running against them as much as the judgments, an advocate does not think it worth while to inquire even into the facts of their cases. The days of the Plaintiffs' Court may now, however, be considered as numbered, for, in the classical language of the Polite Conversations, it got the wrong sow by the ear when it gripped Jacob Omnium, and his exposure of it is tantamount to sentence of abolition. But what will ulti- mately abate the nuisance will temporarily be of vast service to it, for every knave who reads the Omnium statement will forthwith rush to that court, or make it the sword and shield of his extortions. ' Your money, or the Palace Court ! ' will be the dread alternative. As when the fat old gentleman cried out that he was robbed of his hat, a bystander asking why he did not pursue the thief, the despoiled replied, in batter-pudding accents, ' I am so corpulent I cannot stir a step without losing my breath.' ' Not a step ? ' repeated the interrogator. c Not a step, if my life depended on it.' ' Then here goes at your wig,' was the response ; the action suited to the word, and the wig following the hat. And similar in encouragement will be the consequence of proclaiming the hapless helpless lot of defendants in the THE LAW. 371 Palace Court. As you cannot resist a fleecing, fleeced you will be ; and, because Jacob Omnium has been robbed of his hat, his neighbour will be pillaged of his wig. For the present the exposure is the best possible advertisement for the Court ; but it must make hay while the sun shines, for its days are numbered. — (1848.) ALDERMANATION OF JUSTICE. The flower of Justices' justice is Aldermen's justice. We were obliged some years since to invent a name for it. The thing being sui generis, and having no bearing at all on legal administration, or judicial administration, or common-sense administration of any kind, we called it Aldermanation. From time to time choice specimens of it adorn our columns, and but for other demands on our space we need never publish a number without it. The propensity to foolish talk and incredibly foolish conclu- sions never subsides in the City. — (1849.) LAW REFORM. Once upon a time, at a fair, we saw a hare beating a drum. The distress of the hare at a performance so re- pugnant to its quiet, timid nature may easily be imagined. At the sound of every tap the hare recoiled, but he per- sisted nevertheless ; and, not sparing himself long rolls of the drum now and then, which .seemed as nothing less than death to his nature, he yet held on to the conclu- sion of his ill-allotted part. No creature but a hare could do the thing of whicli it was so intensely afraid. When we see the Lord Chancellor engaged in law reform we again see our hare beating the drum. He B B 2 372 THE LAW. seems to wield the stick with right good will : but, when the note is struck, he too is struck with alarm at his doings, and seems as if he would gladly recall the sound. Yet he goes on, beating away, and quaking as he beats. MEDICAL EVIDENCE IN CRIMINAL TEIALS. It will always be observed in a criminal trial that, if the highest medical authorities are of one opinion, the oppo- site opinion is sure to be maintained by members of the profession who are of no authority whatever. To main- tain a thesis against such a man as Sir Benjamin Brodie, is a distinction for an obscure practitioner. It brings him into notice. It is the cheapest and best advertisement. The first surgeon of our time is of one opinion, but Galli- pot and Bolus are of another, and Gallipot and Bolus must be men of mark, or they would not presume to take the field against Sir Benjamin Brodie. And these men thus actually derive an importance from the authority which they have the ignorance or impudence, or both, to dispute. They differ from Sir B. Brodie, forsooth. They are in the lists against the first authority. As Cobbett expressed it, the bug brags of being the man's bedfellow. The medical profession is a very large one, and it is no reproach to it to say that it must have many unsuccessful and some unworthy members, who are always on the look out for opportunities of making their names heard of, and attracting attention. A hardy assertion against a re- corded opinion or scientific experience, upon such an oc- casion as the late trial, is a sure way of obtaining notoriety. The greater the paradox, the greater the attention it attracts when life and death are at stake. — (185G.) FOREIGN POLITICS. 373 CHAPTEE V. FOREIGN POLITICS, THE AUTOCEAT OF ALL THE TAILOES. The Eussian Ukase, published -in our last number, prohibiting the costume of the Poles, and prescribing the cut and colour of the clothes which it is the Auto- crat's pleasure that they shall wear, and which are to be had at his imperial slop-shops ' under prime cost,' as he advertises, has excited more disgust than any other act of tyranny of our time, inasmuch as it is the smallest act of tyranny of our time — the meanest act of tyranny of our time. It is an act of tyranny, indicating at once the deepest hatred and the smallest mind. There is in it the largest stretch of authority to the most despicable matters, to the pettiest vexation. Here is a tyranny below the dignity of fetters, a tyranny of stuffs and gaberdines — a tyranny of slops — a tyranny of buttons instead of bolts — and which confines its victims to stuffs instead of to stone walls. The man ought to be ridiculed on every stage in the civilised world, and should pass henceforth, not under the name of the Autocrat, but the more strictly character- istic one of the Slop- seller. As Peter the Great learnt naval architecture practically in a ship-builder's yard, so let us 374 FOREIGN POLITICS. imagine the great Nicholas apprenticing himself to a tailor and man-milliner to acquire the art of regulating the cut and colour of the coats and breeches, the smocks and petticoats, of his Polish victims. Imagine him in the disguise of the ninth-part of a man prying into the under garments of his Polish subjects, and meditating the ever- sion of a costume, and the establishment of gaberdines. His rod is now the cloth-yard of the man-milliner, his imperial measures are now the tailor's measures. Despo- tism is the author of its own richest burlesque on the stage of Poland.— (1838). THE FORTIFICATIONS OF PAEIS. We have witnessed many strange things in our time, but the most whimsical of all is certainly the fortification of Paris. It is a new sight to see a people most indus- triously and joyfully engaged in building a huge gaol for themselves : throwing up works commanding their own liberties, planting cannon which may strike noisy Paris dumb and make its malcontent citizens quiet as mice, under any coup d'etat of the sovereign authority. The fortification of Paris is the counter-work to the Eevolution of July : it is the barricade reversed. It de- clares that there shall be but one more revolution, when- ever the occasion is ripe for it. The machinery for a tyranny will all be fabricated, and in position, and nothing wanting but the despotic spirit to turn the ready-made powers to their bad uses. When the tyrant's artisan made the brazen bull, he had no presage that he was to be the first sufferer in it ; and FOREIGN POLITICS. 375 so the Parisians are delighted to construct their bull, without a suspicion that it will be their allotted part to bellow in it. They applaud it, they pay for it, they build it, they will be held fast in it. The wickedest old city in the world at last puts itself in gaol. They know not what they are doing, it will be said ; but shameful is the defence that France is so carried away by fear of foreign enemies as to lose sight of her own liberties and their safe keeping. If she be not acting in fear she is acting in bravado, and what bravado, and at what a price ! a bravado at the cost of the securities for liberty, and the sorry bravado of saying that a foreign enemy may ravage all France, but shall not capture Paris ! But in such a bravado must be implied the design of some great aggression, the invasion of neighbouring countries, the attack on their liberties, and a hold to retreat to in the capital in the event of failure and retaliation ; and in this case a fitness of a certain bad kind is observable, namely, that the appui for attempts against the liberties of other nations involves in danger the liberties of the people entertaining such criminal designs. In one view the fortification of Paris may certainly diminish the chances of foreign invasion. The despotic Powers have been inimical to France because of the ex- ample of her revolutions, and the democratic opinions which triumphed in the last of them ; but when they see Paris under the lock and key of the King, bolted in by forts bristling with cannon, and barred in by circumval- lations, even their jealousy of the democratic tendencies of France may be dismissed, and they may leave the King 376 FOBEIGN POLITICS. with the new powers put into his hands, to settle the question of liberty and constitutional rights with the people at the feet of his fortresses. The conduct of the French Liberals on this occasion is a matter for wonder and lamentation. They have been the most eager for the defences against improbable ex- ternal dangers, which will be their sure shackles at home. The valour of the French is beyond dispute, but on this question it would have been well if their daring and their caution had changed directions ; if their fears and their prudence had been more for liberty at home ; their rashness, and neglect of defensive precautions, for enemies abroad. The excess of caution and the excess of hazard have both been miserably misplaced. If it had so happened that the Press of England had, instead of ridiculing the fortification of Paris, approved of it, we strongly suspect that the Liberals of France would have begun to see in it all the dangerous uses to which it may be turned ; for since the unfortunate differ- ences have arisen between the two countries, our neigh- bours judge of all things by the rule of contraries, and infer that whatever is done or approved by England must be injurious to themselves, or that whatever is objected to or discountenanced by us must be beneficial to them. It is, however, with a sincere interest in the liberties and the dignity of France that her best friends in England lament the fortification of Paris as both unworthy of a great and brave people, and unsafe to a great and brave people, who may defy ' any invasion but the invasion which they themselves are now facilitating : the invasion of their civil rights. — (1841.) FOREIGN POLITICS. 377 THE WAKS OF ETIQUETE. In the Facetice of Hierocles a scholar asks his sick friend how he does ; and, receiving no answer, he flies into a passion and exclaims, 'Ah, I hope it will be my turn to be sick soon, and when you inquire how I am I will not tell you.' The retaliation of mighty potentates now-a-days is very much like the retaliation of the simpleton in the old Greek story, but with this improvement, that the illness is feigned and vicarious. The French Ambassador at Petersburg is ordered to be sick on the Emperor's birthday, and unable to offer his congratulations. The Emperor is not without his revenge. Like the scholar of Hierocles, he hopes that it will be his turn to be sick by representative soon ; and, his Ambas- sador having been directed to run away, his Charge d' Affaires has instructions to fall ill on the 1st of January, and to fail accordingly to offer the new-year congratula- tions to Louis Philippe. What a vast improvement is this upon the old modes of waging quarrels between crowned heads. Fifty years ago the same provocation might have been the cause of a long and bloody war ; but now, instead of the destruction of thousands on both sides, the wrath of kings is satisfied with the sickness, and that pretended, of their respective diplomatists. How much better is this childish duel of indispositions, requiring no doctor, than the barbarous old recourse to arms, punishing multitudes on both sides who had no part or interest in the quarrel. A princely pique, which would once on a time have found a voice in 378 FOREIGN POLITICS. the roar of a hundred cannons, now conies to its extremi- ties on the one side with the resolution, ' I will not com- pliment him on his birthday ;' on the other, 'And I will be even with him, for I will not congratulate him on New- Year's day.' How incomparably better is this than sabring and shooting each other's subjects. ISTo waste of blood and treasure in this quarrel, no list of killed and wounded ; one diplomatist, on each side, sick for a forenoon only, and that only in sham. And, instead of the ruinous expendi- ture of wars, the retrenchment of the compliments of the season satisfies the once terrible wrath of Kings. This is the cut between Sovereigns ; and how vast an improvement it is on that vengeance which they used to take, not by cutting each other, but by their cutting the throats of each other's subjects. As the last resource of the people against the Sovereign is now-a-days to stop the supplies instead of stopping his breath, as in more violent times, so let the last extremity of princes towards each other be the stop- ping of the civilities. — (1842.) LOUIS PHILIPPE. We have heard only one excuse for Louis Philippe's plot to overthrow the Government of Spain, and that is the uncontrollable force of his family affections. It is alleged that he is so devoted to every branch of his family that he loses sight of all the dictates of prudence and all the distinctions of right and wrong when any opportunity of serving them occurs. * In the slang of thieves the burglar is called ' the family man,' which would seem to signify some connection, like FOREIGN POLITICS. 379 that to be traced in the recent conduct of Louis Philippe, between the domestic ties and breaking into one's neigh- bour's house. Yet so modest are the smaller order of rogues, that we have never heard the apology of the affections offered in palliation of their trespasses against the rights of property. An attempt at murder and robbery has never yet, we believe, been excused on the ground that the culprit did it to aggrandise his family. The first of ' the family men ' for whom this plea has been set up is His Most Christian, or, let us suggest the emendation, His Most Christina, Majesty the King of the French. ' There are men,' says Bacon, ' who are such self-lovers that they will set their neighbour's house on fire to roast their own eggs in the embers.' One of this class is cer- tainly the much-lauded Louis Philippe, who would throw a nation into the horrors of civil war to steal a crowned match for his son. The return due to him for the money he has spent for this object is the guilt of all the blood that has been spilt, and the infamy of the vilest treachery. — (1841.) A very ugly man, who was a great horticulturist, being found by a visitor perched up in a cherry tree, his friend exclaimed, * No wonder, Philip, that you have the finest fruit in the country ; for you are not only your own gar- dener, but, egad, you are your own scarecrow too.' Louis Philippe combines the same sort of offices. He is not only the cultivator of Conservatism, but, perched upon the throne of France, he is also his own scarecrow of revolu- tion. A people who see what they have done in such a 380 FOREIGN POLITICS. result may vow to make no more revolutions, as folks who have been disappointed in any benevolent office solemnly resolve never to do another good action. — (1842.) A great admiration of the wisdom of Louis Philippe was at one time the fashion, and many eulogies of him have been delivered by the leading statesmen in both Houses of Parliament. We have always questioned the justness of those panegyrics. We have never been able to discover the grounds for them. Louis Philippe in our view is a wily man, but not a wise one. He is crafty in his man- agement of means for an end, but short-sighted in his choice of objects. He does not form correct calculations of difficulties ; but, when they arise, he is dexterous in coping with them. He is perpetually making the mistake proverbially described as ' reckoning without your host ; ' but, when out in his reckoning, he is very ingenious in shifts, and contrives to leave the host in the lurch. We have often heard it said, ' What a clever man Louis Philippe is ! see how he gets out of his difficulties ; ' but the answer has always seemed to us to be : ' See also how he got into his difficulties.' This is what the world does not look to. As the ' Great Britain's ' getting ashore was a nine days' wonder, while getting her off again has occupied the public attention for a year, so Louis Philippe's triumph over embarrassments of his own creating has filled with admiration minds that have ceased to remember how he got into the scrape. His sort of cleverness is like that of a clown in a pantomime, who vigorously knocks his head against the wall without FOREIGN POLITICS. 381 hurting himself. Never was there a greater mistake than that of ascribing prudence to him. He is adroit, but not prudent. He has in an eminent degree the French genius for making shift, — for making the best of bad positions, and turning men and circumstances to account. But this kind of dexterity will not always avail ; it will be overmastered at last : the pitcher goes once too often to the well. And the present imprudence of the King of the French threatens to be irreparable. He has not observed that wise rule of Mcol Jarvie, not to put the arm in further than it can be safely drawn back again. He has overreached himself in Spain, and for dynastic objects endangered his dynasty. The train of embarrass- ing events is likely to be longer than his life, and any precipitated solution of them would have the most grave consequences. Louis Philippe's last days will be passed in cares and troubles, the bitter fruits of his own cupidity — ' the mighty pains to mighty mischiefs due.' — (1847.) We have before observed that Louis Philippe has, in a way, profited largely by his acquaintance with many vicissitudes of fortune. From the period when he was a French master to that when lie became master of the French, he has been hoarding experiences of different lots, by which he has learnt the sensitive and vulnerable places of each, and how they may be assailed with the most malignant effect. Eeversing the beautiful sentiment of Virgil, that Prince may say that, not unacquainted with misfortune, he has learnt how to wound the unfortunate. He has the advantage, which the practical anatomist had 382 FOREIGN POLITICS. in assassination, of knowing how to aim his weapon at the tenderest and the mortal places. Whenever from any sordid canse — and sordid the cause always is — his ill-will has been moved, his rule has been this simple one, to do unto others as he would not, under the same cir- stances, have had others do unto him. In the probable course of events, the two princes (the Due d'Aumale and the Prince de Joinville), who are said to have departed so suddenly lest they should happen to meet Espartero, will at some future day be again on these shores as their father was before them, and as were his two predecessors on the throne ; and hard will be their fate if it be divested of those consolations which their sordid and ungenerous House grudges to those who are the objects of its hate, in the same proportion that they have been the sufferers by its injuries, both open and covert. These Orleans Bourbons are the proverbial beggars on horseback, and have a pitiless hoof for the unfortunate that are overthrown in the path of their ambition. They are now too, in the elation of seeming safety, in their saddles. All their treacheries have succeeded. To steal a match they have set their neighbour's house on fire, and ex- pelled the faithful steward. At home, they have the short-sighted, foolish people of the capital fast incarce- rated in the huge gaol of their own building. But, notwithstanding all that stone and iron can do, and the craft of the falsest of men, and the blindness of the most infatuated of people, England may again see Bourbons seeking her shelter as Espartero their victim does now ; but without Espartero's claims to honour for FOREIGN POLITICS. 383 the cause in which he nobly rose by his own talents and worth ; from which he fell by the treachery and wicked- ness of others. — (1843.) Some of our contemporaries are tearing their hair, and rending their garments, and scattering ashes on their heads, because the Duke of Bordeaux has a tail, a regular pig-tail, of French Eoyalists paying homage to him and be-kinging him. It is said that Louis Philippe is made miserable by this ado, and that all availeth not to comfort him while the Morel ecai sits in the gate of the Queen's Pimlico. We have never undertaken the office of comforter to the King of the French, but it is time that we should begin. Solomon says there is safety in a number of counsellors, in which he is quite wrong : but there is safety in a num- ber of Pretenders ; and Louis Philippe has to observe that we have in this realm another claimant to the French Crown in the person of one self-styled the Duke of Nor- mandy ; and these two Pretenders should settle their rival claims before either should inspire any uneasiness in the breast of the King of the French. Each has had his fol- lowers, though of different sorts, the Duke of Bordeaux having been followed by French Carlists, and the Duke of Normandy by English creditors. The Duke of Bor- deaux has not been noticed in any way by the Court ; the Duke of Normandy has had much of the notice of the Court for Insolvent Debtors. The Duke of Bordeaux has not been received at the Court of St. James's : the Duke 384 FOREIGN POLITICS. of Normandy has been not only received at the Court of Bequests and the Court of Conscience, but specially and urgently summoned to attend them. The Duke of Nor- mandy has been shot at in proof of his claims ; the Duke of Bordeaux has no such evidence to show in support of his pretensions. So far how much the balance of credit is on the side of the Duke of Normandy. But it is not enough to compare the two. Louis Philippe has shut up in one of his prisons a third Pre- tender, who went in the ' City of Boulogne ' steam-boat to take France, and who did take nothing but Champagne, a province for which he had a peculiar capacity, till he himself was taken in turn. Let Louis Philippe instantly release and send over to England this third Pretender, and then they may fight the triangular combat of Capt. Marryat ; the Duke of Normandy firing away his pre- tensions against the Duke of Bordeaux, the Duke of Bordeaux against Prince Napoleon, the Prince Napoleon against the Duke of Normandy. Defendit numerus is a good maxim, especially in the case of Pretenders. Let the gentlemen first settle it amongst themselves. The alarms of the King of the French may wait till the rivals have adjusted their conflicting claims. — (1843.) THE NEW WORLD WAY TO PAY OLD WORLD DEBTS. The last news from the Jeremy Diddler of Nations is, that public opinion in Texas is divided between slavery and anti-slavery, and in certain States of the Union between repudiation and honesty, or, in other words, between the old way of paying debts and the New FOREIGN POLITICS. 385 World's way of renouncing them. What creditable dis- cussions are these two ! There is a song about a miller's legacy to his sons, which presents an idea by which Brother Jonathan seems to have profited. The honest man, at the point of death, declares that he will leave his mill to the most worthy of his three sons, and desires each to say how he would carry on the trade. The eldest says that out of a bushel he'll steal a peck ; the second, improving, promises, ' out of a bushel a half I'd steal ; ' the third, Father, I am your youngest "boy, And making money's all my joy : Sooner than profit I would lack, Fd steal the corn and forswear the sack. This is the first hint of repudiation on record, and, fol- lowing it out, the Diddler of the world pouches the loan and forswears the debt. The Correspondent of the ' Chronicle ' says : — ' The letter of the Eev. Sydney Smith, on the non- payment of the interest of the Pennsylvania State debt, has been extensively published in this country, eliciting numerous replies. Indeed, the venerable writer must expect a shower of paper pellets in return ; but alas ! no increased chance as yet for an early resumption of pay- ment.' To get cocoa-nuts the negroes throw stones at the monkeys in the trees : Jacko, eager for retaliation, seizes the first missile at paw, and returns the favour with a cocoa-nut, which Blacky joyfully catches. c c 386 FOREIGN POLITICS. Mr. Sydney Smith has pelted Jonathan with his wit, in the hope of getting the nut of liquidation flung in return at his head ; but the tree (a slip of the Tyburn tree) on which our brother is perched bears a fruit having not the least resemblance to nuts, and the exchange is of the sorriest material. The Correspondent of the ' Chronicle ' continues : — ' England is smartly peppered, and all her financial peccadilloes, from the reign of King John down to the present day, are referred to by way of showing that she also had not always been quite as correct as she ought.' So a fellow who beats the brains out of another may quote Cain and Abel as a precedent. Man, Scripture says, is prone to evil, But does that justify the devil ? We wonder that Jonathan does not cite, as a holy sanction, the loan of the Israelites from the Egyptians, with the sequence, ' and they spoiled the Egyptians.' For a profane and modern authority, what says Shake- speare, too ? ' Base is the slave who pays.' And how then, can free-born citizens think of doing an act base in the slave whom they hold as one of their most cherished institutions. Some of the American scribes maintain that they mean to pay some time or other, in a paulo-post future tense, when quite convenient. The toper, in his song in answer to ' Which is the best day to drink? ' finds each day good in its order, but the first best ; but very different is the response to, * Which is the best day to pay ? ' There is no day late enough. When one of our great men, at a monster meeting of FOREIGN POLITICS. 387 his creditors, was much pressed to name a day, the spokesman assuring him that they would be content with any time he would appoint so that he fixed one positively and kept his engagement, the wit answered, ' Well, gen- tlemen, as you will have me fix a day, suppose we say the day of judgment, but as that will be a busy day, perhaps it will be better to name the day after.' Perhaps the same arrangement would suit the Diddler of the New World. We were much struck with a letter from Mr. Charles Matthews in the newsj)apers some short time ago, in which lie describes himself as torn to pieces by a ravenous pack of creditors. When we read it, our gall rose against all creditors, and it seemed to us that such monsters should not be suffered to exist. A day or two after, a turn was given to our animosities by one of Mr. Sydney Smith's exhibitions of the odious nature of dis- honest debtors. Now might it not be so managed that these two plagues should be turned against each other, and could a better vengeance be taken on America than to pay off Mr. Charles Matthews's creditors with Pennsylvanian bonds ? The monsters would then be fairly pitted against each other — an equal duel between tiger and crocodile. — (1843.) THE SPANISH MARRIAGE. We can easily believe that the murder of the Duchess de Praslin filled Louis Philippe with horror. It must have shocked his humanity, and it ought to have touched and alarmed his conscience ; not that he was in the re- motest way accountable for that particular crime, but as c c 2 388 FOREIGN POLITICS. the example of the direful extremities to which matri- monial strife may be carried in high stations should have made him reflect with sorrow and with fear on what he has done and undone in Madrid. Sickening to the imagination is the night scene of butchery in the chamber of the ill-fated Duchess de Praslin : but the assassin's malice did not go beyond the destruction of life, and his victim went to her account spotless in character and with all her virtues unblemished. The murderer made his havoc of the body, hacked with his knife, stamped on the head with the impression of the ducal arms on. the butt end of the pistol ; but here ended his malice. He shortened a blameless life : he did not make a guilty one. He was assassin of the flesh, not assassin of what it enshrined. He wrought no corruption, no depravation, no debau- chery. He contented himself with vulgar murder ; there was an obstacle to his illicit desire, and he removed it. He did not doom the victim to a position in which the virtues could not hve, and in which the vices sure to spring up would tend to ruin of every kind, ruin of charac- ter, ruin of fame, ruin of inheritance. The assassin kept all the guilt to himself ; he did not work his will through making his victim guilty. His instrument was a knife, not a snare to destroy by debauchery and degradation, or to torture into the renouncement of rights. ' What the eye does not see the heart does not rue.' The mind's eye sees the horrid scene of the wife sinking under the blows of the hand bound by every tie to protect her ; but the assassination of character and peace is not palpable. We see the wounds but do not trace them directly to the instrument, nor the instrument to the FOREIGN POLITICS. 889 hand, and they are repeated at intervals. The butcher puts the sufferer out of pain in a few minutes : but de- moralising to destroy is a slow operation requiring a sustained cruelty, which intense cupidity will supply. Such examples there have been in the annals of vulgar crime. Donellan, the guardian who murdered his ward Sir Theodosius Bough ton, commenced by giving the youth every licentious indulgence in the hope that debauchery would do the work of death. He never, however, had the wit to think of marrying him to some woman whom he would inveterately hate; and, becoming impatient of the slow process of destroying by immorality, he shortened the matter with a dose of laurel water. For this act of comparative mercy he was hanged. The suc- cession to the estate was the temptation to the crime. Successions have much to answer for in wickedness : but modes are altered, and what used to be done by wars and throat-cutting is now brought about by weddings, the Hymeneal torch being borrowed from the Furies. But to return to our text, the piteous example of the assassination of the Duchess of Praslin ; what father, with the alternative for his daughter of a death like that of the unfortunate Duchess or a life like that of Isabella of Spain, would hesitate as to the choice ? A sudden violent death on the one hand ; on the other the cruellest position in which a woman and wife can be placed, one in which it is hardly possible that the virtues most be- fitting the female character could survive, and in which, if they did survive, they would not be believed to survive, — an incredulity most powerful tending to cast down morality in despair. A Lucretia may indeed exist 390 FOREIGN POLITICS. with the repute of a Messalina, but that is not the question. It is whether any father would not prefer the worst death for his daughter with her mind unsullied, her fame unspotted, her virtues in their perfection, to such a lot as that which has been cast for the Queen of Spain, whose throne is a pillory, whose reputation is dragged through the kennel, whose married life has been a series of disgusting disappointments, mortifications, and angry conflict, and whose Court and report, truly or falsely, are the scandal of the whole civilised world. She may have resisted all the artful combinations of adverse cir- cumstances that would have demoralised ninety-nine w^omen out of a hundred in the same position ; but the question whether she has done so or not is in itself an infamy which makes her fate more to be pitied than the -victim in the late assassination, and which renders her destroyer not less to be execrated than the felon Duke of Praslin. The objects in the two cases have been different, but in morality the motives are hardly less criminal in the one instance than the other. The evil desires had different directions, but they crushed what stood between them and the coveted object with equal ruthlessness ; a mistress in the one case, a throne for a descendant in the other. Committunt eadem diverso crimina fato : Ille cruceui sceleris pretiuin tulit, bic diadeina. For taking away a life the law has its penalties ; but for taking away the happiness of a life, for taking all that gives it value, for taking away peace, innocence, the world's respect, and, worse still, self-respect, there is in FOREIGN POLITICS. 301 the moral code no worse name than ambition, or the craving for family aggrandisement. Curious it is that in France, within a year, two per- sonages have made the world ring with actions at opposite ends of the matrimonial chain ; the Duke de Praslin by his method of dissolving a union, the matchmaking King- by his refinement on the torture of old of uniting a living with a dead body, to destroy by the repugnant pestiferous connexion. We see it announced that, by order of the Queen of the French, a funeral service has been performed in the Chapel of Eu for the repose of the Duchess of Praslin. If the life of the Queen of Spain should be shortened, and she should be despatched to the place where the wicked cease from troubling, it will be not for the Queen but for the King of the French to order a funeral service for the repose of Isabella's soul. He will owe it to her ; and, when she is no longer in the way as an obstacle, he will have no indisposition to pray for the repose of the soul his machinations so troubled in the life, for there has been no malice, no ill-will in the case ; nothing but greed — nothing but what makes a vulgar villain cut a throat to obtain a coveted purse. It is too general a libel on human, or on inhuman, nature that the injurer never for- gives, but hates in proportion to the wrong he has done. This is far from uniformly true. One of the celebrated German assassins, a priest who cut the throat of a mistress who embarrassed him, administered the last offices and solaces of religion to the dying victim with his hands reeking with her hot blood. Should Louis Philippe have to order a funeral service 392 FOREIGN POLITICS. for the repose of the Queen Isabella, let it be in the Chapel of Eu, where the nuptials were discussed and the promise given which would have saved the young Queen from so much trouble and misery. — (1847.) m. lamartine's eepublic without republicans. When" M. Lamartine called for the proscription of Louis Napoleon, he uttered the condemnation and opprobrium of his Government. It could only be because M. Lamartine had been so dangerously weak that Louis Napoleon had become so dangerously strong. It was because M. La- martine had caused people in despair to look out for any man to make head against waste and anarchy, that voices were raised for the revival of dynasties as a refuge against a Jacquerie. The Assembly magnanimously negatived the proposal of proscription, holding it too shameful to avow that the weal or woe of the country depended on the absence or presence of an individual ; and it remains to be seen whether Messrs. Lamartine and Ledrii Eollin have reduced the Eepublic so low that it must sink under the mere nominis umbra of a great man. Well would it have been if M. Lamartine's fears had come upon him sooner with the extreme measures prompted by them ; well would it have been if he could have screwed his courage to the sticking place of putting aside M. Ledru Eollin and M. Louis Blanc, and of putting down the brutal Sobrier. Had these services been rendered at the time demanding them, the Eepublic would have possessed the confidence and attachment of the people, and not a thought would have been given, no eyes turned, to Pretenders. FOREIGN POLITICS. 393 It has been said, with something beyond a play on words, that M. Lamartine has proved more evolutionary than revolutionary. He has indeed been exhausting himself in personal finesses when the occasion called for the broadest of broad policy for the creation of confidence. All his art has been exhausted to keep in position with the man who filled moderate France with the direst apprehensions. Yet it is not to be denied that M. Lamartine acquitted himself nobly in the earlier passages of the revolution ; but he has not proved equal to its continuous strain upon his energies. As Bacon says, there are minds like milk, which will only bear one skimming. The association with M. Ledru Eollin was most un- fortunate ; the one a man of purpose, the other of genius. In all such trials, if prolonged, the man of will, in the long run, will prevail against the man of reason, for the will never tires, the reason does, and it succumbs to dogged obstinacy. Many scornful allusions have been made to Louis Napoleon, and we, for our own parts, have not been sparing in our comments on his silly attempts atStrasburg and Boulogne. He has had his follies, but it is most unjust to take the measure of his character from those follies ; and all who know him will agree that, apart from his pretendership, which has latterly been in abeyance, he is a thoroughly sensible and well-informed man. He has had much prejudice to encounter, and not unnaturally ; but lie has overcome it, in whatever circles he has moved, by his good sense, his urbanity, and unaffected manners. Whether he is the man for the destinies of France may be discussed without a personal disparagement, which is 394 FOREIGN POLITICS. really as little necessary to the solution of the question as it is undue. — (1848.) A traveller, asking his way in the United States, was told that there were two roads, a very detailed account of the demerits of which ended with the information that one was a good league longer than the other. ' Why did you not tell me that at first,' said the traveller, ' as it settles the choice ? ' ' Why,' answered Jonathan, ' I guess the shorter or longer makes little odds, for no matter which of the two roads you take, you will not have got far in either one before you'll heartily wish you had taken t'other/ This is likely to be the result of more than one election now before the world, with the West Biding at home, and the Presidency of the Eepublic abroad. Our neighbours will not have gone far with the man of their choice before they will heartily wish they had taken t'other ; and had they preferred him, vice versd, there would be the same penitence. Placing a Napoleon at the head of a republic seems much the same sort of operation as putting an extinguisher on the top of a candle. It is literally the capital doom of the institution. The poor Eepublic, like Gay's cucumber, having been prepared and dressed with all care, is no sooner finished than it is thrown away. As the one fault of Orlando's horse was that he was dead, so the one fault of the French Eepublic is that there are no Eepublicans to give life to it. Cavaignac was indeed one, but to have made him President would have alarmingly diminished FOREIGN POLITICS. 395 the number of true commonwealth citizens. Such a man cannot be spared from the ranks ; for not having enough to mount sentry, it would never do to make one of the scanty band generalissimo. We can now understand the forbearance towards the Eepublicans of the red hue : for want of better Eepublicans, it was felt necessary to com- pound for the bad. France has been like that celebrated young man of Ballynacrasy, who wanted a wife to make him unasy. She wanted a republic to make her uneasy, and it has answered to her desire most completely. It is another version of the fable of the Old Man and Death : she has called for a Eepublic, the Eepublic has appeared, and its looks have been liked so ill that the invoker has explained that the summons was simply to adjust the burden of the bundle of sticks. ' What do you want with me ? ' asks the grim Eepublic. ' To clap the heir of absolute Napoleon on my shoulders,' is the meek response. The name has the prestige of despotism in the inauguration of freedom. To express ourselves in a bull, it has also a bastard legitimacy to recommend it, a spurious hereditary principle ; for, in the Eepublic, the royal coin that passes current must be of a counterfeit mint. Out of the frying-pan into the fire is the predicament of France. The rule of one is intolerable to her, and she flings off monarchy and hails democracy ; and then she is as happy as the toad under the harrow, who cried ' over many masters ' when every tooth gave him a tug. The yearnings are for monarchy ; but the monarchical stocks are all worn out to the stumps, and an acceptable monarch is as scarce an article as a true Eepubhcan. The 396 FOREIGN POLITICS. Republic is Hobson's choice, and a people already sick of democracy take Louis Napoleon as an alternative. There is a sort of consistency in all these inconsistencies, as there is a consistency in the rush to water of a brood of ducks hatched by a hen. The act does not become a hen's family : but the mistake was in giving her the incubation, not in the instincts. It will be a curious problem now to see how a govern- ment repugnant to a people resolves itself into some form suitable to them, as a misshapen shoe with wear acquires an awkward kind of adjustment to the foot. Which will first be forthcoming, the people of Republicans, now the one thing wanting to the Republic, or an acceptable monarch, the one thing wanting for the restoration of monarchy ? At present the world has before it the rare dish of an apple-pie made of quinces. When will the King Pippin be found to qualify it ? It is idle to rail against the caprices, more seeming than real, of the French choice. We must not get into a rage with the nature of things, as did Sir Joseph Banks when he boiled fleas, and was wroth that they did not bear out a theory by turning red — ' Fleas are not lobsters, d — their eyes.' The French have not turned red in the hot water of the election. Cavaignac would have been the choice of true Republicans ; Napoleon is the choice of a people whose wishes are for anything but what is established. He has united the suffrages of all dissentients. Opposites have centred in him. He has the concord of the discords. Men who agree in nothing else agree in choosing him. He is the centre of opposite aims. The children of Cadmus, of the seed of the Serpent's teeth, are FOREIGN POLITICS. 397 his constituency. The Furies of France have, for the nonce, joined hands to chair him. His majority is as great as the divisions of France ; all the broken pieces went to his account, all the fractions and fragments of conflicting factions and partisanships, all the odds and ends of shivered dynasties. For the peace of France we wish a different choice had been made, or rather we wish there had existed the opinion which would have dictated another choice more in harmony with the existing order of things ; but we will not join in the injustice of disparaging the man, and rating him as despicably inferior in capacity and qualifications. He is neither the one nor the other. He is above the average in ability, and far above it in various branches of knowledge. He has habits of application and reflection, and the only thing against him is the descent which has been his sole recommendation with those necessarily in ignorance of his character. But for the name and the ambition descending with it, and inviting repetition of despotic attempts, we should have good hopes of Louis Napoleon. Our fear is that with the first turn of fortune against him (which cannot be far distant when we consider the unnatural coalitions that have raised him to power), he will endeavour to retrieve himself by enacting the part of the First Consul, and plunge France into civil war. As we remarked last June, a false measure is taken of Louis Napoleon from his enterprises at Strasburg and Boulogne ; but these attempts are now to be differently viewed with the evidence before us of the popular favour Ins pretensions have found, and which he must now have 398 FOREIGN POLITICS. the credit of having discerned when it was unsuspected by a world too logical to calculate on the prodigious incon- sistencies of the French people. — (1848.) OUR WRONGS TO THE GREEK PEOPLE. Otho, with the cunning of low natures, soon found where his strength lay. When little Isaac is told that 'his insignificance protects him,' he answers that his insignifi- cance, then, is the best friend he has in the world. The littleness of his power was of the same avail to Otho. Little as it was, it was capable of great abuses, great provocations ; but his defence was always his defence- lessness. After every escapade he was ready to throw himself upon his back, with his paws upwards, and his tongue lolled out, expressing 'kick me if you are not ashamed.' He was like a vixen who commits the out- rages of a ruffianly man, and claims the protection of the sex's weakness, daring the aggrieved to strike a woman. It was not only justifiable, but politic, to put an end to this protection of insignificance for every sort of wrong : but it is grievous to reflect that, after all, the real suf- ferers are the unoffending people whom we have placed under the yoke of this miserable king of shreds and patches.— (1850.) THE COUP D'ETAT IN PARIS. M. de CASSAGNAC has published an account of the pro- ceedings on the night of the 2nd December, which lie declares to have surpassed the 18th Brumaire in difficulty, cleverness, and grandeur. The 18th Brumaire was indeed a tame affair compared with it. When on that day it was FOREIGN POLITICS. 399 proposed to stop the communications through Paris, Napoleon desired that nothing of the sort might be done, that everything should be left in the ordinary course ; ' for,' said he, ' the people will be with me, and why should I meddle with them or derange their convenience ? ' M. Bonaparte had no such reliance, and could practise no such forbearance. Sheridan and Tickell were in the habit of playing out- rageous practical jokes upon each other. In a country- house at which they were staying on a vist. Tickell laid an ambush for Sheridan in a dark passage, which he planted with knife blades and fork prongs. Sheridan, decoyed into the snare, fell, and got cut and pierced in several places. He rushed into the drawing-room stream- ing with blood, and vowed vengeance against Tickell for so cruel and wicked a trick upon him, winding up his threats and execrations with these words, delivered with genuine enthusiasm, ' But it was admirably done.' And the same sort of praise may be assigned to the 2nd December, only setting aside the wickedness. Atro- cious acts may be cleverly executed. There have been assassinations evincing great skill in contrivance ; that of the Mannings, for example, which has several features of similarity to those of the 2nd December ; the artful pre- paration, with the hospitable invitation, and the grave ready dug under the table, so like the smiling reception at the Elysee on the night of the 1st, M. de Cassagnac describes, with great particularity, the extreme cleverness with which eighteen members of Par- liament were taken out of their beds and bundled off to gaol, in violation of the law ; and it is impossible not to 400 FOREIGN POLITICS. pile at the account of the capture of M. Thiers, found nosing behind scarlet damask curtains lined with white aaslin, and with a white night-cap drawn over his eyes. M. ^hiers comported himself on this trying occasion like Je . Bon St. Andre in Canning's ' Anti- Jacobin.' He a ied the matter with the officer, and Quoted Puffendorf and Grotius, And proved from Vattel Most exceedingly well, Such a deed would be quite atrocious. At jthe same time he probably admitted, like Sheridan, that it was ' admirably done.' — (1851.) THE TYRANNY, AND ITS DANGERS FOR EUROPE. The hands of France are never so dangerous to her neighbours as when they are fettered, and she strikes abroad with the chain that binds her at home. She is not, like other despotic countries, to the manner born. She does not rest quiet under a tyranny as torpid Russia and dull Austria do, who never have known anything else ; no ; she must have her compensations, and must indemnify herself for what she has lost at home, at the expense of her neighbours. France must have her pride of some sort ; and, if it be not the pride of freedom, it must be the pride of conquest and aggrandisement. It is when a Frenchman feels himself most little as a citizen that he becomes most ambitious of the greatness of the nation. Strip him of liberty, gag him, forbid him to see and to hear except to obey, and nothing short of the frontier of the Ehine will content him. Whatever is taken from domestic freedom goes to foreign aggression. The one is the com- FOREIGN POLITICS. plement to the other. France must have what is fair her own, or she must have foully what is not her ow She does not as she would be done by, but as she is doi by; and, if she be wronged, she wrongs in return if robbed of her rights at home, she robs others of their rigi- i abroad. Quiet in any state of things is not in the natu ^ of the French. In a free government, or any approach to a free government, they must have the fever and ex- cesses of factions ; and, when they put their necks under the yoke, it must be to drag the car of victory over the independence and rights of other nations. These propen- sities have no great permanence it is true ; they get tired of constitutional strife ; they get tired of military rule and renown ; sick of liberty, sick of glory, and they fly from the one to the other. The French are charged with a passion for novelty, but their novelties are antiques. At one time they return to the old fashion of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and anon to the tyranny of half a century ago. Glory was the passion to which Napoleon pandered ; the Army panted for it, the nation accepted it in return for its blood and treasure : but the time soon came when the Army as well as the nation, smeared with gore, surfeited with glory, cried out for peace, and so that desolating career came to an end. The turn for the parody is now come, and the only question is, how long the drama will last. The Army must have employment, and the Army will get tired of its employment, as it did before ; it must obtain booty, and, the booty obtained, it must have peace and the retreat for the enjoyment of it ; and then the im- pediment to both must be cast away as before. But Europe may get tired of these repetitions, of which D D 402 FOREIGN POLITICS. Trance is never weary, and may be provoked, upon mighty aggressions, to take measures disabling France from the disturbance of its repose. If France plunges into war to make herself greater than she is, she may chance to end by finding herself smaller, and not one and indivisible. The tyranny of M. Bonaparte's government continues unabated, unmitigated. He has by his own showing got the vast majority of the nation as ten to one with him, and he is acting as if it were as ten to one against him. He renders up a Te Deum, a thanksgiving to Heaven for a state of things that requires in his view the suppression of the Press, of the liberty of thought and deliberation, of the course of justice, and of the independence of its ministers. Either the election is a fraud and falsehood of the most enormous magnitude, or the tyranny is the most unpro- voked and wanton that has ever yet had existence, not ex- cepting the worst periods in the history of degenerate Eome. —(1851.) THE DREAM. The Czar has had a dream. His patron saint, Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of thieves, who are thence called St. Nicholas's clerks, appeared to him four nights consecutively, to sound his intentions as to Turkey and the motives of the crusade. The saint, it seems, did not know what to make of his man ; and it was not till the Emperor waxed wroth at his distrustful questionings, and actually swore at the saint, that the latter became satis- fied that the orthodox faith, and no hankering for some little territorial gains, was the only motive for the war. As dreams, however, go by contraries, the conclusion must be anything but satisfactory to St. Nicholas, who, FOREIGN POLITICS. 403 though the patron of thieves, cannot approve of such outrageous robbery as that contemplated by his protege, especially under the hypocritical pretence of religion, It is reported that there has since been another dream, in which the saint called for an account of the booty of Sir Hamilton Seymour's property, with which the Czar has so nobly enriched himself The saint is rumoured to have asked the Emperor what sort of faith, orthodox or other, was concerned in this transaction, and whether it was with a purely religious object that His Majesty seized the late Ambassador's goods and chattels. — (1854.) THE PORTENTOUS SILENCE. On Wednesday Count Walewski gave a grand dinner to the members of the Congress, the Diplomatic Corps, and the French Cabinet. At the dessert he announced his intention to propose a toast with a peculiar solemnity of manner. In a short speech he said that he drank to the duration of the Peace they had just signed, humiliating to none, honourable to all. The toast was drank ; but no one spoke. The company looked at Lord Clarendon ; he was silent. They looked at Count Orloff; he was silent. About this famous Peace all kept their peace. The effect must have been like that which Scott describes in the 'Antiquary' at Steenie's funeral, when Elspeth gives the horrifying toast, ' Often may we have such merry meet- ings.' Paris has been full of speculation as to the porten- tous silence following the toast. Was it anyone's busi- ness to speak ? Perhaps not. Or who was to speak first, if responses were due? Or was it that the task was too difficult ? When little Isaac asks Carlos to say something D D 2 404 FOREIGN POLITICS. civil to the Duenna, he observes, ' Faith, Isaac, your mis- tress is difficult to compliment.' And perhaps each mem- ber of the Congress felt this sort of perplexity, and that the least said was soonest mended. Pericles said of women that silence was their best ornament, and this fair peace may, like the sex, be set off to the best ad- vantage when nothing is said about it. We admire the discretion of Count Walewski's guests. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, and, when the time comes that the Peace must be talked of, there will be no peace. How much then will the safe silence of Count Walewski's table be regretted. — (1856.) SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 405 CHAPTEE VI. SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. SIGNS OF CIVILISATION. The traveller in a strange land, when he saw a gibbet, congratulated himself on being in a civilised country ; and, when we meet with hypocrisy and falsehood in the State paper of a barbarous and despotic Power, we consider them as infallible indications of a right royal progress in cabinet refinement and the business of king- craft. In the social system all things improve together ; and, as the people make advances towards intelligence, their masters become accomplished in knavery. In a rude state the despot strikes, but speaks not, and hears not. But, as his subjects acquire notions that they have a property in their own heads, he finds it expedient to give a colour to violence, and, like Iago, is compelled to adduce reasons for murder. In proportion to the civilisation of its people, a good government may deal frankly and openly with them ; in proportion to the advancing intelligence of its people, a bad one must deal craftily and falsely with them . — ( 1827.) 406 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. A RELIGIOUS SULTAN. Gulliver remarked that the King of Lilliput, who was, we all know, the very pattern of an accomplished prince, never commenced any extraordinarily bloody massacre of his people without expatiating on his clemency and insisting on their happiness in living under a monarch mild and compassionate to a foible. This is the custom too of European Potentates, a dissertation on mercy and forbearance being the sure forerunner of an approaching tragedy. The Sultan has adopted this formula. Like the Legitimates too, he has not failed to identify his cause with religion, and has made a most efficient use of the Deity, by placing him in the very front of the battle. If the people disobey him, ' they revolt against the com- mands of God himself.' If they speak ill of his Govern- ment, ' they circulate lies among crowds and gossips, void, like themselves, of all due sense of religion.' — (1827.) THE UNPAID MAGISTRACY. The Frenchman, according to Joe Miller, having observed that an Englishman recovered from a fever after eating a red herring, administered one to the first of his fellow-countrymen whom he found labouring under that disease, and, having found that it killed him, noted in his tablet that a red herring cures an Englishman of a fever, but it kills a Frenchman. So we must note, according to the 'Edinburgh Beviewer,' that pay is wholesome for Judges in town, but it is bad for Judges in the country.— -(1827.) SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 407 THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AT HOME. 1 The Duke of Wellington generally rises at about eight. Before he gets out of bed he commonly pulls off his nightcap, and while he is dressing he sometimes whistles a tune, and occasionally damns his valet. The Duke of Wellington uses warm water in shaving, and lays on a greater quantity of lather than ordinary men. While shaving he chiefly breathes through his nose, with a view, as is conceived, of keeping the suds out of his mouth ; and sometimes he blows out one cheek, sometimes the other, to present a better surface to the razor. When he is dressed he goes down to breakfast, and while descend- ing the stairs he commonly takes occasion to blow his nose, which he does rather rapidly, following it up with three hasty wipes of his handkerchief, which he instantly afterwards deposits in his right-hand coat pocket. The Duke of Wellington's pockets are in the skirts of his coat, and the holes perpendicular. He wears false hori- zontal flaps, which have given the world an erroneous opinion of their position. The Duke of Wellington drinks tea for breakfast, which he sweetens with white sugar and corrects with cream. He commonly stirs the fluid two or three times with a spoon before he raises it to his lips. The Duke of Wellington eats toast and butter, cold ham, tongue, fowls, beef, or eggs, and some- times both meat and eggs ; the eggs are generally those of the common domestic fowl. During breakfast the 1 This paper was written in ridicule of some very circumstantial and absurd accounts of the Duke of Wellington's habits, which appeared in the news- papers upon his Grace's accession to power in 1828. 408 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Duke of Wellington has a newspaper either in his hand, or else on the table, or in his lap. The Duke of Wellington's favourite paper is the ' Examiner. ' After breakfast the Duke of Wellington stretches himself out and yawns. He then pokes the fire and whistles. If there is no fire he goes to the window and looks out. At about ten o'clock the General Post letters arrive. The Duke of Wellington seldom or never inspects the super- scription, but at once breaks the seal and applies himself to the contents. The Duke of Wellington appears some- times displeased with his correspondents, and says pshaic, in a clear, loud voice. About this time the Duke of Wellington retires for a few minutes, during which it is impossible to account for his motions with the desirable precision. At eleven o'clock, if the weather is fine, the Duke's horse is brought to the door. The Duke's horse on these occasions is always saddled and bridled. The Duke's horse is ordinarily the same white horse he rode at Waterloo, and which was eaten by the hounds at Strathfieldsaye. His hair is of a chestnut colour. Before the Duke goes out, he has his hat and gloves brought him by a servant. The Duke of Wellington always puts his hat on his head and the gloves on his hands. The Duke's daily manner of mounting his horse is the same that it was on the morning of the glorious battle of Waterloo. His Grace first takes the rein in his left hand which he lays on the horse's mane ; he then puts his left foot in the stirrup, and with a spring brings his body up, and his right leg over the body of the animal by the way of the tail, and thus places himself in the saddle ; he then drops his right foot into the stirrup, puts his SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 409 horse to a walk, and seldom falls off, being an admirable equestrian. When acquaintances and friends salute the Duke in the streets, such is his affability that he either bows, touches his hat, or recognises their civility in some way or other. The Duke of Wellington very commonly says, ' How are you ? ' — ' It's a fine day ' — ' How d'ye do ? ' — and makes frequent and various remarks on the weather, and the dust or the mud, as it may be. At twelve o'clock on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the Duke's master comes to teach him his political economy. The Duke makes wonderful progress in his studies, and his instructor is used pleasantly to observe that c the Duke gets on like a house on fire.' At the Treasury the Duke of Wellington does nothing but think. He sits on a leathern library chair, with his heels and a good part of his legs on the table. When thus in profound thought, he very frequently closes his eyes for hours together, and makes an extraordinary and rather appalling noise through his nose. Such is the Duke of Wellington's devotion to business that he eats no luncheon. In the House of Lords the Duke's manner of proceeding is this: he walks up to the fire-place, turns his back to it, separates the skirts of his coat, tossing them over the dexter and sinister arms, thrusts his hands in his breeches' pockets, and so stands at ease. The characteristic of the Duke's oratory is a brevity the next thing to silence. As brevity is the soul of wit, it may confidently be affirmed that in this quality Lord North and Sheridan were fools compared with him.— (1827.) 410 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. THE WOODEN HEADS OF OLD ENGLAND . If it be the constitutional policy of this country to maintain the Aristocracy and Magistracy, it is also the policy of this country to maintain them in the manner least onerous or detrimental to itself. The end being avowed and agreed on, the directest means will be the best ; and it will be wiser to vote a yearly supply in pounds, shillings, and pence for the maintenance of the Aristocracy and Magistracy of these realms, than to keep them by means of a tax on bread, which cramps the industry of the country. Let the Aristocracy and Magistracy take their place in the estimates with the Army and Navy ; let money be voted for so many lords and so many squires a year, and country-houses be built, repaired, or fitted and found, like ships. No one surely will grudge a few millions for the support of the wooden heads of Old England ! If it be declared that we must take our masters into keeping, in God's name let us do it openly and directly, and maintain them according to their wants. Mr. Goulburn, in this case, will come down to the House, and show that Squire Western is so reduced in his fortunes as to be unable to afford a pack of hounds ; whereupon the Commons will vote him the dogs necessary to the Constitution, inasmuch as they are necessary to the squire's credit. Or he will set forth that Lord Squander cannot keep a mistress, as he greatly desires to do, and as his ancestors have done before him ; whereupon Parliament will vote him the wherewith for a concubine. One man cannot drink claret, another is sunk below champagne ; various are SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 411 the dilapidations in the estate of the Aristocracy and Magistracy, and the country must repair them, according to the ministers, but not, we say, by a tax on bread. Substitute, in the place of it, the immediate process of a demand on the public purse. Let the wants of lords and squires be spread before us, hounds, horses, concubines, claret, champagne, &c. ; and the estimates to supply them shall be regularly discussed and voted, like those, as we have before said, of the Army and Navy. The advantage of this mode over the present method of maintaining the Aristocracy and Magistracy, or, in other words, of keep- ing our masters, is manifest. By way of illustration — George Barnwell perceived it to be necessary to his constitution to keep a mistress : but, for lack of a direct supply from his old-fashioned uncle for so requisite and respectable an appurtenance, he robbed the shop, and ultimately cut his kinsman's throat, just as the man killed the goose to get the golden eggs, or as the squires kill this country to keep up the price of their corn. If Barnwell's uncle had been distinctly told by a neighbourly Mr. Peel that it was absolutely necessary that his nephew should maintain Millwood, none of this mischief would have happened. The robbery would have been avoided ; also the personal inconvenience of assassination to the sufferer. What was requisite for Millwood's ' dresses and decorations,' as the play-bills have it, would have been considered, and the damage would not have exceeded the occasion. The present method of keeping our Millwood is attended with this obvious mischief, that the cost of the maintenance of the hussy is more than proportioned to her wants. Our Constitution requires 412 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. that squires and lords should be supported ; but squires and lords need support in different degrees : some need it very little ; some very much ; and some, again, not at all. How stupid it is, then, to give to these various claims and conditions one measure of supply ! What a manifest offence against economy! As Lord Eldon would say, 6 God forbid ' that we should dispute with Mr. Peel the propriety, fitness, and constitutional policy of starving the people for the good of the Aristocracy and Magistracy ; all that we contend is, that they should be pinched with discretion, and that a judicious manner of picking pockets should be substituted for the practice of taking the bread out of their mouths. In the name of Heaven, feed them and fleece them. Bruce, the traveller, tells us of a people who, to appease their hunger, had a custom of cutting slices from the rumps of their beasts of burthen, and then driving them on again, as if nothing disagreeable to the brutes had happened. This is not perfectly tender treatment, but it is wiser in point of policy than preying on the beasts' fodder. We wish those gentlemen who are said to have stakes in the country would just be good enough to take their slices from its fat places, instead of interrupting the in-goings at the mouth of the beast. Better to bleed than to starve. We can trot on, too, after a good deal of crimping : but our constitutions suffer grievously from inanition. — (1827.) MELANCHOLY CASE OF A DUKE. An uncommon case puzzled the Faculty some years ago. A worthy gentleman in vigorous health, and having the organs of sight in excellent perfection for all objects SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 413 but one, complained of a distressing inability to read even the largest print that was set before him. Many were the learned theories propounded in explanation of this curious defect ; and, after the patient had had his eyes all but poked out by the various oculists, some commonplace person asked him whether he had ever learnt to read, a question which he, with great simplicity, resolved in the negative, and thus explained the problem which had so greatly perplexed the learned. The Duke of complains, with similar naivete, that he cannot collect his ideas when he addresses the Noble House. Alack, alack ! my Lord Duke, ' the Spanish fleet you cannot see, because it is not yet in sight/ The ideas the honest Nobleman would collect are not yet born of the brain. De non existentibus et de non apparentibus eadem est ratio, says the law maxim. — (1827). LORD ELDOtf. What a consistent career has Lord Eldon's been — the ever-active Principle of Evil in our political world ! In the history of the universe no man has the praise of having effected so much good for his fellow-creatures as Lord Eldon has thwarted.— (1827.) ROGUES OF CUSTOM. The same cause which makes men, brave individually, fly in mobs, makes even the well-disposed rogues of custom in the world. Hazards and sacrifices must be mutual, or rare indeed is the virtue to undergo them. An anecdote may illustrate the position. The monkeys in Exeter 'Change used to be confined in a line of narrow 414 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. cages, each of which had a pan in the centre of its front for the tenant's food. Chancing to be present one evening at supper- time, we observed that, when all the monkeys were supplied with their messes, scarcely any one of them ate out of his own pan. Each thrust his arm through the bars, and robbed his right or left-hand neighbour. Half what was so seized was spilt and lost in the con- veyance ; and, while one monkey was so unprofitably engaged in plundering, his own pan was exposed to similar depredation. The mingled knavery and absurdity was shockingly human. Had a Monkey Eeviewer, how- ever, admonished the tribe of the aggregate of loss to the simial stomach, and beseeched them to commence the reform of honesty each on himself, what monkey would have had sufficient reliance on his neighbour's virtue to commence the virtue of forbearance ? Placing the cages more apart seemed the more rational scheme of reform.— (1827.) ROAST PIG WITHOUT FIRING THE HOUSE. Charles Lamb, in one of his pleasantest papers, tells us that roast pig was first tasted by mankind after a fire in which some sucklings had been burnt, and that the people among whom this happy accident occurred having thence got a strong taste for roast pork, and being strictly observant of precedent, set a house on fire when- ever they wanted to roast a pig. For ages this custom was continued ; but at last the expense and terror of the conflagrations became so grievous that one of those great spirits, which are born of the emergencies of nations, rose up and suggested that pig might be roasted without SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 415 setting a house on fire. At first there was prodigious murmur at the innovation, and it was said that the necessity of setting a house on fire for a dish of pork was a salutary check to any excess of pig ; but the great bulk of the people who could not afford to burn down their houses once a month, and who suffered from the alarm and tumult of frequent conflagrations, supported the reform proposed by the sage, and pigs were thence- forth roasted by fires brought within the limits of grates and under control. Now it seems to us high time that we should have our roast pig without setting the house on fire. A conflagra- tion for every suckling of improvement with which the nation proposes to treat itself appears to us a most bar- barous and expensive method of accomplishing the object. —(1827.) AN OLD TORY CRY. When Don Magnifico, in ' Cinderella/ is striving to squeeze his tyrannical daughter's splay foot into the glass slipper, he exultingly exclaims, ' Tis done ! 'tis done ! — all but the heel' Such is the perpetual cry, and the degree of success of the Tory party. ' 'Tis done, 'tis done ! — all but the heel.' They have got their foot in office, all but the heel. Sir Henry Hardinge's motion fitted the House of Commons all but the heel. It only wanted 36 of a success, tri- umphantly said the Tory Magnificos, such being the length of the long heel but for which the foot was in, and the thing done. Well it is that the heel is out, for it is a heel that would trample on liberty in every part of the world, the heel 416 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. which everywhere leaves the print of despotism, the heel of the arch foe of mankind. — (1827.) . BILL-STICKERS BEWARE ! Horrors had come so thickly upon us lately that we knew not what might not be apprehended. The question was What is the newest grief? That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker ; Each minute teems a new one. First there was the parting with the Eoyal stud ; then there was the Queen's not parting with her Eoyal mother; then Her Majesty's dinners ; then Lord Durham's plates and dishes ; then the Coronation fixed for the anniversary of some one's death ; and, lastly, to crown all, Sir James South, from his observatory, and by virtue of one of his powerful telescopes, discovers a tyranny that would not be borne in the dominions of the Eussian Autocrat, and a martyrdom the most grievous ever known. Bleed, bleed, poor country ! Great Tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, For goodness dares not check thee. But, as Quidnunc says in the farce, ' How are we ruined — how are we ruined ? ' We must come to the fact. The terrible truth must out. ' An individual ' (as Sir James South beautifully expresses it) ' has been consigned to captivity' for posting up bills to call a meeting to oppose the Hippodrome. Here, then, is the monstrous tyranny which would not be borne in Eussia, and this bill-sticker is the martyr the greatest ever heard of. A blow has been struck at the liberty of bill-sticking ; and observe SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 417 how artfully it has been done at the moment of the recess, and when Lord Chandos has not the opportunity in his place in Parliament of bringing the great bill-sticking question and the oppression of the martyred bill-sticker before the supreme tribunal of the nation. The plot has been long hatching : there is the handwriting on the wall in proof of its premeditation, in the emphatic words, 'Bill-stickers beware.' — (1838.) crushing necessary to mental elevation. There are, says Lord Bacon, some natures which, like aromatic plants, do not give out their finer qualities till they be crushed, a thought rendered by Leigh Hunt in the simile — Like crushed perfumes exhaling to the skies. So by crushing people well it is amazing to what a mood of mind you raise them. A police officer insolently says to a man, ordinarily of irritable temper and apt to resist, ' Sir, if you attempt to go out of your line I will take you up ;' but, when well crushed, instead of firing up against the threat, the sinking man meekly responds — ' I wish you would take me up ; be as good as your word and I will thank you ; and, while you are about it, by virtue of your office, take up this poor lady too.' — (1838.) PLAN FOR THE PARTITION OF GREAT BRITAIN. For belief in the genuineness of a document called 'The Confederation of Gaul, a Confederation of Gulls was ab- solutely requisite, which the ' Times ' has kindly endea- voured to bring about. E E 418 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. ' The subject is of fearful importance, being the develop- ment of a plan for the partition of France ! ' How the Quidnuncs must have quaked at so terrible a preface, which reminds us of that sublime passage in c Tom Thumb/ where Noodle rushes in big with the news that the giant- killer has been swallowed by a red cow, just as France might be devoured by Eussia. Noodle begins like the < Times,' Oh monstrous, dreadful, terrible ! Oh ! on ! The King, upon this, naturally asks, what the readers of the ' Times ' must have asked when they read the fee-fa- fum introduction above quoted, What means the blockhead ? Noodle rejoins, as the Editor of the ' Times ' might do, But to grace my tale ivith decent horror ; A huge red cow, larger than the largest, just now i' the open street, Before my eyes devoured the great Tom Thumb. The case is not quite so bad as this. The great Tom Thumb is not devoured ; the worst is a plan to eat him up, approved by a red cow, or horned cannibal, as the great Merlin terms her. About the authenticity of this document ' of fearful importance ' we think it unnecessary to say one word : but there will shortly be published a plan for the parti- tion of Great Britain, being a copy of a diplomatic paper taken at St. Petersburg in 183G from an original docu- ment in the secret archives of the Russian Court, in which it will be proposed to surrender the Isle of Thane I to the Tope; to give the rest of Kent and the whole of SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 419 Surrey to Colonel Sibthorp, under the name of the king- dom of East Anglia, the capital of the same being St. George's Fields ; France to be content with that part of Westminster naturally destined for her, called Petty France ; St. James's parish to be a republic ; the Seven Dials also to be republics, and their Diet to be held in the street of that name ; Her Majesty Queen Victoria to enjoy for herself the title of Queen of Pimlico, her resi- dence being fixed in the palace of the same, and her dominions bounded to the east by the iron-railing, to the north by Constitution Hill, to the west by Grosvenor Place, and to the south by Arabella Kow. The Emperor of Eussia will be contented with the pig-tail statue of George the Third in Cockspur Street. Considering the services which the Duke of Wellington, in his long career, has rendered to the peaceful policy of the Holy Alliance, and to all the monarchs who have governed England for eighty years, Strath fielclsaye is to be erected into an independent state. He is to possess it as sovereign, he and his descendants, if it shall please him, by forming a new matrimonial alliance, to procure male successors. Such are a few of the particulars of a document which, if genuine, will make Europe roar — with laughter. — (1838.) SIR JAMES GRAHAM ON PROTESTANTISM. Since when has Protestantism been the religion of our fathers ? Only since the Eeformation, which would never have taken place had the Wickliffes and Luthers cared a straw for what their fathers believed before them. Sir James Graham tells his youthful auditors that, ' by the proper use of their understandings, they may reach the E E 2 420 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. most sublime heights.' The use he makes of his own understanding is to reach the height of the absurdity in question. It is as sublime, certainly, as any absurdity can be ; but the sublimity has a negative sign, and is the very bathos of Tory sentiment. The Lord Hector's eulogy of Protestantism reminds us of the well-known anti-climax in praise of the celebrated Boyle — 'the father of chemistry and the brother of the Earl of Cork.'— (1838.) THE STORY OF THE SHERIFFS. 1 The cry of the enemies of the privileges of the Commons is now altered. It is no longer, ' You cannot vindicate your privileges ; if you make the attempt, you will find yourselves baffled and powerless.' Instead of this language the argument now is, 'You have done enough for the vindication of your privileges. Be merciful as you have proved yourselves strong, and release the Sheriffs.' No, very properly answers the Solicitor-General, we have not done enough for the vindication of our privileges till we have protected our officer, and we cannot discharge the Sheriffs till the Sheriffs have discharged Hansard's £600. We have got the Sheriffs in our cells, and the Sheriffs have got Hansard in their pockets. When the Sheriffs unbutton we will unbolt. When the Sheriffs 1 Messrs. Evans and Wheelton, the Sheriffs of London, were committed to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms by the House of Commons, for breach, of privilege in having levied- an execution upon Mr. Hansard, the Parliamen- tary printer, to recover GOO/., the amount of damages awarded against him in an action in the Court of Queen's Bench. The imprisoned Shcrills wore prominent Tories, and the treatment they met with was made the subject of much angry party feeling. — (Ed.) SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 421 render up Hansard's we will render up the Sheriffs. As yet the Sheriffs are contumacious. The situation is like that in the ' Critic/ where all the dramatis persona? have their daggers at each other's throats, and the uncles daren't stir for fear of the nieces, and the nieces daren't stir for fear of the aunts. Or, perhaps, an exacter parallel may be found in the difficulties of the ' The little old woman who can't get home to-night,' in the nursery story, in which the cat is invoked to worry the rat because the rat won't gnaw the rope, and the rope won't hang the butcher, and the butcher won't kill the ox, &c. ; and we are waiting that happy stage of unravelment when the cat begins to worry the rat, and the rat begins to gnaw the rope, and the rope begins to hang the butcher, and the butcher begins to kill the ox, &c. — the like of which will happen when the Sheriffs begin to refund to Hansard, and the House begins to release the Sheriffs, &c. We prefer this illustration because in it we see more than one exact representative of the persons and institu- tions concerned. The rat is obviously Lord Denman ; the rope is the symbol of the just due of Stockdale ; and ' the little old woman who can't get home ' is the City of London (to borrow a language aspiring to the dignity of the subject) ' in a peck of troubles,' and all, as it protests, at a standstill for want of its Sheriffs, with their gold chains, court-suits, and picture-coaches. The little old woman indeed threatens, through the mouth-piece of Lord Brougham, that, if she can't get home to-night, she will turn off her Under-Shenfis, and strike against serving writs, an event which would bring 422 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. about that blessed state of things anticipated by the poet, When debtors at noon-day may walk the streets, And no one fear the bailiff or his writs. In a word, chaos is to come again if the Sheriffs are not released. 1 — (1840.) Everyone knows the description of the treatment of the goose in training for the pate de foie gras, in one of the profound French works on the culinary art. * Placed before a great fire (says the author), and deprived of drink, the condition of this poor bird would, it must be confessed, be painful enough ; but, when he reflects that his liver, aggrandised to a size immensely exceeding that of all other geese, will be renowned throughout the world as the celebrated pate de foie gras, he resigns himself to his fate without shedding a tear ! ' We need not run the parallel ; we need not show that Sheriffs, like geese in more trying circumstances, will — when they reflect on the aggrandisement of their names, the renown, the celebrity of their foie gras — resign themselves to their fate without shedding a tear. — (1840.) Sheriff Wheelton has been liberated because his neck is short. Sir E. Knatchbull having moved for the discharge of Mr. Sheriff Wheelton, ' on the plea that imprisonment 1 Lord Brougham, it seems, was not aware that, in default of the Sheriffs and their deputies, the duty devolved on the Coroner. SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 423 did not agree with him, his medical attendant, Dr. W. Brookes, was called in, and stated that Mr. Sheriff Wheelton had a very short neck, that he was subject to a congestion of blood in the head, that his father and mother died suddenly, that his disorder had been increased by confinement, and that if it were continued his life would be endangered. Are there any constitutions which do not suffer by incarceration ? As strong a case was stated for the release of Lovett as for that of Mr. Sheriff Wheelton : but the House was not at all moved by the former. The medical friends of folks in gaol will always be ready to come forward to state that imprisonment must shorten their lives, for it is indisputable that imprisonment is not salubrious. But then people are not sent to gaol for the same object that they are sent to Cheltenham, Brighton, and Torbay. The House did not examine Mr. Wheel ton's medical attendant as to the habits of his patient during his con- finement, so as to ascertain what might be referable to detention and what to other causes. However, the requisites for the defiance of the House of Commons are now clearly defined. A man with a very short neck and a ruddy complexion may treat the Commons with all contempt and insolence, and escape with a few days' duress, provided that he over-eats himself so as to aggravate his plethoric tendencies. Mr. Sheriff Wheel ton's enlargement has been altogether his own doing. He has literally burst his prison. As some one observed of the trees, that they grew because they had nothing else to do. so this Sheriff grew fat and 424 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. plethoric because lie had nothing else to do but to stuff Bellamy's beef-steaks and swill Bellamy's port. Had he been on prison-diet there would have been no danger of apoplexy. But see what modern martyrdrom is ! The stake to which the civic martyr nowadays is brought is Bellamy's beef-steak, and the determination which comes of it is a determination of blood to the head. The City now knows what sort of men to choose as Sheriffs for the defiance of the House of Commons. A short neck is the first qualification, and with good cooping and cramming a determination will be the result, which will beat hollow the determination of the Commons. Mr. Sheriff Wheelton could have relieved himself from the danger of blood to the head by putting his hand into his pocket — it was a case for bleeding ; but having to do with the good easy Commons he effected his deliverance by the threat of Miss Biddy in the ' Fudge Family :' I shall die, or at least be exceedingly sick. His medical attendant's account of his structure rendered him excellent service, and in the contest with the House he has won by a neck, and aptly may he adopt the motto ' Neck or Nothing.' But his brother Alderman remains in custody, and, from the different treatment of Mr. Sheriff Evans' case, it may be inferred with mathematical certainty that his neck is as long at least as that of the camelopard, his more fortunate colleague having the figure of the camelopard's next door neighbour, and opposite in form, the rhinoceros. But cannot Mr. Sheriff Evans make some appeal to the compassion of the House on the length of his neck, and SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 425 its unfitness for close confinement, as effective as his col- league's plea on the shortness of his throat ? There is not room for Mr. Sheriff Evans' neck in his cell. He is obliged to live with his head out of window or up the chimney ; the unhappy gentleman is obliged to sleep like a bird with his head under his wing. He is obliged to coil himself up in his cell like an eel in a bottle. He has no blood to the head — his head is so far off that the blood cannot get there. To adjust himself to the dimensions of his prison, he is obliged to tie himself up in a double knot, which is a cruel torture to a man whose habitation, to fit him comfortably and allow for the length of his neck, should be on the plan of the Monument. — (1840.) Parents are often heard, in considering the destination of their children, to express fears that they are not strong enough for certain vocations ; but, if the doctrine which we see gaining ground obtains much more head, a wonderful field will be opened for pursuits of profit or pleasure against the law by persons having the advan- tage of bad health. Projects of this sort will then be common : — ' Willy's health is so feeble that I shall bring him up for sedition ; he will have a fine field in the Anti-Poor Law agitation without any fear of imprisonment. John's neck is so short that I hope to see him a Sheriff, and intend him to be an attorney in the anti-privilege line of business, which, with his configuration, he could prosecute without any danger of incarceration by the House of Commons. Harry is of so very delicate a 426 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. constitution that I am almost tempted to make a thief of him ; for there is nothing, short of murder, that he could not do with impunity, as sentence of imprisonment would obviously be sentence of death to him. The dear fellow would be sure of every indulgence in felony.' — (1840.) THE MAN FOR FINSBURY. By an extremely curious manifesto before us, it appears that Mr. William Tooke has been moved to become candidate for the representation of Finsbury by a com- parison between his deserts and those of the sitting Members. After an impartial estimate of his own worth, and a glance at the utter unworthiness of Messrs. Dun- combe and Wakley, Mr. Tooke comes to the conclusion, both on spiritual and temporal grounds, that it is absolutely essential to the best interests of society that he should be elected Member for Finsbury. His pre- senting himself is purely a matter of conscience. He finds in himself the righteousness exceeding much, without which no legislative or other labours can bear good fruit ; and, discerning large beams in the eyes of the sitting Members, while he perceives his own to be without mote, he offers himself purely and solely on the ground of his superior holiness. His logic is shortly this : Finsbury wants a pious man : I am an exceedingly pious man ; therefore I am what Finsbury wants. As for the deserts of the sitting Members, he glances at them as ' unworthy agents,' ' men of immoral and irreligious life and conversation,' and ' latitudinarians in politics and religion;' and he disposes of them SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 427 finally in a brace of Watts's verses, one verse for each member. Mr. Tooke observes that persons of the latitudinarian section, in which he classes Messrs. Duncombe and Wakley, have never originated any great ' measures of mercy,' such as Negro Emancipation, the Factory Bill, or the Chimney Climbing Boy Act, for which last Act Mr. Tooke claims the glory. We confess that this seems to us rather a hard test, inasmuch as the ' measures of mercy ' are happily as exhaustible as the practices of cruelty and oppression. Mr. Tooke had the luck to obtain a position on the back of the climbing boy ; and he has risen in the public view by narrow, crooked, and sooty ways, and culminated at the chimney-top : but what are legislators and aspirants for public favour to do who find slavery abolished, factory labour regulated, and climbing boys protected by Mr. Tooke ? Standing on the pedestal of the soot-bag, Mr. Tooke deals rather too hardly with men who have not had the fortune to discover a grievance. Let him ask himself where would have been his claims if another Tooke had anticipated his great chimney-sweeping agita- tion ? What would he have been without climbing boys, and the narrow, dirty way through which he has ascended to the very chimney-pots of the Temple of Fame ? But for climbing boys he would have been even as the unrighteous, and no better than Mr. Duncombe or Mr. Wakley. How are those gentlemen to provide themselves with the great * measures of mercy ' which may free them from Mr. Tooke's reproach? Why even the 'direful 428 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. dog-cart nuisance ' has been abated. Flea emancipation, the emancipation of the industrious fleas so cruelly tormented in chains in the Eegent Street exhibition, remains certainly to be taken up : but what is one question, and that a flea question, between two Members ? Had Mr. Tooke entered upon public life a little later, he himself might have been glad to show his zeal for humanity in a measure for flea emancipation. It was his good fortune to begin his career when grievances were rife, and when a man might pick and choose between blacks, and chimney-sweepers, and a dozen other prime oppressions. — (1840.) IMMORAL LITERATURE. 1 Ix Courvoisicr's second confession, which we are more disposed to believe than the first, he ascribes his crimes to the perusal of that detestable book ' Jack Sheppard ' ; and certainly it is a publication calculated to familiarise the mind with cruelties, and to serve as the cut-throat's manual, or the midnight assassin's vade mecum, in which character we now expect to see it advertised. Curious it is that the very words used by Courvoisier, in describing the way in which he committed the murder, 6 1 drew the knife across his throat,' are to be found in the horrid book alluded to, in Blueskin's murder of Mrs. Wood. The passage is this : — ' Seizing her by the hair, he pulled back her head, and drew the knife with all his force across her throat. 1 In a private note from Fonblanque to Mr. Forster in 1830 the fol- lowing- passage occurs: — 'I see "Jack Sheppard" has been dramatised. I really think we abdicate our critical duty in not attacking this disgusting sort of publication. If you don't, I must ! *— (Ed.) SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 429 There was a dreadful stifled groan, and she fell heavily upon the landing.' As the passions are all excitable through the imagina- tion, we look upon this book as calculated to create a lust for cruelty in minds having any predisposition to the vice. Its tendencies are to familiarise the imagination with deeds of blood, and to hold up to admiration the savage criminals acting in them. There is often in effects what never entered into intention, and we acquit the author of having intended or foreseen the encouragement of cruelty : but the admiration of the criminal is the studied purpose of the book.— (1840.) HUMANITY AT SEA. 1 In the account of the loss of the ' Brigand ' iron steamer off Scilly, it appears that the crew and passengers were crowded into two small jolly-boats, which, overloaded as they were, would not have lived in a rough sea. Surely it is high time that dangers of this kind should be guarded against by the Legislature, by compelling the owners of steamships to provide them with boats fit to receive their crews and passengers, and to swim in a stormy sea. The expense would be very small ; but sailors would rather take their chance of danger than lumber their decks with boats. But it is not necessary to lumber the deck with boats. Captain Smith's invention of making two large boats serve for the cover of the paddle-boxes obviates 1 The necessity of legislative action to protect the lives of our seamen against unseaworthy vessels and the dangers resulting from inadequate equipment and overloading was a subject to which Albany Fonblanque attached much importance, and the revival of this question at the present time gives his views some public interest. — (Ed.) 430 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. that inconvenience, and his plan has the merit of propor- tioning the boats to the size of the vessel. The West India steam-packets have been fitted with these paddle- box boats, and we believe that the safety of the crew and passengers of the shipwrecked 'Medina' was owing to them. A Legislature which regulates chimney-sweeping may surely carry its care of humanity so far as to prevent the loss of life at sea from the negligence of packet- owners in omitting to supply their vessels with proper boats. But humanity has not yet got to sea. It will regulate flues and factories, but it cares not a rush for sailors going to sea in rotten ships, or for passengers exposed to the dangers of fire and water in steam-ships unprovided with boats in case of need. Let any passenger on board of a steam-packet look at the one or two small boats with which she is furnished, and ask himself what would happen in the event of fire or wreck. It would be easy to compel passage-vessels to carry boats having a stowage for persons proportioned to the size of the packet and probable number of her passengers ; but because it would be easy it is not done, for the disposition to regulate is always inverse to the facility. For this reason the Legislature has been so fond of getting up the chimney ; and people may now be burnt in their beds because Parliament would insist on ordering sweeping in its own way, and without any regard to the ways of long-estab- lished flues.— (1842.) CHARITY ABEOAD. It is distance which gives such intensity to the philan- thropy, and seldom does the charity which is loud and SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 431 boisterous and meddlesome begin at home ; indeed, it goes so far afield that it does not often get home again. And in this there is a convenience, for the humanity which concerned itself about the objects immediately around it would lose time, trouble, and be called on for some sacrifices ; but that which goes abroad and to a conve- nient distance has a cheap and easy exercise, and a full swing on ignorant declamation. There is the Travellers' Club, the qualification of which is, we believe, that the candidate has travelled ^.Ye hundred miles from home. Let us suggest a Philanthropists' Club, with the qualification that the candidate's humanity must have travelled not less than twenty degrees of latitude or longitude. It should not be necessary that the humanity should ever have been at home ; and, indeed, those persons whose humanity has always been abroad should be most eligible to the sort of Society we have in view. — (1842.) ENGLISH WORKS OF AET. The Commissioners for the Decoration of the two Houses of Parliament have given notice of their intention to in- stitute an immediate competition in the undermentioned works of art, for the embellishment of those buildings. They are to be of the life size, and executed in the usual material ; and they will be required to be ready for public exhibition at Westminster in February next. I. Model of a Minister. — The surface of this figure is to be perfectly smooth and glossy, though not highly polished. The internal mechanism may be constructed of very second-rate or even third-rate materials, provided that the whole be thoroughly well oiled. It must have 432 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. sufficient ability to check the national industry and pro- sperity, by the imposition of odious taxes and the in- genious creation of a large deficiency in the revenue; also to involve the best disposed parts of the United Kingdom in trouble, riot, and confusion. Beyond this, it may promise to any amount, but is on no account to perform anything : or it ceases to be a model. Power is to be its object ; in the attainment of that end, it must be perfectly reckless. The anatomy of its stomach must be formed in imitation of the internal economy of the ostrich, as it will be required to digest with ease the most stupendous contradictions, and to eat its own words without the slightest hesitation. It will be expected to raise a piteous cry of c Murder ! ' when there is nothing whatever the matter ; and to shed tears for itself, after the manner of the crocodile. Nothing more is required of this model but to exercise its patronage, draw its salary, thrust back its coat, dis- play its white waistcoat, and look on pleasantly, whatever happens. II. Model of a Bishop. — It is, in the first instance, to renounce all the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. The same being an easy task, performed every day by common machinery, the Commissioners will require this trifling part of the model to be executed in gold, wrapped in purple, got up in fine linen, and scented with ambergris. It is to call itself the Spiritual Pastor and Master of the People, and the Physician of their Souls ; and is to be publicly prayed for, in the churches, in that capacity. In the same character it will be required to make game SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 433 laws, corn laws, poor laws, and all other kinds of laws protecting property against poverty; laws for the build- ing of gaols, laws for the erection of workhouses, laws for the establishment of penal colonies, laws for the punish- ment of popular ignorance, by fine, imprisonment, trans- portation, and death ; but never laws for its enlightenment by popular education, unless they should directly tend to increase its own power and profit. When ignorance, want, and misery are at their height, this model will enlighten and appease the same, and will show its own usefulness as well as that of the Establish- ment of which it forms a part, by girding up its loins for the discussion of the great question whether surplices shall be white, or black, or Oxford mixture. And, in the concentration of its energies on this vital point, it will be careful to have particular reference to the colour of the vest in which the Sermon on the Mount was preached ; and to the formalities with which it was taken off and put on again during the progress of that service. III. Model of the Constitution. — In advertising for a model of this exquisite work of art (generally known as the perfection of human reason), the Commissioners are aware that they open an almost unlimited field to the genius and fancy of the competitors ; no man exactly knowing in what its perfection consists, or what may be its shape, or form, or character, or substance. They merely stipulate that it be so constructed as that its blessings may continue to be impartially, and without distinction of ranks, administered to the many, at the discretion of that wise, and good, and admirable class of men called magistrates, both in town and country ; F F 434 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. and that it contain the modern improvements of the Heaven-born Mr. Pitt, the benevolent Lord Castlereagh, and others. They also require that this model have at least one hook at the end, for the convenience of its being suspended by any Government who may desire to contemplate its beauties in that position. The prizes to be awarded to the successful models will bear a fair proportion to those already enjoyed by the successful originals ; and this the Commissioners conceive will be encouraging Art in a rather strong and uncommon manner. — (1843.) 6 My eyes ! ' cried an old sailor, on seeing the Nelson monument, ' they've mast-headed the Admiral ! ' They have, indeed. There he is at the mast-head like a midshipman who has incurred the captain's wrath. The mast is sufficiently represented by the column, and the capital of it is in the closest resemblance to cross-trees. There are no shrouds, and for this good reason, that the absence of them accounts for the admiral's having such a long spell of punishment, seeing that he cannot come down again. To stick up an admiral at the mast-head is much the same sort of thing as putting a grown gentleman into the corner with a fool's cap on his head. It may, however, be considered as a stern example of the rigour of naval discipline. The hero in the naval pillory looks very solitary, cold, and comfortless, notwithstanding all the benefit of his cocked hat. And in this last particular he comes into advantageous SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 435 contrast with the king below him, George the Fourth, who is on horseback without a hat, and with nothing but a cloth over his shoulders. And mark here how impossible it is to please people ! They complain that Nelson has a three-cornered cocked hat on ; well, here is a king riding without a hat, and they cry what a shame to set a king on horseback without a hat, or any covering except his wig. The horse is in an attitude of rest, for two good reasons : first that, if he moved, the king is sitting so that he must inevitably fall off; and secondly, that beggars on horse- back proverbially ride to the devil, and therefore kings on horseback, who should do the very reverse in the direction of Heaven, do not move at all. The king rides, as all figures with cloths instead of coats on their shoulders do, without stirrups, and looks marvellously ill at ease with his legs dangling down. In his right hand he holds a large roll of bills (marking the time when he was Prince of Wales) ; but it is clear that, though he has given the bridle to his horse, he is not flying from his creditors. The horse has been as much criticised and found fault with as if he had been a real horse. It is asked what sort of a horse he is like, and we should answer a clothes- horse, but for the unfortunate fact that his rider is so slightly and insufficiently apparelled. A thousand years hence, when the thing is dug up from some heap of congenial rubbish, it will be supposed to be the figure of a fat ostler with a sack over his shoulders (a covering often so worn on a rainy day) riding a horse to water. The roll in his hand will be taken for a stick ff2 436 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. broken in the attempt to beat the animal into a pace, and the bridle on the neck as denoting the rider's despair of any need of the curb with such a steed. When the Trafalgar Square monuments are complete, the mast-headed admiral, the George the Fourth, the Charles the First, the George the Third, all together, it will be seen that the happy idea of such grouping is derived from Madame Tussaud's Wax- work Exhibition, where Mr. Wilberforce is grouped with Fieschi, Lord Eldon coupled with Oliver Cromwell, Mrs. Fry with Mother Brownrigg. — (1844.) We congratulate the Eoyal Academy on its beautiful address to the King of the French. It does infinite credit to the scholarship and taste of its subscribers. Every mind stored with the riches of the Latin grammar will at once recognise in it an amplification of the example — Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes, &c, &c. To have quoted the original, recondite as it is, would have been pedantic; so the Academy did it into Eng- lish, inlaying upon it such graces of the language as were within the reach of their genius. It is beautiful to ob- serve how every substantive is provided with an adjec- tive, how meetly they go paired together like gentlemen and ladies going down to dinner. We will not pay this exquisite production the hack- neyed compliment of -saying that it deserves to be printed in letters of gold, but we will confidently affirm that it deserves to be printed in round-text copy-books. SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 437 The King of the French, with the fine taste for which he is remarkable, declared that he wanted no copy of the Portsmouth Mayor's address, for that it was graven on his heart. What has this to do with the Academy's address and the Fine Arts ? Much ; it shows how this Prince is in all things given to the arts. Impressions are taken off lithographed from his heart. If we might hint a fault in the address, it would be that of vagueness. It says very copiously that the Fine Arts are fine things, but what has been so novelly and eloquently written in one sense may have been read in another ; the finest of all arts, in the opinion of Louis Philippe, being finesse, intrigue, trick, falsehood, and, above all, bribery and corruption. To see his doings in these very fine arts, go to Spain. It is sufficiently evident that the King of the French understood the compliments to his countenance of the Fine Arts as applying to those which he deems the finest, as they are the foulest, for in his acknowledgment he says that his satisfaction at the address is increased by its :ransmission through Sir Eobert Peel, just as the praise of craft would gain by being conveyed through the fox. There is one passage of the Academy's address which, however beautiful in style, strikes us as of questionable judgment. It is this — 1 We are, Sire, so fortunate as to enjoy the patronage and protection of a gracious Queen, ivho generously en- courages our efforts and cheers us forward in the career of honourable competition ; who, like you, Sire, desires to secure for her people the blessings that flow from order, freedom and peace ; and who participates with 438 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. your Majesty in all those exalted qualities which prompt you to cherish with affectionate solicitude those interesting pursuits which are the measure of refinement in all civilised states, which soften the heai% elevate the feeling r s, and subdue the turbulent passions of man. 1 Admitting that there is nothing more eloquent than this, the concluding and crowning passage especially, in the advertisements of cosmetics, granting that it rivals Rowland and surpasses Gowland, excelling them in their own styles, out-Eowlanding and out-Gowlanding ; yet we doubt the fitness of boasting what was so notorious. The Queen was not three days at Eu without finding out how artists were treated in France. Her Majesty saw them in the presence of their Monarch on the same footing socially as the nobles of the land. The King of the French could not have been a week at Windsor without perceiving that the Arts had the same honour in this country, and that Her Majesty's circle was composed of all most celebrated in science, philosophy, literature, and art, as well as the distinguished in rank. He knew that such men as Landseer, Callcott, Maclise, Stanfield, Grant, and others were as often Her Majesty's favoured guests, as men of similar eminence are in his own Court, He was aware that there is no barbarous exclusion of genius in any circle in this country, and that in the highest place the example of all the graceful liberalities is presented. There was, therefore, an unbeeomingness in the boast, ' We are, Sire, so fortunate as to enjoy,' &c. If our artists had been treated like tradesmen by their Monarch, they might naturally have slipped into this tradesmanlike language and vaunt ; but it comes with a SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 439 marvellously ill grace from persons whose honourable posi- tion in society has been so notoriously marked by their Sovereign. — (1844.) It must surely be a principle of architects either to choose the worst site for a fine building, or the worst building for a fine site ; the good consequence being this, that the thing will be condemned and another plan adopted, the profession thus getting two jobs instead of one. The rationale of an encore was well explained by a child in one of Matthews' entertainments : ' He sang it so badly that they made him sing it again.' There are encores in architecture on the same principle. The Palace is the extreme exemplification of the art of doing the worst for the nation with a view to doing the best for the profession ; for in that instance neither the worst site for a fine building, nor the worst building for a fine site, has been chosen, but both objects have been combined ; and the worst building has been placed on the worst site. In this arrangement there is a certain sort of harmony which has, we think, served to defeat the architectural interest. Everyone feels that the Palace is very properly placed in a hole. Everyone feels that it ought not to be seen, that the more it is out of sight the better for the honour of the country, and that so poor, so mean a resi- dence for the Monarch of Great Britain could not have been built on a spot more suitable to its claims to attention. 440 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Had it been placed anywhere where it could have been fairly seen, it would have been pulled down long ago. —(1845.) As it is, it is easy to show how the house can be improved, this being the advantage of having to do with a consummately defective structure, that no conceivable alteration can be for the worse, and that any change must be for the better. Patchwork improvements are therefore invited, and the Palace will be pulled to pieces and rebuilt ten times over, till at last the discovery will be made that the site is irremediably unfit for the edifice, and that the whole work must be commenced somewhere else. The patchwork mending of Buckingham Palace is now commencing ; it will be carried on for years to come at a vast expense ; and at last it will be found out that a hole is not a proper place ' for a palace, and some wholesome and commanding spot will be selected. Meanwhile, the architects will have plenty of employment ; for this is our way of encouraging our peculiar style of architecture, that the worse they do the more profitable it is to them, as the more they have to do and to undo. As the detestable Brighton Pavilion is to be pulled down or sold to meet the expenses for the improvements of Buckingham Palace, so, in its turn, one of these days the Buckingham Palace will be pulled down or sold to defray the cost of a better-planned and better-placed building. An incurably bad thing is never given up at once. Attempts are made at mending, and a series of botching must have its course before the discovery is made that all the money has been thrown away for nothing. — (1846.) SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 441 When John Kemble was asked what he thought of Conway (whom some persons mistook for an actor), the tragedian replied in his dry, deliberate manner, with a pause after every word, ' He is a very tall young man.' And this is about the most that can be said of the Wellington statue. It is only a matter of measurement ; it is very tall, very large, very heavy. The deficiency is expression. There is no grandeur, no dignity. The figure might as well pass for the figure of a trumpeter as that of the Great Captain. Vir noscitur e naso; there is nothing 'out the hooked nose to bring home the likeness to theDuke. The countenance is peculiarly vacant. The horse has in every respect the advantage of the man ; there is some fire in the expression of the charger's head, but the rider's head is under the extinguisher of a cocked hat, stuck on as such an utensil is put on a candle. The Duke's nose becomes here of great practical service, for it seems to say thus far and no farther to the cocked hat. It is as the lines on the ridges of Torres Yedras putting the bounds to invasion. The rider appears too large for the horse. We have not a doubt that the proportions are by the foot-rule correct, but to the eye the effect of accurate measurement is not always truth. Old Astley was of a different opinion. He abused his scene-painter for not painting the columns of a temple all of the same length, and, when the man pleaded the laws of perspective, replied, 'Don't talk to me of perspective, Sir ; the public pay their money to see pillars according to nature, all of a length, and they shall see their full measure, and no deception.' 442 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. The foot-rule is not the sceptre of art, and the eflect of truth to the eye may be marred by fidelity to measure- ment. But there is in the fault we have noticed a sort of harmony with the fault in the choice of site. The rider is too large for the horse, and the whole thing is too large for the pedestal. It, may, however, be the hidden moral of the design to exhibit the great man as too great for his position in this small world ; and (according to Juvenal's description of Alexander) cestuat infelix angusto limite ; which we recommend as a motto for the base, trusting it may touch the hearts of her Majesty's Ministers To ease the hero's awkward pain, And take the statue down again. The statue rests on a slip, just giving footing to the horse, and no more. It stands, as it were, on a narrow shelf, so that it may be said that, having mast-headed our greatest admiral in Trafalgar Square, we complete the ill- usage of our heroes by putting our greatest captain on the shelf. It is a most unhandsome hint to the Duke that it is time for him to stand aside, and take his station amongst the records of the past. But the execution counteracts the design ; for the Duke, seeing how ugly is the look of himself in effigy shelved, will take good care not to put himself in so awkward a position by retirement. And here let us suggest that the statue might with excellent typical effect be removed to the gate of the Horse Guards ; where it would represent the large class of half-pay captains on the shelf, with the motto, cere dirutus miles. The Duke of Wellington did not witness the raree show of Tuesday. His Grace had no notion of living to see SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 443 himself disgracefully brought to the scaffold opposite to his own door. By the by, we heard many encomiums on the scaffold, and much praise of the pulleys ; every- thing was well done, and no fault found, except with the statue and its site. It is due, however, to admit that there runs a prejudice against the statue through the obstinacy of the committee in resolving to place it in a spot disapproved of by the general taste. It is hard that there should be a disposition to decry Mr.Wyatt's work because some wilful injudicious persons have resolved to set themselves against the opinion of the whole country ; but, nevertheless, the fact is that the statue shares in the unpopularity of the whole design. For our own parts we are free to confess that we could hardly look at it with patience, thinking of its atrocious destination. Our verdict against it is, therefore, to be taken with suspicion ; but yet, admitting the liability to prejudice, to the best of our judgment we must deli- berately repeat our opinion that it wants dignity and grandeur of expression. Perhaps this is a miscarriage incidental to the colossal scale. Certain it is that, in com- paring effects with the statuette of Count d'Orsay, we are struck by the fulness of expression, the composure, the grandeur, the dignity of the Duke, in the latter ; in place of which the colossus of so clever and deservedly admired an artist as Mr. Wyatt presents an expanse of bronze making us wonder that there is so much of it, perhaps, but conveying no other emotion or idea to the mind. — —(1846.) The Irishman did not know whether he could play the fiddle or not without a trial. Lord Morpeth could not. 444 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. judge how a great statue would look on a little base without a trial. Henceforth, in art, as in philosophy, we are not to be certain of anything without experiment. When judgment shall have been given against the statue on the arch, will the question be set at rest ? We think not. There is a fair case for another trial. If the statue on the arch be disapproved, why not try how the arch on the statue will look ? If the superstructure be now too large for the base, set the matter right by revers- ing the position. At all events, let there be a three weeks' trial. In the first instance, the proposal to place the arch at top of the statue would not have been more preposterous than the other arrangement, and the arch now has a fair claim to its turn of ascending. Let every dog have his day. There will be a good carriage road under the horse's belly, and side footways between the two fore and the two hind legs. The Duke with the arch on his head will seem to represent the giant carrying off the gates of the city, porch and all. — (1846.) As, we are told, the Wellington statue is to come down, and to take its stand on the parade of the Horse Guards, it strikes us that it would be a good arrangement to collect on the same spot all the equestrian statues now disfiguring different parts of the town, and to put the Wellington Grenadier at the head of the awkward squad. They would make a rare troop, ' some in rags, some in bags, and some in velvet gowns,' some bareheaded with ilowing curls, come in cocked hats, some coated and booted, some in toga and sandals, looking in their dingy drapery like SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 445 some ragamuffins riding gentlemen's horses in default of grooms. — (1S4G.) The Duke of Wellington has expressed his opinion that the removal of his statue from the arch where it is now misplaced would be considered as a mark of dishonour to him ; not that he should so deem it, knowing better, but that such would be the general construction put on the removal. A more unreasonable opinion than this never was given, even by the Duke of Wellington, addicted as he is to dogmatising. The only inference drawn from the removal would have been, that the statue was mis- placed on the arch, or that it was a failure as a work of art, and that it was better to transfer it to a site less con- spicuous. If there are any people so stupid as to be capable of inferring that taking the statue down would have argued the decline of the Duke in the royal or national favour, their foolish notions could hardly deserve deference. But, in fairness, the Duke of Wellington ought to have conveyed his opinion of the inference that would be drawn from the taking down of the statue when it was proposed to put it up on trial. He should then have said, ' Don't put it up on trial, because, once up, whatever the issue of the trial may be, I shall feel bound to object on public grounds to the removal, as an inference to my dishonour would be drawn.' As the thing has been managed, the trial has been a manoeuvre for fixing the statue on its mischosen site, against the taste of the Queen and all the best judgments 446 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Once up, it could not be taken down without offence to the great Duke. Again, we repeat, he should in frank- ness and fairness have given warning of his view of the matter when the trial was proposed, which he now sets aside and reduces to no trial whatever but an irrevocable act. The 'Times,' which is sorely perplexed to say some- thing in favour of this conclusion, comforts itself witli the thought that posterity will see in the statue the like- ness of what the great Duke was in the life. If so, they will do the Duke the injustice of supposing that he must have been a very gawky, vacant-looking person. But posterity will not be such a dupe ; for posterity, seeing the horse so unlike a horse, will infer that the brass Duke was as little like the real one. The statue has found favour in the sight of the Duke ; and, had the thing been ten times uglier and misplaced, the motive for the design would equally have enlisted him in its defence, for the art in which he is proficient is not amongst the Fine arts. The Duke's arbitrary and wayward pleasure, then, settles the question, for the Duke is the spoilt child of the Crown and the country ; and if he pout, he must have his way upon any irrational plea that he may choose to utter, such as the notable one that, if his statue were removed to another site, it must be attributed to his loss of favour. The keeping of it up may be certainly received as a decisive proof of the Duke's influence ; but what sign it is of his taste, and the adduced reason for it "of his sense, w T e will not say. The Wellington idolatry does not lack the Wellington countenance, no matter how miscarved and misplaced the monstrous effigy. — (1847.) SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. U7 THE NEWSPAPER PRESS. Our Press is just now ringing with attacks upon the Americans for supporting a trade in slander, and with what consistency can we throw the stone of this vulgar vice, the foul appetite of the craftiest minds, while so much of it exist in our community ? It is as much the policy of Society to protect the reputations of its mem- bers, as to protect their lives, their persons, and their properties. 1 — (1842.) Queen Elizabeth issued a proclamation, setting forth that certain unskilful limners made abominable pictures of her Eoyal person, and forbidding any but duly-qualified and licensed artists to take her portrait. 2 We often wish that her present Majesty could extend this sort of prohibition to the newspaper accounts of her sayings and doings. The sovereigns of England have the awkward pain of living under a microscope, and every 1 In a note from Mr. Charles Dickens, dated November 8, 1842, I find this passage : — ' I was very sorry to see in the postscript to the last " Examiner " something that careless readers (a large class) will easily twist into a comparison between the English and American newspapers. Bad as many of our journals are, Heaven knows, they cannot be set against each other for a moment, and decency is not befriended by any effort to excuse the transatlantic blackguardism, which is so intense that I seriously believe words cannot describe it.' — (Ed.) 2 'If you take up Moore again look at page 33, vol. vi., where he alludes to a curious proclamation of Elizabeth, forbidding people to talk of the Queen's person or features, or to describe them in writing or otherwise. The pro- clamation actually sets forth that u certain limners having done bad portraits of Her Highness," it is forbidden for any but u approved and competent limners to paint any likeness of the Queen's Majesty.'" — A. F. to Mr. Forster.— (E».) 448 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. little trifle in manners, conduct, and actions is given, enormously magnified, to the public eye. When foreigners read our Court circulars, Court jour- nals, and Court anecdotes, what can they think of us ? Do they suppose that we are addicted to the most fulsome adulation, or to the most biting satire of our sovereigns, for the same appearances would warrant either inference ? The courtiers of the Great Mogul shouted out, ' A miracle ! a miracle ! ' whenever he uttered anything ap- proaching to sense. To give such praise, how wonderfully ill they must have thought of the Eoyal capacity. The Duke of Wellington falls asleep in the Eoyal pre- sence : Her Majesty taps him on the shoulder with a bouquet, and smilingly takes his arm, instead of frown- ingly taking off his head. What goodness ! what a theme for newspaper admiration I How immense was the breach of etiquette, and how immense the Eoyal mercy in par- doning it and smiling after all ! Can we imagine goodness carried further ? Perhaps in suffering the Duke to have his nap out. One of the Queen's escort is thrown from his horse : Her Majesty hopes the man is not hurt, and the pestilent newspaper scribbler is in raptures with our Monarch's humanity. Why, what in the world else did the stupid blockhead expect ? Did he suppose that the Queen would see a man fall without caring whether he was killed or not, or troubling herself to ask the question? To treat the most ordinary virtues as extraordinary in a monarch is the very worst compliment that can be paid. To praise in the highest personage the traits of common humanity, which would pass as matter of course in the SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 449 lowest, is really the worst insult to the Eoyal character. Praise so undeserved is not, as the poet says, ' satire in disguise,' but satire undisguised. Let us see the case reversed. Her Majesty, being of course worse driven than anybody else, was upset the other day ; but did the paragraph-mongers tell us with admiration how anxiously the postilions inquired whether their mistress was hurt ; and is, then, ordinary humanity a more astonishing thing in a Queen than in a postboy ? This Mogul courtiers' shout of ' A miracle ! a miracle !' on every trivial exercise of sense or humanity, is really the worst disparagement. The most cutting way of treat- ing people as little is to praise them for little. The Queen's bounties have lately been handled in the same judicious way as her humanities and indulgences. But there is nothing that the parasites of the Press can touch without an offence to taste. There is likely to be an addition to the Eoyal family. How is such a prodigy to be told ? Why even so : — ' The loyal interest attached to our Queen, wdiether reigning in her Court, or meeting her Parliament, or tra- velling among her people, or seeking the solace of such domestic privacy as Eoyalty may taste, will be increased if we hint that it is more than probable these domestic ties will be multiplied. If we are not misinformed, and we are pretty certain we are not, the family circle next year at Claremont will be more numerous.' — Court Journal. Pah ! an ounce of civet. It has always seemed to us that Gulliver, in the adven- ture with the monkey in Brobdignag, adumbrated the lot G G 450 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. of monarclis in the hands of adulators. The enormous ape had, it will be remembered, snatched up Gulliver and carried him up to a house-top, where he dangled him and danced him about as a nurse does a child, and crammed his mouth with filth out of his disgusting pouch. The Brobdignags in the street, seeing the nauseous treatment of Gulliver, threw pebbles about the size of the stones at Stonehenge at the monkey, to drive it away, forgetting that those missiles, though intended for Gulliver's deliver- ance, were by no means agreeable to him when flying so near his head. And so it is that in noticing these fulsome absurdities there is always danger that the attempt to check them will be regarded • as offensive, instead of the disgusting antics, the repression of which is aimed at. It has repeatedly been a matter of complaint in the newspapers that Her Majesty, in her walks at Brighton and elsewhere, has been incommoded by impertinent curiosity ; and very proper censures have been addressed to the unmannerly offenders. But does not the Press itself, in its own way, set the example of the same sort of vulgar, intrusive inquisitiveness ? Is it not rather hard upon the Queen that she is not allowed to enjoy the privacy which is respected in the case of any gentle- woman in her own house ? A few days ago we saw it pompously announced that Her Majesty inspected (such is the great word for small occasions) the joints of meat in the larder at Windsor, and a hundred trifles of the same sort arc made the theme of ' Court Circular ' and ; Court Journal ' paragraphs. The mobbing in the streets does not seem to us a whit more annoying and unmannerly SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 451 than this mobbing in the Press. In both there is the same low, vulgar, prying spirit. To perfect a prison in irksomeness, Bentham proposed to make it a panopticon, so that the prisoners should feel that there was an eye upon them in every action, every motion, every gesture. The Press does its worst to render the Sovereign's palace a panopticon, and to subject its possessor to the annoyance of constant watching, and the ridiculous blazoning of every ordinary word and action.— (1844.) The verdict for the plaintiff in the action ' Powell v. Bradbury and Evans/ in the Common Pleas, is of much importance to the safety and character of the Press. Mr. Powell, when sub-editor of the ' Daily News,' had allowed a law report to be procured and published for the gratification of some ill-will which an assistant sub- editor (Mr. Wearing) bore to the person whose affairs were under inquiry in a Court of Bankruptcy, Mr. W. H. Smith of Bristol. Mr. Smith having written to the proprietors, complaining that a malicious use was made of their paper, Mr. Powell, to whom the correspondence of the paper was entrusted, handed it over to Mr. Wearing, instead of submitting it to the proprietors. Upon discovering the facts and the motives for the publication of the report of Mr. Smith's bankruptcy, under a head conveying an imputation, the proprietors of the ' Daily News ' dismissed Mr. Powell, who brought an action for damages for breach of engagement. The Jury gave a verdict for £500, decidedly, as it seems to us, G G 2 452 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. against the Chief Justice's charge, and as decidedly against the merits of the case. It is one of the most sacred duties of newspaper pro- prietors to keep their publications free from any spiteful or malicious uses ; and we are quite prepared to maintain that anyone engaged in a newspaper, who procures the publication of a statement or report for the gratification of any personal ill-will or grudge, by that act disentitles himself to confidence, and consequently deserves dismissal. Prudence as well as morality calls for this rule, for the proprietors may be answerable for publications as libels made with no other view than to wound the feelings of individuals. It is no defence, in our judgment, to say that the report intended to give pain was ungarbled, and a faithful account of what passed. If the motive for the publication was not its public interest, but a private and malignant one, the truth does not excuse the uses to which it was put, and the breach of confidence. In questions of libel, it is to be borne in mind that the truth is admissible in justification, but is not alone and in itself a complete justification; and there are many instances in which a truth published for no public object, and for no other purpose than to gratify malice and give pain, would be punished, and very properly so. As we have often had occasion to remark, the corrup- tion of money is not the only corruption. There are the corruptions of favour on the one hand, and prejudice or enmity on the other ; and newspaper proprietors have to guard their papers from those undue influences, as well as the more vulgar one of mercenary temptation. For vigilantly performing this duty, however, we see that a SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 453 Jury thinks them deserving of punishment. Suppose the same Jury had been trying an action for libel, a publica- tion of a malignant nature and justifiable on no public grounds having appeared in the same paper through the misconduct of the acting editors. Would they not in that case have held the proprietors responsible for the error of the persons employed by them ? Would they not have deemed them bound to have taken care that the persons to whom they confided the powers of the Press were not capable of using those powers for any unworthy purpose? But, according to the present decision, the dilemma of proprietors seems to be this : if you dismiss persons who have lost your confidence, by permitting your publications to be turned to the purposes of private spite, you shall pay damages : if you retain such persons in your service, and you are prosecuted for libel, you shall be responsible for having knowingly continued in your employment persons capable of perverting the powers of the Press to the ends of private and personal enmity.— (1847.) We have seen with no inconsiderable disgust a hardly- worded paragraph announcing that a distinguished noble- man and statesman is dying, and calculating the period beyond which his fife cannot be lengthened. This is an indecency of the Press which is of recent origin. The obituary used to satisfy newspapers ; but now, in their eagerness to furnish the earliest information, they must play the part of the raven, and croak over the dying. Imagine the shock to attached friends and relatives at a 454 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. distance, of taking up a newspaper and reading such a paragraph as that to which we have referred, written as if no one in the world had any concern in the matter beyond the curiosity to know the fact. Surely the Press may wait for death, and spare the dying, and the friends of the dying, its impertinent gossiping. Or would it beseem newspapers to add to the list of births, marriages, and deaths, the fourth classification of the dying ? Amongst the improprieties of such an announcement as the one in question, is the chance of the sufferer seeing the sentence of death, and the effect it might have on shaken nerves and sinking spirits. But not only what is due in con- sideration to the sick, and to the feelings of relatives and friends, but also what is due to the character of the Press itself, should forbid the intrusion of Mrs. Gamp's prying news of the deathbed. — (1847.) The tables are turned. The accusers are accused. The Press is the bane of the army in the Crimea. ' Our own Correspondents ' have lied away the efficiency of the ex- pedition, and made it falsely believe itself sick, weak, hungry, and naked. The ' Times ' has done it all. As a man may be made ill by telling him lie is looking ill, so an army may be brought to death's door by representa- tions of its jeopardy. Ask a soldier in the Crimea how he is, and he will answer that he does not know till he sees the ' Times.' Lord Raglan may have inspected him hall' an hour before ; but, if the man chances to learn that it is noted in the ' Times ' that the face of the general is never seen by the men, he fort li with sets down his own SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 455 impression to the account of spectral illusion. So, too, a fellow stuffed to surfeiting with abundant rations, con- ceits himself perishing of inanition upon finding it re- ported by • our own Correspondent ' that the army is on short allowance ; and another, smothered under a load of furs, skins, woollens, &c, will be seized with a shivering fit upon learning, on the same authority, that the troops are in rags. Who should know best, the man himself or the c Times ' newspaper ? How different would be the state of things if our con- temporary followed the example of Mr. Hudson, and cooked its accounts, so as to make -things pleasant. A slut, rebuked by her mistress for some dirty corner, replied tartly, ' La, ma'am, it's not my fault, it's the nasty sun, that comes shining into the place, and showing every speck.' And this is the retort upon the Press, which is charged with the guilt of making the very mis- chief which it exposes for the purpose of correction. It is the nasty light, discovering blots and foul places. We wonder that we have not been told that the reason of the superior condition of the French army is not a better organisation, and more active care, but simply the absence of a free Press. That, however, is but a negative advantage ; the desirable thing should be a Press like the ' Petersburg Gazette,' which represents all events and circumstances according to the pleasure of the Czar, pretty much as some of our journals adjust their facts and arguments to the credit and satisfaction of Ministers. If the charges against the Press be true, the conductors of it concerned must be persons of a malignity strange, foul, and unnatural, for, according to the accusation, they 456 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. use the instruments of both truth and falsehood, with this detestable discrimination, that the truth is all for the service of the enemy, and the falsehood all for the discouragement of our troops, and the disgrace of the country in the eyes of Europe. Thus it is said that the Eussians have learnt to point their guns and shape their attacks from the English newspapers, so faithfully and accurately do they describe weak places in our hues; while on the other hand they so foully falsify the wisdom with which the affairs of the campaign are conducted by the able and active staff, whose merit is the everlasting and exclusive theme of Lord Eaglan's praise. There is a little inconsistency in the handling of these two detestable faults, or, we should rather say, crimes. In one breath we are asked contemptuously, what these newspaper people can know of war, and who made this or that correspondent a judge of military tactics? but presently we hear that these same men are such consum- mate masters of the art of war, and such fine critics of positions, that the enemy takes his lessons from their strictures, and actually lays his guns according to their suggestions. Would Lord Eaglan do as much ? If ' our own Correspondent ' were to advise that a battery should be brought to bear on a certain weak part of the enemy's works, would the English Commander-in-Chief forthwith recognise the wisdom of the counsel, and direct his guns accordingly ? Not a jot, for the newspaper writers are only skilful and trustworthy in suggestions serving the enenry. They are great strategists in exposing faults on. our own side, but presuming blunderers when they pass beyond that treacherous ground. SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 457 To make their charge hang well together, we recom- mend enraged Ministerialists not to assert peremptorily that the c Times ' never tells a word of truth about the expedition in the Crimea, and nevertheless that it has taught the Eussians how to point their guns with effect, for a marvellous chart of the war must that same ' Times ' be if it can serve to shape the course of the Eussian round shot. And why does not Lord Eaglan take the hint as well as Prince Menschikoff ; why does he not throw up works, or strengthen works at the points at which the Eussians are instructed to direct their fire ? Why is the 8 Times ' good for the enemy only, and sheer detriment to ourselves? It encourages the enemy. At Inkerman ' our own Correspondent ' was served out to the troops preparatory to the attack. Not quite so : it was a thing much apter for a Muscovite brain, a dram, the material guarantee for Eussian valour. It is really despising an enemy too immoderately to suppose him such a booby as not to be acquainted with the strong and weak places of his own familiar ground, and under his own eye, and easily accessible to his own spies, to say nothing of deserters. It w r ould be well in- deed for our army if its own commanders took as much pains to inform themselves of its condition as the Eussians are likely to do ; and happy would it be for us if the enemy had the use of no other instruments than our Staff for that purpose. They would then, indeed, need the help of the ' Times ' to tell them what was before their eyes.— (1854.) 458 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 'Put out the light— -and then'? — Some years ago the cry was that the power of the Crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished. It is held now in certain quarters, high and low, that the power of the Press has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. The chief offender in this excess being the 'Times,' it is proposed, at the particular desire of several persons of Manchester, to take measures to* compass the destruction of the said ' Times,' or at least to cripple it very considerably. But why do this in a roundabout way, involving in the injury other. pro- perties that are not obnoxious either to Manchester or to Downing Street ? Why not set about the object frankly, fairly, and directly ? Why not bring in a bill of pains and penalties, setting forth the exorbitancy of the power of the ' Times,' and that no Ministry is safe under it, and enacting what may be thought calculated to render it less formidable ? There are various means for this object besides those borrowed by Mr. Gladstone from friend Bright. The stamp of the ' Times ' might be doubled, or it might be denied transmission through the post, or it might be forbidden to circulate more than a certain number of copies. There have been restrictions on the issues of the Bank, and why not on the ' Times,' on the same score of State necessity ? What better mode is there of strengthening the Government than to weaken the ' Times,' which is over it ? If after this deterring ex- ample any paper aspires to the power of the ' Times,' the proprietors will know what they have to expect, for a bill may be brought in to deal with the offender in the same SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 459 summary way. All that we contend for is the limitation of the enactment to the real aim. Charles Lamb tells us of a sage people who burnt down a house whenever they wanted to roast a pig. We deprecate setting fire to the entire Press for the sole and separate purpose of doing the ' Times ' brown. Put our contemporary on the spit and welcome, provided you spare those who do not sin in the same way by over- topping the Government on the one hand, and controlling agitators on the other. Make an example of the ring- leader. Hang him up, or put him to the reformation of penal servitude — nay, servitude the worst of all, if you will, servitude ministerial — anything rather than derange a whole body in order to disable one member, however large and potent. Once upon a time, as Eabelais pre- faces, when beasts could speak, it was thought a most meritorious action to slay a giant ; and there is prevalent the same opinion now as to the giant of the Press, which is deemed too big to be permitted to live, especially witli the prospect of growing still bigger. There is not room enough in this broad land for both Government and the ' Times ;' and, as we must have a Government, however bad, we must not have a c Times,' however good. Hainan cannot suffer Mordecai in the gate. An old fable tells us of an ill-favoured youth who was so displeased with his looking-glass that he dashed it to the ground and shivered it to a hundred fragments ; but, seeing his ugly features in each of the broken bits, he found he had made the matter a hundred times worse, and bitterly lamented that he had changed the single unflattering re- flection for the multiplied. Such is the exact illustration 460 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. of what Government is about in compassing small change for the ' Times.' To kill the giant is all very fine, but it is not always pleasant to live with dwarfs. — (1854.) HOW TO TELL THE TRUTH. It is very easy to say to children : tell the truth and shame the devil ; but it is much more difficult to shame Lord than the devil, and telling the truth is not so feasible a thing to a grown gentleman whose education has in that respect been neglected. Children are taught to tell the truth ; and to call on Major Longbow to tell the truth, without any training in that way, is much the same thing as inviting him to play a solo on the violin without having learnt a note. When Magog the Beadle, lying dead drunk on the stage, is begged to get up, he answers, ' It is all very easy to say get up, but how do you do it ? ' And so with telling the truth. It is all very easy to say tell the truth, but how do you do it if you have never learnt ? If you want to hide a truth, you will bury it most safely in the breast of a Munchausen. There are men who will betray everything in the world but the truth. A man full of truth runs over, when a truth is put in his mind, just as a full pitcher overflows when more water is added ; but a man void of truth has a capacity for holding fast any drop of it that by chance may find its way into his breast. The common expression, that a man has c no truth in him/ is very incorrect. The man may have truth in him, SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 461 but it never comes out of him. It is one of the good things that cannot escape from him. A famous gourmand laid it down as a maxim that a wise man should never carve. If you carve, he said, you are obliged to help your neighbour to the best bits ; whereas, if you throw the business on him, he must give you the delicacies. Lord has very discreetly handed the carving knife to Lord who, in jobbing, always fulfils the Christian duty of doing as he would be done by. — (1844.) THE EIVALS. 1 * He is taller, by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his Court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholder. His features are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip and arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well proportioned, all his motions graceful, and his deportment majestic' — Gulliver's Travels. Extremes meet. Lilliput and Brobdignag have come together. The public curiosity is now divided between the rival exhibitions of two foreigners, the one the tiniest Eepublican, the other the most gigantic despot. Which is the favourite, the smallest or the greatest ? We are puzzled between the two advertisements, and know not to which the palm should be awarded. Expende Annibalem : quot libras in duce summo invenies ? The General weighs only 15 lbs. ; his great rival twenty stone or more. But let us place the pretensions of the two fairly side by side. 1 With reference to the visit to England of the Emperor of Russia and the first exhibition of the dwarf known as General Tom Thumb. — (Ed.) 462 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. The General weighs only 151b., is of beautiful propor- tions, and smaller than any infant that ever walked alone ; he wears his Court dress at half past 12, and again in the afternoon. The elegant presents from Her Majesty and the Queen Dowager may be seen. Hours from 11 to 1, half- past 2 to 5, and from 7 to 9. Admission Is., without regard to age. Owing to the constantly- increasing crowds of nobility and gentry which attend his exhibitions, this man in miniature will remain at Catlin's Indian Gallery, Egyptian hall, Piccadilly, a short time longer, exhibit- ing every day and evening. Joc-o-sot, the celebrated North American Indian Chief, from the Sauk tribe, having recovered from his recent illness, will appear dressed in the full costume of his tribe, with the shaved and crested head, &c. Ge- The person of the Em- peror is that of a colossal man, in the full prime of life and health, 42 years of age, about 6 feet 2 inches high, and well filled out, without any approach to corpulency — the head magnificently carried, a splendid breadth of shoulder and chest, great length and symmetry of limb, with finely-formed hands and feet. His face is strictly Grecian — forehead and nose in one grand line ; the eyes finely lined, large, open, and blue, with a calm- ness, a coldness, a freezing dignity, which can equally quell an insurrection, daunt an assassin, or paralyse a petitioner — a figure of the grandest beauty, expression, dimension, and carriage, uniting all the majesties and graces of all the heathen gods. — Letters from the Baltic. SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 463 neral Tom Thumb will give his songs and dances, and represent Napoleon musing, the Grecian statues, &c. Though 'gainst us men and giants league with gods, Yet Thumb alone is equal to more odds. We wish, however, that the General had not called in the reinforcement of Joc-o-sot, with the shaved and crested head. It looks as if he mistrusted the force of his attraction in the competition with his Imperial rival. The other, indeed, has his backer too, and the King of Saxony pairs off with Joc-o-sot ; but we think it would have been greater in the ' man in miniature ' to have stood alone against the burly Autocrat, and not only to have dispensed with the Joc-o-sots, but to have given his competitor the following of all the tribe of sots. The favour which the General has found in the sight of our Queen is well known to all readers of newspapers. He has been repeatedly summoned to the palace, and her Majesty in the most marked way has signified her appre- ciation of extreme littleness. That this is not her Majesty's own taste is certain ; but, as she has been com- pelled, much against the grain, to give the sway to little men, consistency perhaps requires the honouring of little- ness, in whatever form it may appear. Various profound reasons have been assigned for the visit of the Emperor Nicholas, but nothing can be more obvious than the jealous motive of it. When Dr. Johnson, after visiting the Fantoccini, said, ' How the little pigmy handled his musket ! ' Goldsmith 464 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. cried out, ' I could have done it better,' and proceeded to go through his exercise with a stick. So, when the Emperor of Eussia heard how the c man in miniature ' delighted the Queen, he determined to show that he could do it better, and that a very great man was a much finer thing than a very little one. Should our Queen give the palm to his rival, Glumdalca's bravura will express the Imperial passion — Oh. the vixen pigmy brat Of inches scarce half six, To slight me for a chit like that Ah, Mr. Tom, are these your tricks ? The rivalry is rather hard upon Mr. Catlin, whose monsters and savages are eclipsed by the Imperial retinue ; the latter offering the great advantage of not charging a shilling, exhibiting gratis, or for cheers, the smallest of which are thankfully received. — (1844.) POLAND AVEXGED. We show odd lions to the Emperor of Eussia. He is taken to the review of about the force that he sees guard-mounting in his palace. The troop-horses do not stand fire, dragoons are run away with like John Gilpin, the great Captain himself cannot command his horse ; and, to complete the military farce, the artillery blaze and bang away against express desire to the con- trary. What a fine display of discipline ! He is next taken to Portsmouth, where there is little to be seen, a most meagre specimen of our naval greatness. He might have run down to Plymouth in ten hours or less, where he would have seen a beautiful harbour, in which SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 465 his whole fleet might manoeuvre in safety within the mighty breakwater. The method of entertaining him seems as unfortunate as that of showing the lions. He hates music, and the Queen's piper struts round the dinner-table during the banquet, making the detestable noise which for inscrutable purposes pipers are appointed to inflict. Of a truth the Poles have had their revenge. — (1844.) THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. The experimentalist of Hierocles had nearly taught his horse to live without oats when the ■ animal died. The horse wanted encouragement. Had a prize for living without food been in prospect, he would have known better than to die. We do not despair of seeing the time when associations of country gentlemen will be giving prizes to labourers for living without food : a silver fork to Thomas Dobson, who has not tasted meat for forty years ; a gilt knife to another, who has left off bread for half a century ; a gold medal to a third, who has discovered the art of living on cabbage broth, i. e., the water in which cabbage has been boiled, without the vegetable. It is amazing how little people can live on if they will but try. Franklin and his fellow-travellers on the North Pole expedition fared on a pair of leather breeches for many days. We do not throw out this for imitation, for leather breeches would be too expensive a diet for rural labourers, and, if taught to indulge in it, they might have a hankering for the Squire's nether garments : but it shows what may be done ; and, as gentlemen could H H 466 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. breakfast, dine, and sup on a tender piece of doeskin, surely coarser feeders might contrive to make a meal off old harness, saddles, and such like. A prize to a labourer, aged 26, who had lived a week on an old shoe would be of excellent example. A horse-trace might be eaten, like Epping butter, by the yard. The keys of an old spinet or pianoforte, filed to powder and boiled to jelly, would support a man for a long time ; and it would be good to see encouragement given to John Thomson, field labourer, who had lived on a C natural for three weeks. Glue is nourishing diet, but too dear. We agree with the ' Times ' that Societies for the Pro- motion of Agricultural Industry are as much out of place in present circumstances as associations would be for the encouragement of great eaters in a besieged place short of provisions. 'Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia.' The misfortune is, that there is far more industry than work. A society more to the purpose would be one for the encouragement of small wages, giving twopenny-half- penny prizes to labourers who had worked for the longest time on the lowest wages. This association would lead the way to the other we have suggested, for the promotion of living without food. The Societies for the Promotion of Industry have, how- ever, the excellent tendency of keeping up a redundant supply of labour, as every candidate for the prizes must have a large family of children to exhibit and exercise his economy on. All these children are of course reared most suitably for future circumstances. From their earliest hour they SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 467 have been practised in privation, and in due season will compete for employment on the lowest wages. The country gentlemen who give these premiums thus lay them out at good interest, throwing the sprat to catch the herring, for the tendency is to keep the labour- market handsomely overstocked, so that wages may be low and the labourers well accustomed from their infancy to starvation. The system of rewarding labourers for living on their wretched wages reminds us of Mr. Disraeli's Lady C -, who, having stuffed the page under the seat of her crowded carriage, gives him a sugar-plum for being so good a boy as not to be suffocated. — (1844.) As the food of the poor fails, the greatly comforting discovery is made that they can do very well without it. No one now commits the mistake of the Duchesse de Maine, who asked why the people who could not get bread did not make shift with buns. Folks know better now, and manifest wonderful ingenuity and resource in finding coarser and cheaper substitutes for the food wanting. Dr. Buckland recommends to the poor, in lieu of potatoes, the mangel-wurzel, field carrots and parsnips that have been grown for cattle, which are to have oil- cake as a substitute ; — we almost wonder that the oil-cake was not suggested for the people. Others hold that the rotten potatoes are, after all, very good eating, and nourishing enough, if the prejudice against swallowing them can be conquered. For this last object we suggest H H 2 468 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. that rich people should set the example of having none but rotten potatoes at their own tables. But, after all, are potatoes necessary ? Hesiod laughs at the fools who don't know how much more the half is than the whole, and what luxury there is in the mallow and dandelion. Nr/7rioi* ovd' loaoiv offh) tt\bov rjfinrv Tcavrbq OvS' oaov tv fiaXaxy re Kai aaQodsXcf) pey ovtiap. But a greater discovery than any of these has been made. The Duke of Norfolk has found out that the poor can live on pickle. Pickling and preserving are words that run together in an established conjugate ; and pickling and preserving the poor are now, it appears, identical operations. So the pinch of hunger is to be mitigated with a pinch of curry. The benevolent will carry a box of curry powder about with them, as snuff-takers carry their snuff, and will offer a pinch to such starving creatures as may fall in their way. A pound canister will serve for a day's provision for the Eefuge for the Destitute, and we have not a doubt that the Free Hospital will furnish its porter with a four-ounce box to meet current necessities. There is nothing like improving occasion ; it is good to know that famine, if nothing else can be made of it, can be curried. Curry, explains the Duke, is made of peppers and a variety of things ; but the variety of things we take to be superfluous, and it will probably soon be found that the pepper is the main ingredient ; and we can imagine the time when a rural labourer will be nourished, after a day's work, on a pepper-corn. There are pepper-corn SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 4G9 rents, and why not pepper-corn wages ? Fancy the happy peasants returning from the fields, and the good farmer or squire putting a pepper-corn down the throat of each for a day's sustenance, as old ladies dose their moulting bullfinches. What a convenient substitute for corn will be the pepper-corn, the very name of it speaking that it is both corn and spice. How various are its uses ! Put it into hot water, as the Duke advises, and you make soup of it, warm and comfortable for a man who has nothing better. We prefer the pepper simplex to the curry, because there is an idea of luxury in the name of curry, which might startle many frugal minds. It would sound extravagant that the poor of the three kingdoms were living on curries. People whose appetites are fastidious, says the Duke, take pickle ; but, if you get all the poor of the United Kingdom into this pickle, how would you ever get them out of it again ? They would insist on currying their mangel-wurzel and field carrots ; and the rotten potatoes, palatable and nourishing as Dr. Buckland warrants them to be, would not go down without the stimulating condiment. We incline to the pepper-corn as simpler, more compendious, more safe. The Duke of Norfolk, we are aware, may show how many applications may be made of curry ; but its season- ing powers after all have their bounds, and curried water or curried nothing will never be a popular dish, no matter what his Grace may vouch in its favour. — (1845*) The inquiry into the condition of the labourers at Kyme, in Dorsetshire, proves one thing at least, namely, that the 470 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. stimulus of rewards for good behaviour is wanted in that neighbourhood. It is the happy effect of the system of rural rewards to turn matters of complaint into matters of boast and emulation. There was a time when people grumbled at having to bring up families on 7s. or 8s. a week ; they now come forward to claim prizes for the exploit. The farmer or landlord gets his labour cheap, and he liberally gives a smock-frock, or a pair of high shoes, to encourage the saving to his own pocket. There is nothing that requires cultivation more than contentment. People who are scantily or badly fed are too apt to complain ; and this propensity can only be cured by judicious treatment on the part of their employers. This is to be accomplished by making the sufferings matter of emulation, and bestowing prizes for pinching and screwing. In the austere monastic orders, men being held in honour for the pains they inflicted on themselves, they vied with each other in the tortures they devised ; and, if one wore a hair shirt, another outdid him by putting on a girdle handsomely studded inside with spikes. This shows what can be done by the spirit of emulation once excited. But in this instance it was barren ; no one was the better for it. But with the agricultural labourers the case is different, for the less they can be got to live upon the better for their paymasters. At Eyme the people obviously want training. They need some rewards to put them in that fine line of ambi- tion by which the poor pass through the eye of a needle in myriads abreast. We beg leave, therefore, to suggest a prize for living on the mutton of a sheep found dead in a ditch, the SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 471 carrion bought of the employer at the price of 2d, a pound in lieu of wages ; A prize for eating the employer's butter made chiefly of fat, the smell of the said butter worse than the taste — best with cake ; A prize for feasting on the beef of a bullock that came to an untimely end by a cancer, which eat up all but what was left to the poor, at 2d. a pound ; A prize for performing the duty of mitigating the farmer's misfortunes by buying and eating the meat of his cattle dying of any sickness ; A prize for preferring cheese at 2>\d. per pound, not distinguishable from chalk excepting that it is not fit to score with, nor saleable in the London milk market, it being a sort of cheese so alien to the cow as not to be available even in the town mixture ; A prize for living with the same employer for five-and- twenty-years, never having seen the colour of his money, on the system commonly called the truck system, but in stricter etymology the trick system. By virtue of such rewards as these, what are now the complaints of the dainty labourers of Eyme would become the aims of their frugal ambition, their boasts, and causes of honour. Indeed, by a judicious course of training, in a few years, instead of hearing grumblings about eating butcher's meat at 2d. a pound (butcher's meat lucus a non, the butcher having had nothing to do with its end), we should learn that the duty of mitigating the farmer's mis- fortunes on the death of cattle by sickness, by purchasing it for food, was carried to the pitch of virtue of consuming his horse, untowardly deceased, or his watch-dog. — (1846.) 472 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. THE GARTER. Lord Powis, who so sorely defeated Ministers on the question of the union of the bishoprics of St. Asaph and Bangor, is to have the Garter. Calves, and geese, and Peers are secured by tying the leg. Sir Eobert Peel binds over his Dukes and Earls to keep the peace by the Garter. And this is quite accordant with usage. The Garter is a reward for victory, and it is therefore appropriately given to a nobleman who obtained a signal victory over the Government. Lord Powis beat the Duke of Wellington himself in a pitched battle in the House of Lords, and the Duke, in consenting to reward him, may say — Great let me call him, for lie conquered me. There is much modesty in a Government's thus re- quiting the merit of its vanquisher. How meekly it kisses the rod, blandly praying at the same time with its little hands upheld, ' Don't whip me any more.' And the Garter secures that. No one with the Garter at his knee takes a step against the Government which has so bound him to forbearance. There is no pacificator like the blue ribbon. When a man puts it on, he puts off all troublesome anti-Ministerial opinions and pledges. The rat-catcher's broad badge is copied from the blue ribbon— a most presumptuous figurative pretension, as if there were anything in his art of traps and baits SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 473 comparable with the effect of the bit of ribbon in the Minister's hands ! Swift's simile of ' blushing like a blue dog ' must surely be derived from the wearing of the blue ribbon, for what men have such cause for blushing as some of those who give up their own honour in exchange for the bauble sign of the Sovereign's ? 1 1 have seen,' says Paul Louis Courier, ' many men covered with glory without having a whit the better mien for it.' The Garter has sometimes as little effect in im- proving a man's figure and carriage. Some of its wearers may be seen ever after stooping and "bending, as if they looked downwards at it to study and bow to the Minister's pleasure. — (1844.) FEDERALISM EXPLAINED. Federalism is the very first thing that has ever died for want of a plan. What other bubble has lacked a pre- sentable scheme, something to show on paper? Mr. Sharman Crawford, who is as prolific as a rabbit, either was or thought himself in labour with a scheme, but could not be delivered of it before Mr O'Connell aban- doned the thing. Mr. Porter, indeed, has given a pro- missory note for a plan, at some months after date, like Don Quixote's bill for ass-colts unborn ; and Mr. O'Con- nell has Sancho Panza's confidence in the assets in due season. The French soldiers, jealous of the distinction of the corps of Engineers, and holding their scientific labours in small respect, lost no opportunity of quizzing them. It happened on a march that some of the officers of 474 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Engineers fell into a deep ditch, and, in answer to their cries for help and extrication, the soldiers replied, ' Draw out your plan ; we can do nothing without your plan. Give us your plan how to pull you out of the ditch/ The poor Federalists were in the like predicament. Those ingenious engineers Mr. Porter and Mr. Crawford being floundering in the ditch, Mr. O'Connell invited them to draw out their plan, in default of which he now barbarously deserts them. There is somewhere a mill for grinding people young, which we take to be like the proposed Federalism, re- ducing a frame to particles in order to put it together again with a more vigorous constitution. Medea restored iEson by a federal treatment. She cut. him into minced meat, put him in hot water, and boiled him up young again. This is what the Irish en- chanter would do with the Empire ; he would cut it into parts to make the members greater, Hibernice, by making them smaller ; the other cooks then propose the next stage of the process, that of putting together again, in the hot water of the federal kettle, the disjointed parts, and stewing them into a new and more vigorous empire. Pelias, the head of the Peel family and from whom the name is derived with a corruption common to Tory- ism, had his limbs treated in this federal fashion by his misguided daughters, who made such a hash of it that the old gentleman was so overdone that he never came out of the cauldron again. We supply this explanation of Federalism to clear ourselves from Mr. O'Connell's charge of quarrelling with a thing without any idea of its nature, and to show that SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 475 at least we had a distincter notion of what we were ridi- culing than he had of what he was espousing. — (1844.) RAILWAY MANAGEMENT. What Mrs. Harris is to Sarah Gamp, Colonel Pasley is to Railways. When a railway is completed, Colonel Pasley vouches for the excellence of the construction. When any accident happens to a railway, Colonel Pasley hurries down to see it ; and sometimes he says nothing and sometimes he says something ; but he visits the spot, and that is a great public satisfaction. Colonel Pasley is called in in every case of railway dis- order, but he appears to have the advantage over phy- sicians, that he does not prescribe. He goes to see, and goes away again. Of course Colonel Pasley visited the scene of the accident on the Dover Eailway. The ' Times ' reporter states : ' Although Colonel Pasley 's opinion was not publicly made known, we understand from good authority that he attributes the explosion to a flaw in the copper, or a defect in riveting the casing. So far as regards the viaduct, he has pronounced it to be perfectly safe and secure. 1 Everybody felt wonderfully satisfied with this explana- tion, which was as if, in the case of a coach accident, a great authority had referred the accident either to the linch-pin, or a fracture of the axletree, or the breaking of the pole. But the viaduct was pronounced by Colonel Pasley perfectly safe and secure ; the reporter, however, adds, shortly afterwards : 476 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. ' Eespecting the viaduct, notwithstanding that it has been pronounced perfectly safe, it has been found abso- lutely necessary to place cross-beams under that por- tion where the engine jumped, the heavy cross-trees having been broken, and they must be replaced by new ones. Up to the present time not the slightest stoppage has taken place upon the railway. Although one of the line of rails is stopped up, the other is pronounced by Colonel Pasley to be perfectly secure, and the trains pass to and fro without the slightest inconvenience. ' Colonel Pasley is a Mrs. Harris and, as Betsy Prig says, ' I don't believe there's no sich a person.' There may be such a salary, but there's no such person. Colonel Pasley is a figment, a fiction, a fable. Colonel Pasley has no more existence than a griffin or dragon, and serves, like them, only for a sign. Colonel Pasley, in railroad affairs, is like the John Doe and Eichard Eoe in writs. There is no kind of evidence of Colonel Pasley's reality. In investigations substitute the Man in the Moon for Colonel Pasley, and the effect will be pre- cisely the same. An accident happens ; the Man in the Moon hurries express to the spot, hurries back to White- hall, and there an end, to the infinite satisfaction of the public. The railways have said to Colonel Pasley, 'If any- thing should happen to us, you will come and see us ? ' and he does go and see them, and that is all. The Man in the Moon might do the same in newspaper paragraphs to as good purpose. But nevertheless, as a Mrs. Harris, Colonel Pasley is of great convenience to the railways, in the way of a voucher, or approver, and when Colonel Pasley has gone through SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 477 his veni vidi, and says he is satisfied, all the public is content and happy. Of such vast and comfortable use is a Mrs. Harris. — (1844.) The Board of Trade is now to Eailways what the chorus of the Greek stage was to the action of the drama. It sees what is going on, exercises a judgment upon the conduct of the parties, laments what is amiss, is moved to horror by a catastrophe, but is incapable of prevention. And the similarity holds good in this particular, that the enounced opinion of the chorus has not the slightest effect upon the action of the piece, which holds its tenor under the sway of other motives and laws. — (1851.) DUKES AND OXEN. The ancient historians who tell us that an ox spoke in the Forum never record what the ox said ; the articu- lation being the prodigy, and not the speech. The agri- cultural Duke of the present day is like the ox of ancient times : great importance is attached to his speaking, none whatever to what he says. If we could but get at the oxen's orations, it would be curious to compare them with the ducal ; but the oxen had the advantage of not being reported. — (1845.) mr. Gladstone's secession. A lady's footman jumped off the Great Western train going forty miles an hour, merely to pick up his hat. Pretty much like this act, so disproportioned to the occa- sion, is Mr. Gladstone's leap out of the Ministry to follow his book.— (1845.) 478 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. It cannot be said of Mr. Gladstone as of the nursery- hero who devoured his gingerbread letters, that He loved good books so well, That he ate up his words. Master Gladstone loves his book. He loves his Peel too, but he loves his book better. He minds his book too, and that is more than anybody else does. If you would know why Mr. Gladstone went out, read his book; he went out that you should read it to know why. The book has been out too long to little purpose ; Mr. Gladstone goes out to give it a lift. There are men who fancy themselves teapots ; there was one who used to go about with his arm out, begging people to take care not to break his spout. Mr. Gladstone is one of those hypochondriacs in politics, and went in mortal fear of breaking his brittle reputation. We shall become believers in portents. It was but the other day that we read an account of a dog committing suicide by drowning ; and the narrator declared that it showed the dog's sense, perhaps, because if he had been mad he would not have taken to the water. Eousseau separated from his mistress that he might have the pleasure of meditating on her charms, and writing to her. The Gladstone separates from its Peel for a sweeter correspondence than that of colleagueship. — (1845.) THE NEW STAGE. There is no Stage ; where are the actors ? is a common cry. There is a stage which fixes the most eager gaze, and SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 479 there are actors who are followed with the intensest in- terest as they fret their little hour. The stage is the dock, and the actors are the assassins. The day is rapidly approaching when persons of rank and fashion will have their stalls at the Old Bailey, their private boxes at the Central Criminal Court. Ladies thronged Marylebone Police Office to see Hocker as their grandmothers crowded to the playhouse to see Garrick. It is customary to publish the names of fashion- able visitors to the theatre, and we much wish we could give the names of the ladies who mingled in the mob to gaze at Hocker. Some years ago grossly indecent farces were played at a certain theatre : in vain the Press reprobated the in- decency, it only attracted the more ; at last a newspaper gave notice that it would publish the names of the ladies who witnessed the performance, and the piece was very soon withdrawn. A saintly lady Mayoress took a large party to Newgate Chapel to gratify their curiosity with the sight of a mur- derer at his devotions the day before execution. The decorous Sunday's entertainment was noticed ; and the lady, who was not ashamed of the vulgar, morbid, un- feeling curiosity, was made ashamed of the public report of it, and there was an end of that indecency. As large prices are known to be given for a gaze at murderers in police-offices, prisons, and sessions' courts, we should like to know how much more the same parties would have given to witness the murder itself. What would have been the price of a first row on the 480 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. wall of Belsize park, or for a peep through the casement of the cottage at Salt Hill ? The thing might easily be arranged by an advertise- ment to this effect : — TO the Lovers of Excitement and Amateurs of Murder. — An opportunity now offers for a private view on reasonable terms. The affair to come off, pay or play, on the night of the . For particulars of place and the programme, apply to Y Z, 1, Eosemary Lane. We suppose that persons who throng to gaze at assas- sins would have no repugnance to witness the crime itself, for by the vulgar eclat which they give to the criminals they in no slight degree contribute to the en- couragement and commission of other crimes of the same class. The followers and admirers of the bravado of one assassin make others. — (1845.) THE TRIUMPHS OF METAPHOR. We are glad to see the Americans making a free use of their eagle. Their eagle soars aloft, bathing her plumes in the clouds, disdaining the brute creation. A free indul- gence in this figurative triumph is to be encouraged as excellent for peace. Of all ways of asserting national superi- ority, it is the most inexpensive, and yet how satisfactory ! A writer or orator, burning with national enmity, delivers himself of a figure, giving a triumph to his country in the .person of its emblematic bird or beast, and straight he feels not only relieved of the load of perilous stuff, but delighted with himself for having Baid such fine things in honour of his dear native land. Wars should be conducted in this SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 481 way, and in this way only. The American eagle should fight it out with the British lion ; the British lion, on its part, trampling on the moulting eagle; and the eagle soaring above the mangy Hon ; and each thanking Heaven for the victory, and singing Non nobis. We are sorry that the British lion has lately fallen into ridicule and disuse. The fault was with those who did not reserve him for national occasions, but dragged him into petty domestic quarrels, such as the great Mott ques- tion or the Andover Union. Every tailor quarrelling with his wife for dragging him from the public-house threatened her with the British Hon. This was the abuse of the lion ; but the lion is of excellent uses so long as he is kept in his sphere, to lash, roar, and rage against the birds and beasts of other nations. Napoleon was so conscious of the importance of the British lion that he had recourse to the denial of him, and insisted that the brute was a leopard. France would have been more pacific if she had had the good fortune to possess any able-bodied beast to take her part in figurative combat. Wanting this sort of represen- tation and metaphorical triumph, she was obliged to comfort her vanity by resort to vulgar arms. Her cock's crow scared the Hon, and that was something ; but she could not always be crowing by figurative deputy ; and the cock, being too near a representative with his strut, his swagger, and his coxcombries, seemed a satire upon her sons. Her lilies might serve a turn now and then in poetry or ballet ; but lilies cannot take the field, and are not of the martial complexion. It is for want of having some bird or beast to swagger handsomely for her in figure that France must occupy i i 482 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Algeria, and exterminate uncountable thousands of Arabs. If she could set up some potent brute upon a metaphorical establishment, a griffin or dragon, or what not of that alarming sort, she might disband half her army, live at peace with her neighbours, and trample on all the world typically. If Europe and Africa understood their true interests, they would subscribe to furnish France with an endriago ; and we are far from certain that it would not be a politic generosity for England to make her a present of our lion, and to rest content with the unicorn, which is quite fresh, having been unused hitherto in meta- phor, however much used in stucco. With what a grace Her Majesty, on her next visit to the King of the French, might present him with the British lion to rouse himself and roar for France ! We could spare him ; and the lion would have fine scope for France in African warfare. —(1846.) MARKET PRICE OF VIRTUE. About this time of year we learn to a figure the price of virtue in the rewards assigned it. Virtue appears a shade lower this autumn than at the last annual quotation. At the Dunmow Agricultural Association, in Essex, the virtue of a labourer's widow, who had brought up the largest family with the least parochial relief, was rated at a scarlet cloak ; and the second in degree at a wash-tub and clothes-basket. Filial affection of the first water fetched 16s., the measure of it being the support of parents for the longest period exceeding one year : the second prize for the same was 10s. . The parental duties were requited by a gammon of bacon. The rearing of a large family, without any or with the least parochial relief, was rewarded SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 483 with a chest cf drawers : the second prize for the same was a pair of high shoes. Other virtues fetched some of them a smock-frock, some a pair of high shoes, some a waistcoat. To the imagination it is extremely delightful to see virtue so equipped. Once upon a time she was naked. The Eoman satirist mentions her as hawked about with bare feet ; now we behold her clothed in a smock-frock, with a scarlet cloak over it, and a waistcoat under it, and a stout pair of high shoes to her feet ; and for furniture, she has a chest of drawers, an American clock, a wash- tub, a clothes-basket, and for her little peculium 15s. in hard cash. For her provision she has a gammon of bacon. No one can say that virtue is not handsomely set up, compared, at least, with what her condition has been in other times. Eiches, says Bacon, are the baggage of virtue ; we see what her baggage is, and how rich it is. But, on the other hand, see what virtue does for all these bounties. She brings up the largest family without parochial relief. She takes care of a team of not less than four cart or plough horses a certain length of time on the same farm, and with the same employer ; she subscribes to the Dunmow Friendly Society ; she has had the care of a barn for not less than ten years, and the care of a large family for twice the time brought up without parish help, and the support of her parents into the bargain. There was a time when virtue was her own reward : but, now that her patrons have taken the matter in hand, few, very few, washerwomen are more handsomely pro- vided. At this rate, in another century virtue may come to keep a mangle. i i 2 484 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Let no one mock the apparel and furniture of virtue. It is to be remembered how common she is — her name is Legion. The vices are the select few occupying the gaols. The virtues go about in smock frocks and high shoes. There is nothing so cheap as the virtues. For 155. you shall have the filial piety of a Grecian daughter ; and a Cornelia fetches only a gammon of bacon. But, low as the price of virtue is, it is had for the first time nowa- days. The market, however, is at present only agricul- tural, with the exception of Mr. Hudson, who has been specially rewarded for the care he has taken of himself all the days of his life, and for the indefatigable zeal with which he has feathered his nest. But the aristocratic and the royal virtues lack encour- agement. Should we see Louis Philippe match-making and fortune-hunting so shabbily as he is, if there had been a reward, some royal gammon, for the Prince who had brought up a large family without charge to his neigh- bours, supporting them solely out of a private fortune of hardly half a million sterling, together with a kingly revenue ? It would be excellent to inspire kings with some of that honest ambition which is cultivated at so small a cost in clowns. There should be rewards for the potentate who for the longest time had remained at peace ; rewards for taking care of his people ; rewards for not encroaching on his neighbours' territories ; rewards for not cutting throats ; rewards for the longest abstinence from foreign intrigues ; and rewards for not quartering out children on other .nations with subdolous designs, analogous to a reward to the labourer for not throwing Ins child on the parish with the design of his robbing the poor-house. — (1846.) SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 485 THE PLAN FOR SANITARY IMPROVEMENT. Cleanliness is one of the latest discoveries. Washing may be said to have commenced in these realms in the present century. In Addison's ' Diary of a Citizen,' the worthy gentleman regularly records the washing of his hands and face once a day but, upon the occasion of a slight indisposition which entitled him to indulgence, the entry is ' Washed hands, but not face.' A celebrated doctor of the last century, when he was asked why he never used a nail brush, cried out with astonishment, ' A What? Never heard of such a thing in all my life.' The son of a dignitary of the Church, a Master of the Temple, was asked how it happened that his father's hands were always so dirty, and whether he ever chanced to wash them ? The reply was, ' Oh, yes ; he washes his hands, but he has a trick of putting them to his face.' The water-cure has done wonders for people who had never before made experiment of the uses of water. A large portion of the poor, however, still cling to the notion that dirt is warm and comfortable, as if anything detrimental to health, which is the warmest and most comfortable of all things, could conduce to those feelings. The upper classes are generally aware of the luxury of cleanliness in their persons and abodes, the interior at least ; but, nevertheless, how many a fine London mansion has before its door a grated aperture to steam it with the exhalations of the sewer. There are flowers in the balconies ; but a noisome stream of foul air is perpetually ascending, polluting and poisoning the atmosphere. We could name places, too, frequented by invalids, Clifton 486 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. for instance, where, with the finest opportunities of drainage, most of the houses stand over a cess-pool ; and the inhabitants would be astonished and indignant if they were told they were nasty dirty people, for they have to learn that to live contentedly over reeking impurities, because they are out of sight though by no means out of smell, is not consistent with nicety. Drainage is to a house what ablution is to the person. — (1847.) FRENCH WINES AND ENGLISH COOKERY. We confess that we have our doubts whether any large increase in the consumption of French wines would follow a reduction of the duty. A taste for French wine is confined to the aristocratic classes who keep good tables. There is a concord between cookery and drinks. With a coarse, or even with a plain, English dinner a light Bordeaux has no zest. It does not harmonise with legs of mutton and beef-steaks. It assorts and becomes an auxiliary of digestion with light meals only ; and even with French cookery how seldom have the English the taste for the wine ; how generally they complain of its insipidity, its sourness, its coldness, and its unfitness for their stomachs, the greater part having their palates vitiated by strong stimulants! Amongst a hundred English residents in France of the middle class, hardly one will be found who really relishes the wine, and the greater number prefer detestably bad brandy. The most wholesome wines have the least chance of British popu- larity. The Burgundies are preferred to the Bordeaux, and the St. George or Tavail, which resembles bad port, SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 487 are again better liked by John Bull than the Burgundies. But they cannot be drunk long without mischief. The general notion is that the light wines do not suit a cold climate : but we think the concord is more with the cookery than the climate, for the winter in France is much colder than in England ; and at a good table in the coldest season there is no disrelish for claret, and it is preferred by people who know what is conducive to health. But the cookery is the indispensable to the enjoyment and the fitness of the light wine. If there are any people who would drink Bordeaux at id. a bottle, or 8d. a bottle, with beef-steaks or shoulders of mutton, they are persons who now drink water under the same trials. The plain feeders who now drink beer and grog or fierce sherry or hot port with their meals, would not at any price change their potations for Bordeaux, which they delight to dishonour with all sorts of bad names. A change in the taste for drinks can only be brought about by a change in the style of cookery. So long as people eat lumps of meat slackly roasted or furiously boiled with underdone vegetables a I'eau, they will prefer the more substantial and ardent drinks. Between the kitchen and "the cellar there is the closest connection. The cooks, called plain because they are no cooks at all, drive people to gin. If cookery should ever arise in this country, the reduction of the duties on French wines would have very different results from those to be expected now ; and Bordeaux, if it knew its interest, would despatch culinary missionaries to this country to prepare the way for its wines. 488 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. The misfortune of English cookery is the excellence of the materials. Goldsmith made one of his very few mistakes when he said that the French would be good cooks if they had any butchers' meat. They are good cooks because they have to dress what John Bull would turn up his nose at as carrion. Lean, stringy cattle and fast days have made cookery in France : what is ever to make it in England we cannot pretend to foresee. In the scarcity Ireland has been taught to make soup. The oddest thing is that the culinary art is supposed to exist commonly, though the number of cooks proper is probably not larger than that of the painters, or certainly not than that of the musicians ; yet you hear people talk familiarly of their cooks just as if they had such artists in their kitchens. There. was once as prevailing a belief in witches, and without the daily disproof. The old maxim was that the hood did not make the monk ; but there is no question that the wages, and the wages only, make the cook. — (1847.) LORD ELLESMERE'S LETTER. 1 We are pleased to see that Lord Ellesmere is not quite easy about his letter. It is unfortunate that what he meant to say has so little corresponded with what he has expressed to such effect as to have made every English- man in France feel the humiliation of his evidence against the spirit of his country. We are now told that the passage about the Guards marching out of one end of London in the event of the entry of the French at another, 1 With reference to Sir John Burp:oyne's famous letter to the Duke of Wellington on the defenceless state of the country. — (Ed.) SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 489 implied no more than that retreat might be advisable, retreat being no disgrace in war ; but how was it that Lord Ellesmere, whose imagination is so lively, could not conceive any circumstances in which the London garrison could hold an enemy even for a few hours in check ? Why did he suppose that it could have nothing better to do in any case than to fly before the enemy ? The neces- sity might or might not exist. Why assume only the humiliating contingency ? The fact is, that Lord Ellesmere's letter is a specimen of a sort of fanfaronade, not very common, but not quite unknown : the fanfaronade of fear. As the braggart deals in exaggerations of one kind, so he deals in those of ano- ther. Each plays his part for the effect : to produce a sensation, the one for self-glorification, the other to favour particular views. The public, however, should always distrust a man who sets to work with an attempt to frighten it out of its wits, for his calculation is surely to take advantage of the loss of its wits to impose some crotchet upon it. As for Lord Ellesmere, we are quite certain that, if the Prince de Joinville had written the letter which bears his lordship's name, he would have been at least as ready to come forward in vindication of the spirit and energies of his country as he had been to depreciate them. As the homely saying phrases it, he has been pleased to cry stinking fish most lustily : but he would assuredly not suffer a rival to make the same un- savoury proclamation. — (1848.) 490 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. THE CAPE GOVERNOR AND THE KAFIR FOOL. We have seen little books professing to make easy various instructions, but for the first time we see a Go- vernor setting about making governing easy, and reducing it to the level of the meanest capacity. Sir Harry Smith is, as it were, giving lessons in one syllable to Kafirs. Whether he makes himself understood by his pupils we cannot pre- tend to conjecture, but certain it is that he utterly passes our comprehension. At a meeting of his children, as be styles them, his Excellency proclaims that the Queen has sent him a paper, and he holds up a scroll and throws it down on the ground, and cries, ' There lies the law of the land — never to be altered — no change.' This seems rather odd treatment of the paper sent by the Queen, and not less a liberty with truth is the assertion of the unalter- able or unchangeable. The Governor then takes hold of a certain staff of office, and says, ' Here is the stick which will carry it out.' The stick we conceive to be a symbol, not unapt, of the sort of officer by whom Her Majesty's affairs are managed, and the immutable laws carried out in the sense in which the dead are carried out. The Governor soon after begins singing his own praises, vaunting what great things he had done, and how he had made minced meat of rebellious Boers. ' You all know how I fight,' says he, after he had taken good care to tell them ; and then he proceeds, ' you know how far the Orange river is. I was over there the other day, and you see I am here now, and I am ready to fight there to- morrow (pointing in the direction of Kye) if necessary.' SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 491 Apropos to fighting, his Excellency introduces the Bishop from Cape Town as the man who teaches his Excellency the way to salvation, and who comes to teach Kafirs the way to be Christians. It is to be hoped the Kafirs will not ask the holy man whether, in his lessons of salvation, he taught the Governor the alacrity he professes in fighting, or in what part of the Christian religion the sword exercise is inculcated. The Governor now cries out for gifts for the Bishop. 1 Can none give a calf, or a little corn? ' but, evidently soon in despair of a response to this touching appeal, he turns to one Jan Tzatzoe, addressing him thus handsomely, ' Have you nothing to say ? You who have been in England, seen the great world there, and you saw that no one eats the bread of idleness there ' [fie on it, Governor! did the Bishop teach you no better than this ? ] ' and yet, fool, you dared to join with the Kafirs against the power of the Queen. Have you anything to say to the Lord Bishop for the furtherance of education among your countrymen ? ' Now mark the reply of Jan Tzatzoe, and note that, as the Governor spoke like a boor and a clown, the Kafir answered like a man of sense and of breeding, and, in effect, delivered a most polished rebuke to the man dressed in his little brief authority, and playing his antics before high Heaven. Jan Tzatzoe : ' The Lord Bishop is a great and wise man, and the Great Chief has already remarked that I am a fool. How, therefore, can I give any advice upon this subject ? But we certainly require teaching to remove our ignorance. The Lord Bishop will best know how to accomplish this.' 492 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Let him begin with the Governor, by all means, for the fool Tzatzoe has not a hundredth part the need of the lessons. Obviously Sir Harry Smith makes a mistake in suppos- ing it necessary to let his mind down to the level of these semi-savages, for their speeches to him have the sense, point, and dignity of which his to them, stuffed as they are with childish nonsense and rude bluster, are void. — (1848.) RECIPROCITY AND RETALIATION. * There were times when potentates punished themselves while awaiting the attainment of certain objects. One king would not shave till a particular wish was gratified ; another would not cut his nails ; a Queen of Spain would not change the garment nearest her skin till a besieged fortress should be taken, whence the colour of dirty linen (the Isabelle) came into fashion. These were the follies of princes ; and analogous would be the follies of nations in mortifying themselves and submitting to privations while awaiting their neighbours' conversion to wiser commer- cial views. Is the proverb that one fool makes many to be the principle of the world's commercial conduct ? As they put an ass at the head of a caravan in the East to regulate the rate of march, so is the most backward nation to give the step, and regulate the order of the march of commerce ? Is it for ever to be the ass in front ? Is no sally ever to be made to show that the ass's pace may be advantageously outstripped ? Are backwardness and stupidity, conjoined with obtuseness and obstinacy, to impose their laws and injurious obstructions on intelli- gence and enterprise ? Are we to be fixed fast in the slough of folly, waiting for others to get wiser? Must SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 493 the flinging away of our cap and bells depend on our neighbour's discarding his insignia of duncishness also ? —(1849.) INJURED JOKES. There is nothing more revolting than the maltreatmen t of a good story. It makes one's heart bleed, or one's blood to boil, according to temperament, to see a mangled jest. What is a man not capable of who will knock out the brains of a joke, or hammer a fine point as flat as a pancake ? There are too many of these wretches ; but little did we expect to see Lord Brougham figuring amongst the execrable number. See what he has done ! ' When he saw surreptitious practices like these im- puted — but he hoped falsely imputed — to the Minister of Finance at Eome, he could not help reminding their lordships of a droll anecdote connected with the name of Voltaire. Voltaire, D'Alembert, and some others were sitting round the fire one December evening at the house of Madame de Chatelet, amusing themselves by telling stories of celebrated robbers, and one told one story beginning thus, — " Once upon a time there lived a great robber at Nantes," and so on ; and then another proceeded, — " Once upon a time there lived another great robber at Lyons," and so on. At last the story came round to Voltaire, and he began, — " Once upon a time there lived a general controller of finance," and then he stopped, and, resuming, after a pause, said, — " Pardon me, gentle- men, I have forgotten the rest" ' Out upon it ! ' forgotten the rest.' What point is there in forgetting the rest ? Voltaire must shudder in his grave at such a wrong to his fine satire. ' Gentlemen,' said Voltaire : ' Once upon a time there 494 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. was a Farmer-General of Taxes.' And with that he stopped. c Go on, go on,' cried the company. ' I have nothing more to say,' replied Voltaire, implying that the story of robbery was fully told. He might have added, ' you know the rest,' but ' I forget the rest' is sheer platitude or niaiserie. We want a law for the pre- vention of cruelty to jokes. It is harrowing to the feel- ings to see the horrible mutilation of them. We are prepared to maintain that a license should be taken out for narrating jests and good stories, and that no one should obtain a certificate till he had given good proof of his competency to be trusted with a joke. Under a good jest law, Lord Brougham would be fined £50, or, in default, two months' imprisonment in the House of Cor- rection, with hard labour at Joe Miller, for the maltreat- ment of that excellent story of Voltaire. An association for the protection of jokes would be a most humane institution ; and protection laws, too, are needed, as the British joke cannot possibly compete with the untaxed jokes of the Continent ; so much so that, as may be seen in the Houses of Parliament, our British jokes are fast becoming no jokes at all. Doubtless it was with a patriotic feeling that Lord Brougham knocked the brains out of that joke of Voltaire, so as to reduce it below the level of a joke of British manufacture. — ( 1849.) M. PACIFICO'S CLAIMS. The nothing left the unhappy Pacifico by the injustice of Portugal was lost to him by the rapine of the Greek mob, and the nothing was worth £5,000. SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 495 The case is something like that described by the Irish counsellor P in an address to a jury, ' My unfortunate client lost all he had in the world, gentlemen of the jury — all he had in the world ! and also his hat, gentlemen.' So M. Paciflco lost all he had in the world by Portuguese improbity, and also his house at Athens by Greek rapine. —(1850.) SAVE US FROM OUR FRIENDS. Baikes upbraided Brummell with not having taken his part when he heard him run down. Brummell stoutly maintained that he had taken Eaikes's part. ' What did you say in my defence, then ? ' asked Eaikes. ' Why,' answered Brummell, ' they said you were not fit to carry offal to Old Nick, which I knew to be very unjust.' ' Well, and what did you reply ? ' ' Why, I answered for you that what they asserted was the reverse of the truth, and that you were thoroughly fit to carry offal to Old Nick. What more could I say ? ' And so Sir Eobert Inglis, in answer to Mr. Williams' complaint that he had represented him as incapable of uttering twenty sentences, replied that, on the contrary, he had ascribed to him the power of stringing together twenty sentences, and these, moreover, full of the most vulgar feelings and prejudices. — (1851.) THE COCK-PHEASANT AND THE DUELLISTS. 1 Men now-a-days know pretty well what to think of duelling : but we want to know what the cock-pheasant 1 The incident referred to was thus reported in the papers at the time : ' The principals were then conducted to their positions, and Mr. Fortescue was on the point of putting the ominous question, " Are you ready, gentle- 496 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. thought of the duel between Colonel Boniilly and the Honourable Mr. Smythe, when their appearance on the ground disturbed his peace and put him on the wing. Here was a cock-pheasant who had passed his life in taking care of his life, and especially eschewing powder . and shot. What must be his opinion of two gentlemen who come together for the express purpose of exposing themselves to the danger which this cock-pheasant had made it his anxious business to avoid ? What must the cock-pheasant have thought of two Christians who illus- trated the golden rule ' to do as they would be done by,' by shooting and standing to be shot ? The law of sport spares the cock-pheasant sitting ; but the law of honour has no such scruples for the duellist ; and it must have puzzled the cock-pheasant, with his experience, to see men respecting each other's lives less than his. The cock- pheasant did not wait to witness the duel, because, besides his mortal dislike to the smell of powder, he had a shrewd notion that the combatants were likely to hit anything rather than each other, and that a cock-pheasant's person was by no means safe within reach of their weapons. The cock-pheasant, with his rooted prejudice against shot, could probably never understand how the exchange of two bullets discharged in opposite directions could give complete satisfaction to a very angry gentleman, and repair affronted honour. The cock-pheasant has no idea of the virtue of lead, and that its idle passage through the men ? " when a cock-pheasant, which had been a quiet observer of the scene so far, suddenly rose within a few yards of the combatants, and with a loud cry dashed into the adjoining wood. This untoward circumstance occurring at such a moment caused no little excitement among- the party, who at first feared that they had been surprised.' — (Ed.) SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 497 air to the risk of life may take out the sting of a word that would, but for this remedy, be intolerable. The cock- pheasant must think it hard that men are not satisfied with the same proceeding towards birds of his feather, but will aim and press things to the conclusion of the spit and bread sauce, hunger being so much more difficult to appease than honour. The cock-pheasant has, however, to observe that the issue is, after all, the same, for the duellists are roasted by the Press and the public, and, what makes the matter worse, roasted alive. — (1851.) A PASSAGE FROM THE HISTORY OP THE RABBITS. Many years ago the rabbits did not burrow as at present, but lived al fresco like the hares. This made them so easy a prey to the foxes that half the nation were con- stantly occupied in thinking of some remedy for such a state of things. At last, an intelligent rabbit proposed that they should hide in small holes under the ground, where the foxes could not find them out. This suggestion, however, was no sooner made than it was scouted with the greatest in- dignation, first and most particularly by the foxes, who, being a sort of upper assembly, set the fashion, abusing the unfortunate rabbit for what they called his ' most unrabbitish' proposal, and declaring that the rabbits had always lived in an open, above-ground manner, scorning to hide their actions from the light of day like wretched rats and mere vermin. Among themselves, however, and when no rabbits were within earshot, some of the foxes used to add sometimes, c Besides, how are foxes to live ? ' Thus all the foxites joined in denouncing the unrabbitish K K 498 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. miscreant, and in time, by the force of the cry, they carried nearly all the rest of the rabbits with them. Many indignant rabbits went even so far as to prophesy that, if one single rabbit hid himself in a hole, the sun of the rabbits would set for ever ; and one prayed, with tears, that before any such base, unrabbitish measure should come to pass, * he might fill a rabbit's grave.' Now, if a bewildered young rabbit, hearing all this, happened to ask, ' if it was not unrabbitish, then, to sit still and be eaten up ? ' c Not a bit of it,' would the foxites reply, ' that is just the most rabbitish thing you could do.' If he still objected that in their own earths the foxes hid in holes themselves, the foxites would exclaim angrily, 'Vv^at on earth, or rather under it, has that to do with the question ? The foxes hide because they like to be private, and not to have their societies intruded upon ? Good gracious ! I suppose you will say next that the foxes ought to be intruded upon ? It would be most unrabbitish to say that foxes might be intruded upon.' And then all the by-squatters stamped and pattered with their hind feet, and cried out, ' He's no rabbit ! ' 'He must be a Welsh one ! ' and so on, till the poor little rabbit dropped his tail and slunk off thoroughly ashamed of himself, and afraid that there really was something un- rabbitish about him. Everybody knows that the rabbits long since changed their opinions on the hole question, and now hide in comparative security in their burrows ; while the upper assembly and their friends, though they prey less on rabbits than before, still c live,' and prosper into the bargain : but how the great reform came about, we have nothing SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 499 but a few dim rabbitical traditions to inform us. The same great Cumberland rabbit, however, who had so large a paw in putting down the obnoxious duty on the importa- tion of turnip-tops, appears (although once much opposed to the change as unrabbitish) to have been a principal ingredient in this rabbit-pie also. — (1851.) PEACEMONGERING INCONSISTENCIES. A militiaman is committed to take his trial for a burglary ; upon which the professed peacemaker, Mr. E. Fry, fires off a note to the ' Times,' asking, ' Is it not hard upon the Peace party that they should be made the objects of a Government prosecution for protesting against a measure the only practical incidents of which that have yet been announced are burglary, and a most brutal assault upon a female ? ' 'Now we are no advocates of the militia, the organisation of which we have opposed as clumsy and unsuited to the sort of defence of which the country may have need against a sudden inroad ; but we are friends of fair play and just reasoning, neither of which can we find in the attempt to fasten on a body of 50,000 men the odium of the unproved offence charged against one. Did it not occur to this ' blessed peacemaker' that the man committed for burglary has not been tried for the crime, and is as yet entitled to the presumption of innocence ? And is there not a text of as high authority as 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' 'Judge not, lest ye be judged ' ? Some months ago, in treating of the extravagances of the peacemongers, we asked whether the doctrine of non-resist- ance was to be extended to robbery ; and Mr. E. Fry, at X K 2 500 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. a public meeting, answered in the affirmative, and cited an example which he must excuse us for regarding as fabulous. Afterwards appeared the tract of another of the peace- mongering brethren, proposing, in the event of invasion by a French army, to lay our liberties and properties at their feet, and upon bringing them to shame by such con- duct, causing them penitently to quit our shores, and to offer restitution of what they had robbed us of, returning the fifty millions or so with the grace of what our neigh- bours call a pour-boire. Now assuming, as we may fairly do, that Mr. Fry concurs in this view, we cannot see why he should regard the militiaman's charged offence with so much displeasure. Why would he deny to a militiaman in a red jacket what he would permit to a Frenchman, ay, and to 50,000 Frenchmen, in blue ? Why such benignant resignation to the rapine of a French army, and so much ado about one act of robbery by one of the force which should defend us against the former evil on a tremendously wholesale scale ? Verily, this is something more than straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. Mr. Fry has contended that robbers ought to have their way, that it is unwise and unjustifiable to resist them ; and consistently he ought to deplore that the burglarious militia- man had the strong hand put upon him. Is he so un- patriotic as to think better of Frenchmen than of his own countrymen? If not, supposing all the 50,000 militia to be burglars to a man, he should be as ready to deliver up the country and all its wealth to them as to an army of Frenchmen, in the full faith that when gorged with plunder, unresistingly seized, they would become mightily ashamed SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS, 501 of themselves, sneak back to their homes, and make resti- tution of all their pillage. If English soldiers be no worse than French soldiers, both with full license of rapine, the peacemaking manifesto has marked out the forestated conclusion. In contemplating the incidents of invasion, and the politic submission to the same, Mr. Fry's brother- disciple has omitted to consider a large class of cases which are always to be found in the line of march of a French army : and Mr. Fry himself, in his doctrine of non-resistance to crimes of violence, has also overlooked the same outrages. Is non-resistance the duty of women subjected to assaults of a certain nature ? Or, in the event of the occupation of our country by a French army, should female honour be surrendered up as meekly and readily as the wealth and liberties of our land ? This is not a case allowing of the offer of restitution expected by peacemakers in the other instances ; but if it were, of course, upon the same principle, they would refuse it. The peacemaking Yirginius would hand his daughter to Appius. Tarquin would not have been a ravisher if Lucretia, with the lights of a Peace Association, had discovered the unique virtue of submission. — (1852.) Everyone knows the old story of the Quaker on board a ship preparing for action, who, having most earnestly protested against the sin of shedding an enemy's blood, added that, if nevertheless the captain was resolved to burden his soul with such guilt, the right way to effect his purpose, with the completest success, was to perform a certain manoeuvre, which the man of peace described 502 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. with admirable exactness, Mr. Cobden reminds us of this Quaker professing to understand so critically the art of war, which he so profoundly abhorred. He has not changed his opinion that the war is unnecessary and unjust, and therefore iniquitous ; but he finds this further fault in the crime, that it is not committed in a workman- like and effective manner. ' Thou best of cut-throats,' was the praise of Macbeth. c Thou awkwardest of cut- throats,' is the reproach of Mr. Cobden. — (185-i.) TABLE-TUItXING AND TABLE-TALKING. We have suggested an Inquisition for tables ; but, before handing them over to such a tribunal, it would be well to ascertain, beyond all doubt, the fact of their posses- sion, or liability to possession, according to the conve- nience of their configuration. The Eev. E. Gillson indeed tells us : ' We see a table manifesting all the appearance of a most animated creature ; obeying every command ; answering questions with such intelligence and ingenuity, as to render any conversation perfectly easy.' ' These are simple facts, they cannot be denied,' adds the rev. gentleman. ' I am a liar if it is not true,' says Major Longbow. But we are not satisfied with the questions asked of tables, and too much stress is laid on mere circumstances of demeanour, such as that a table replied to an inquiry with such emphasis as nearly to overturn itself! Em- phasis and discretion should be combined, as in the words of the old School Speaker, and we are not to be duped by the mere animal spirits of our table. We want to know 8 OCTAL AXJ) MISCELLANEOUS. 50 3 what there is in him, in his innermost drawer, as it were. It is not enough that the table can dance before us like Taglioni, and pirouette like Eosati ; that it can make the legs which the carpenter has made for it caper about. What it knows is our inquiry ; and for this purpose let it be asked questions which the examiner himself cannot answer at the time, the answers to which future time will verify or falsify. To ask an animated intelligent table how many lies there are in the Czar's manifesto is simply childish, because everyone knows who can count twenty ; but a question, for example, of the present state of the belligerents in the Principalities would bring the informa- tion of the spirit to a decisive test, the news a fortnight hence confirming it, or proving it an impostor. Another home question would be the plan of the new Eeform Bill, or the corning politics of Mr. Disraeli. Mr. Gillson, however, contends that none but the im- pious will doubt the evidence of talking tables, which he connects with a beast in Eevelations, and indignantly ob- serves : ' If it were the testimony of men, it would obtain a hearing, but because it is the testimony of God it is disregarded, thereby giving a striking proof that the Devil reigns.' This . testimony of tables is the testimony not indeed of man, but of a thing made by man, the work of his hands. It is the testimony of a piece of carpentry. Isaiah cuts idolatry to the quick, in the description of the mechanical part. ' He cutteth a log, and with one-half he make th an idol, and falleth down and worshippeth it, and with the other he maketh a fire, and crieth, " Ha ! Ha ! I am warm." ' 504 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. And so the carpenter takes a plank, and cuts it in two, and with one-half he makes a table, capable of the most wonderful intelligence and animation ; and with the other he makes a kitchen dresser, which cannot speak a word, which knows nothing, and is as inanimate as any other log. The cook cannot ask it what the orders for dinner will be ; nor consult it in any of the abstruse mysteries of her art ; nor learn from it whether the policeman will make her an offer of marriage, or whether kitchen stuff will rise in the market with other articles. But as there were people who once believed that they could split a log, and allot one-half to the fabrication of a god, the other to the uses of a fao'orot, so there are those now who believe that the carpenter or cabinet-maker can put together a plank and four legs, so as to shape an organisation for a spirit. And they are not all in Lunatic Asylums ; but some of them in Pulpits in the year 1853. And we prate of enlightenment and progress, Heaven help us ! and scoff at Catholic miracles and winking Madonnas ! — (1853.) PMMOGENITUKE. The discussion the other day on Mr. Locke King's bill, regulating the succession to real property in the case of persons dying intestate, ought not to pass without a word or two of comment. We cannot say that the bill was lost after due debate upon its merits. It was dropped in a fright. It was precipitately got out of the way, in alarm at what Lord John Eussell called ' the principle which it appeared to involve, supposing it to be carried any further.' Now, we confess ourselves quite unable to see in Mr. SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Locke King's suggestion anything to justify this. The proposed change was a simple one, quite complete in itself, and not claiming to be carried any further. We look in vain for anything about it of a revolutionary character : we can find this only in the speeches and articles levelled against it. The whole matter is of the simplest. As Mr. Monckton Milnes quite properly ob- served, though he was mightily taken to task for saying it, the law of primogeniture in this country is in the main not a law but a custom. It is in the power of every Englishman to bequeath his property to whom he pleases. In the making of his will he is subject only to such re- strictions as have been imposed upon his land by his own forefathers, in the shape of entails, settlements, mortgages, and other private bonds. If our noblemen and gentle- men of England chose to begin, to-morrow, the practice of dividing their lands equally among their children, there is no law by which they could be hindered from so doing. What is it, then, that restrains them ? They are restrained by custom and opinion ; by the wish so prevalent and natural that estates shall be held together through a series of generations, and that old families shall retain their standing on the soil. ISTo sensible man can desire that restraint should be put upon this freedom of action, or that legislation should confine it within any strait-jacket of a theory. The complaint is that, when a man dies intestate, legislation does step in with its strait-jacket, and that the theory of primogeniture is applied precisely where it is not wanted. Seldom indeed does a great landowner die intestate. Will anyone collect the instances ? Where large interests 506 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. are at stake, they are carefully watched over. There is no great property through the length and breadth of England which has not its entails and settlements, whicli is not subject to its entire code of family law. What Mr. Locke King proposed is simply that, when a man dies without leaving any directions for the disposition of his real property, the law, bound to no theory, shall cause its distribution in a fair and natural way among all his chil- dren. This is the state of things which already exists in Kent under the name of Gavelkind tenure, and it there causes no inconvenience whatever. We never heard of any cuttings up of large estates, or of any revolutionising of the habits or lands of Kentish proprietors, occasioned by it. Every man may appoint his own heirs, of course ; and the great owners take care to do so. But the man who neglects to make his will is just the man among whose children a law of primogeniture, in cases of intestacy, can work only mischief. It is not as a stake in the coun- try, but as the means of self-support, that farmers, and people of small property, care for their possessions. Younger sons of the wealthy have friends or connections able to push them forward in the world. Division of the land is seldom a question of bread to them. Not so to the younger children of a farmer, or small owner, who by the accident of their father's intestacy may see, con- trary to whatever was known of his habits or intentions, all his land given by law to the eldest son, and themselves brought at once to beggary. We are therefore quite, unable to detect any tiling revo- lutionary in Mr. Locke King's proposal. We cannot even see that it raises a question on the English custom SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 507 of primogeniture, or on the partition of estates, or on French proprietorships, or on anything else of that kind. All these topics, and more, were quite needlessly raised in the discussion. The true question was, whether it would not be well to abstain from direct legal interference in all matters of the kind ; leaving the question of division of land, or descent by primogeniture, as it now stands, wholly in the hands of the people ; continuing to every man the title to bequeath as he pleases property that is his own ; but allowing the property of a father, when no other disposition has been made, to be applied in a natural way for the support of all his children. We cannot see how this principle, which is the sound one — the principle, namely, of non-interference — can be carried any farther. That was the alarm taken in this debate, and surely it is a groundless one. Any attempt to destroy the customs of inheritance usual in this country, could proceed only on a principle of interference directly opposed to Mr. Locke King's proposition. — (1854.) FEEDING ON KEPUTATIONS. A man who feeds on reputations, of course, likes to feed on the best, and, having found and pronounced it good, he proceeds to cut it up. When you eat your mutton it is with no ill-opinion of the sheep, nor with any ill-will to it. What said the cannibal on his trial for murder, when asked by an interpreter, in the idiom of his tongue, whether he would like to be tried by the wig man on the bench ? — ' Me like to be tried by him ? Me like him too well : if Me catch him Me eat him ; ' a declaration of love which did not tend to an acquittal. 508 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. And thus Mr. Disraeli likes Lord John Eussell's charac- ter so well that, if he can catch the opportunity, he will prey upon it. — (1854.) DE. WHEWELL OX ENGLISH. In a lecture on education, Dr. Whewell observes that the main structure of our language is Saxon, but that all that gives it a living character is derived from the Latin ; in exemplification of which most questionable assertion he cites the word ^>r^paid, now in common and barbarous use. Now the adjunct to the word does not in this in- stance give the peculiar significance as Dr. Whewell affirms, for the sense is complete with the simple word paid, to which the pre adds nothing but a superfluous syllable. As well might it be said that a thing was pre- clone as prepaid. The fact is completely expressed with- out the help of any addition. The barbarous surplusage, and as barbarous mongrel compound, of ' prepaid ' was introduced with the penny postage, and is in usage con- fined to it alone. If you send a parcel by rail or coach, paying the carriage, you simply write paid upon it. When you buy an article for ready money, you pay beforehand, but do not talk of prepaying. When you pay the toll of a bridge or turnpike before passing through, prepaying is not the word for simply paying for the right of way. So much for the cited example of the part which Latin performs in our language. As for the general jDroposi- tion, in support of which the unlucky prepaid is adduced, it seems to us to argue a very imperfect knowledge of our language, or a very vitiated taste. SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 509 Iii the English Bible there are no Latinisms ; and where is the life of our language to be found in such perfection as in the translation of the Bible ? We will venture to affirm that no one is master of the English language who is not O Do well read in the Bible, and sensible of its peculiar excel- lences. It is the pure well of English. The taste which the Bible forms is not a taste for big words, but a taste for the simplest expression or the clearest medium for presenting ideas. Eemarkable it is that most of the sublimities in the Bible are conveyed in monosyllables. For example, ' Let there be light, and there was light.' Do these words want any life that Latin could lend them ? j^ay, let Dr. Whewell try the experiment of introducing a Latinism, and certain we are that the effect will not be improvement, except to his own peculiar taste. Would he deem this reading an emendation of Moses : Let there be light, and there was solar illumination ? The best styles are the freest from Latinisms ; and it may be almost laid down as a rule that a good writer will never have recourse to a Latinism while a Saxon word will equally serve his purpose. We cannot dispense with words of Latin derivation : but there should be the plea of necessity for resorting to them, or we wrong our English. Swift and Defoe are most remarkable for the purity of their English, and their sparing use of Latin derivatives. Johnson wrote latine, but he spoke English. His conversation was always the conversation of a wit — his writing too often the writing of a pedant. His sayings live amongst us as freshly as in the moment of their delivery; but his 'Bambler' and 'Basselas' slumber on the bookselves. Not so his 4 Lives of the Poets,' which 510 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. are more natural, that is to say, more English in style.— (1854.) THE SOURCES OF WAR. A war is generally like a great river, whose sources are lost to view and hardly traceable. The Cape war had its origin in a stolen hatchet. The cutting down of a flag- staff in New Zealand cost us some considerable amount of treasure, besides no little bloodshed. The Eussian war ostensibly commenced about a church key; and as respectable as all these would be an American war about the Falkland hogs. To try the conclusion, which of the two nations had the wrong sow by the ear, would not cost more than some two or three hundred millions of money, and perhaps as many thousands of lives. — (1854.) THE FATE OF THE DOGS. For want of the knowledge of common things the enemies of dog-carts have had their will, passed their bill, and the dogs have gone to the dogs, thirty thousand martyrs to humanity upon the lowest calculation. By this measure the little property of as many poor men is swept away, not confiscated indeed, for what is taken from them is not carried to public account, but virtually destroyed. It is but a small matter, some sleek comfortable person will say ; but nothing is small to the poor. Nil habitit Codrus et tamen Mud perdidit infelix totum nihil. How cruel a thing is ignorance. These legislators have not known What they have been doing, in taking from the poor man his fellow-labourer : and bread-winner, and so it is pleaded in extenuation of the child, that it knows not what harm it is doing when it pokes the cat's eyes out or spins a cock-chafer. — (1854.) SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 511 FOPPERIES AXD ESSENTIALS. If our Generals do not give the enemy a dressing, they make up for it by giving their troops a dressing, in both the literal and figurative sense of the word. Indeed, our Generals seem to be so full of grief about dress as to have no thought or care of anything else. Lord Eaglan must be in a dreadful state of mind. He finds that such a want of care is shown in wearing the uniform in a becom- ing manner, that it is difficult to recognise the officers as officers at all. The shell jacket is allowed to fly open, that is, the shell bursts, showing underneath a red flannel shirt, with nothing round the neck, not even a white shirt collar. Often a turban is worn over the forage-cap, the chin is unshaven, and ' there is such an absence of what is befitting the appearance of an officer in the whole person, that no one can be otherwise than struck with the general disregard of what is proper/ This anti-climax is highly expressive. The sentence breaks drown under the weight of the distress. ' The disregard of what is proper ' comes out like a hysterical sob. The Commander of the Forces, having thus poured out his griefs, states what he wants for the correction of the evil. He does not insist on their buttoning their jackets from the bottom to the top; but he does hope the uniform will be worn with care and attention, no matter in what country or on what service. How many buttons will content him he does not specify. He does not insist on all, but implies that some buttoning there must be, no matter what the thermometer may say. We now know the meaning of ' not caring a button ' ; 512 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. it describes the dissolute habit of Lord Eaglan's officers in the particular of dress. So Cobbett wound up an invective against Quakers with the words, ' the button- less blackguards ! ' It is by buttons that we are held to the decorums. The man who does not button breaks with the ties of all the proprieties, and defies appear- ances. Another General is full of trouble about the stock, and orders if it be not worn the neck shall be bare, that is, no handkerchief is to be allowed as substitute ; whence it follows that there is to be no choice between a choking and a sore throat. Would there be any mighty harm in a black handkerchief round the throat ? As they say in the House of Commons, we pause for a reply. But an- other horror has come to pass. The soldiers turn down their stiff collars, and, like their officers, wear their jackets wholly or partly open, a practice denounced as slovenly and peremptorily forbidden. The slovenly practice is the consequence of an unsuit- able dress. A lady in a hot room is saved from fainting by pulling off her glove ; a grenadier under a burning sun obtains a similar relief by turning down the stiff collar that oppresses him with heat, and teases him with its rigidity. But all these coxcombries are surpassed by an order issued at Portsmouth touching the beard : 1 A clear space of two inches must be left between the comer of the mouth and the whisker, when whiskers are grown ; the chin, the under lip, and at least two inches of the upper part of the throat, must be clean shaven, so that no hair can be seen above the stock in that place.' SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 513 That precision is very fine, that a clear space of two inches must be left between the corner of the mouth and the whisker, when whiskers are grown, as if, when whiskers are not grown, whiskers could nevertheless form a boundary. Alas ! a little shaving is a dangerous thing. Imagine how nice an affair it must be to train the beard to these precise two inches, or in default of that mathe- matical exactness to incur the penalties of excess. And how different must be the effect upon the different scales upon which nature makes visages — one man with an expanse of eight or nine inches from mouth to ear ; an- other with a sharp small face, hardly giving room for a tuft of hair in the same quarter ; one again with a neck like a giraffe, two inches of which only are to be shown clean shaved ; another with a neck like a cod-fish, two inches of which cannot be found anywhere ! It is curious how these frivolities occupy the attention of military authorities, while really important matters are neglected and suffered to run into the worst abuse. See here what a vehement concern there is about buttons, and stocks, and whiskers, and trumpery points of appear- ance, and compare it with the care of manners and habits as exhibited in the — Eegiment ! Major M., upon whom the spectacle of an officer dragged out of his bed and put on the mess-table to sing made so little impression, would doubtless have been inordinately scandalised if he had seen the same officer with an unbuttoned jacket, or any other disorder in his dress. Tenacity to fopperies and neglect of essentials is the vice of our Service. — (1854.) L L 514 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. YOUTH AND AGE. Some few years ago, two young ladies at Taunton thought proper to kill an aged aunt, giving as a reason for so strong a family measure, that ' folks should not live too long, or if they did they must be taught better.' They were tried for murder, and acquitted in despite of the clearest evi- dence of guilt ; the jury probably sharing in the opinion that ' folks should not live too long, or should be taught better.' The Taunton nieces were but in advance of the world, which is now becoming mightily impatient of age, and disposed to thrust it aside or to put it down at least in public life. The bitter truth must be confessed, that old people are uut of fashion. The troops of friends which should ac- company old age have given place to troops of scoffers and revilers. Time was when little boys and girls used to exercise their hands in round text in such goodly maxims as ' honour old age,' or ' revere grey hairs :' but that is all gone by, and it is hardly possible now to take up a newspaper, without finding in it some dissertation tending to the contempt and scorn of age. Mr. Bright lately complained that we were overdone with old men. What ever goes amiss is traced to some one who has transgresse the rule of the Taunton nieces, and lived longer than he ought to have done. Indeed, the public indignation is so vehemently moved against the old that we might almost apprehend a sweeping measure, for the correction of the evil, the very opposite to Herod's massacre. A proscrip- tion, however, is to be expected at the very least, and all old people are advised to put themselves out of view in SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 515 any public employment. The first question asked now, when anyone is named for an appointment, is : how old is he? Youth is looked upon as the first qualification. Why is not the Colonial Secretaryship filled up ? Because Lord Palmerston cannot find anyone young enough. We are coming to the empire of the babes and sucklings. Downing Street will be their kingdom. Formerly it was accounted a shame for a man to set his wits against a child : but now the child sets his wits against the man, and has out and out the best of it. The examinations lately established prove that admirable Crichtons are at present as plentiful as blackberries, that is to say among the young, while the old are all dunces, blunderers, and boobies. Indeed, the wonder is that any examiners can be found competent to question the youthful candidates ; and, let them ask them what they may, they have always answers, solving problems in a trice that have hitherto been thought to pass human understanding. The exa- miners are often, we are informed, appalled by the abstruse knowledge that bursts upon them ; which should make them reflect how well it is that the relations are not reversed, and they the examined instead of the ex- aminers. It is indeed well-nigh proved that the world should be turned topsy-turvy, and the minors placed up- permost. Is there any fallacy in this ? Are we the dupes of words ? As the antiquity of the world was the world's youth, so are the young older than the old in experience and wisdom ? Are we outstripped by the striplings ? Hood, in his ' Whims and Oddities,' has imagined a people among whom men of threescore, or so, become such L L 2 516 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. dunces that their sons are obliged to send the old fellows to school again for the rudiments of education. Is it so, or ought it to be so with us ? Should our Field-Marshals be packed off to Sandhurst or Woolwich, and should a school the opposite to ragged, belaced and embroidered, be opened for sexagenarian statesmen ? But words are vile cheats. We talk of young and old as if with familiar knowledge. Who is young in the true sense of the word ? It is not the number of years which determines youth or age ; and truly says a French writer, there are none but the old who do not grow old. If you search for the youth of character, the youth of spirits, the youth of fancy, the youth of zest, you w T ill look for it in vain at such places as Eton, Westminster or Harrow, but you will find it in Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham, who are nearly the last, if not the last, of the boys, as well as the first of the sages. A century ago, when we were young, for (incredible as it may appear) we were not always in the disgrace and dishonour of age, it was an established maxim that you could not put old heads on young shoulders : but the diffi- culty now would be to find a young head upon young shoulders. If the outward appearances of the head matched the inner furniture, we should see some of our formal little masters quitting school with grey beards and bald pates. The truth, then, is, after all, that we are old whether the age be sixteen or sixty, but that disgrace and dishonour belong peculiarly to those who have been old the longest. One has been old for a score of years, and another for threescore and ten : that is all the differ- ence. We by no means intend to justify immoderate SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 517 longevity, which, as the Taunton ladies maintained, should in decency have its bounds ; but, before the utter pro- scription of age, it would be well to have a distinct un- derstanding of youth, such as youth now is, and to be quite sure that it is not the proscribed old age in disguise. —(1854.) CITY WIT. The oracle of this country is the Stock Exchange. Whether an event is auspicious or not, whether it pro-? mises weal or portends woe, is unerringly denoted by the rise or fall of stock. When Fortune makes a long face, there is a fall ; when she smiles there is a rise. The com- ponent parts of the wonderful body which so infallibly interprets the import of events, solving in a trice that difficult problem, quid utile, quid non, of course have their share in the aggregate wisdom ; and it is a matter of much curious interest to note the rare sagacity and penetration which these gentlemen display whenever occasion offers. The seven sages of the money market waited on the Chancellor of the Exchequer lately to hear the par- ticulars of a proposed loan, and it may be easily sup- posed that keen was the encounter of the wit sharpened by the occasion. The palm was however borne away by Mr. E, Thorn- ton, who has the gift of divination, if ever mortal man possessed it. His reach of penetration is superhuman, and would really favour the opinion that he lias the help of some familiar, some spirit which informs him of truths that lie beyond mortal ken. It is well for Mr. Thornton that lie lives in these days of table-turning and spirit- 518 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. rapping, for if lie had been born two or three centuries ago, when witches and wizards were as plentiful as black- berries, he would inevitably have been burnt for profi- ciency in the black art. - Invited to consider the terms of a Government loan, this astonishing genius of the money market makes the discovery in a trice that the Government wants money ! How in the name of wonder did he find this out ? Has there been any breach of official confidence ? Or is the man directly inspired by Minerva ? How in the world could he, by mere mortal wit, arrive at the bold conclu- sion that a Government which proposes to borrow wants money ? Of the quickness of the Irish, sometimes appearing like intuition, there are many examples, one of not the least remarkable of which is as follows : Irish lady A to B. c Sure Mrs. C. has been brought to bed of a child. Guess, is it a boy or a girl ? ' — Miss B. ' It is a girl.' — Miss A. ' No now, you are out, it is not a girl.' — Miss B. 6 Ah, now I have it, and no mistake, It's a boy, that's what it is.' — Miss A. ' Sure some one told you.' Brilliant as this is in the way of surmise, it is incom- parably surpassed by the bold discovery that a Govern- ment borrows money because it wants it, and for no other reason. The revelation took away the breath of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or lie might have availed himself of the Irish lady's reply, and said, Some one told you. As it was, Sir G, C. Lewis, so found out by the sorcerer, could only murmur that the public would draw what conclusion it liked, even to the extent that borrowing SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 519 argued wanting ; and with this prodigy of City wit the interview terminated, Mr. Thornton having exhausted in three words all that could be thought, conceived, and said.— (1856.) HOW NOT TO DO IT. The report of the Chelsea Commissioners is a manual or guide-book to the science of ' How not to do it.' Let it be re-issued by some enterprising publisher as ' The Officer — his Duties, and How not to do them J The directions are perfect. We had an army provided, as far as appearances went, with every requisite for success and subsistence. It had, besides the Generals who were to lead it to victory, a host of other Generals to take care of it — Adjutant-Generals, Quartermaster-Generals, Com- missary-Generals, with acting-assistant sub-deputies, and other subordinates with half the letters of the alphabet stuck after their names, to find it in stores, to clothe and provision it. What more was wanting ? Nothing. There were the executive officers, and there the troops requiring the stores, clothing and food. The only task that remained was ingeniously to discover the way 'not to give them.' That was soon devised, and the Chelsea Commissioners have approved of the device as in full accordance with the rules of the service. The Adjutant-General did not properly clothe his army, the Quartermaster-General did not supply it with suitable stores, and the Commissary- General did not sufficiently feed it ; but each and all called upon somebody else to do something else, and the somebody in his turn shifted the responsibility, and the something was not done after all. The Adjutant, 520 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Quartermaster, and Commissary-General are admirable officers notwithstanding, and must not be blamed. The old woman in the nursery rhyme, whose return home from market was delayed by the refusal of her pig to get over the stile, called upon the animal and vegetable kingdom, and the elements to boot, to help her, just as the Staff in the Crimea called upon heaven and earth to help them. The water would not quench the fire, and the fire would not burn the stick, and the stick would not beat the pig, and so on. In like manner Airey could not help Wetherall, and Wetherall could not help Gordon, and Gordon could not help Filder, and Filder could not help himself. So they all came to a dead lock, till private charity stepped in to give them breathing time to recover from the panic their own incapacity had brought upon them. A Quartermaster-General is, we suppose, the only official extant who receives, without examination, mate- rials upon the fitness or durability of which thousands of human lives under his charge may depend. According to the principles of ' how not to do it,' he has merely to make requisitions. If he asks for bread and receives a stone, or vice versa, that is nothing to him. He may gravely serve out Macadam for rations, and supply biscuit for making- roads, and to him no blame can possibly attach. And so with everybody impugned. Considering how admirably, indeed, the Commissioners throughout their report sustain the grand principle of ' how not to do it,' we must really think it matter of some marvel that they should ever have been brought to make their report at all. They have certainly done that, and it is a piece of SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 521 work not likely to be forgotten during the present gene- ration at least. — (1856.) KITE-FLYIXG. Whex Lord Manners went to Ireland as Chancellor, and heard the Irish lawyers talking of kites and kite-flying, he asked what they meant. ' My lord,' said Mr. Plunket, then the leader of the bar, ' there is a great difference between flying kites in England and in Ireland ; in England the wind raises the kite, in Ireland the kite raises the wind/ The practice referred to, however, is now un- fortunately common to both countries. — (1856.) A PROGRESS IX GOOD TASTE. The Prince of Wales has been taking the tour of the Western Counties in a distinguished manner, most sensibly and laudably distinguished from the established princely manner of doing these holiday things. He seems to have gone to see, and not to be seen ; with the object of viewing the beauties and wonders of nature, not of making a rival wonder of himself, for flunkeys to run after and fools to gaze at. He travels incog, with his tutor, dropping the Eoyal Highness, and never once wearing his plume during the trip ; in short, just like any other well- educated and well-bred Englishman of his tender years. We know the ways of too many of our countrymen and countrywomen too well not to feel assured that it would have pleased them much better if the Prince had travelled in a different style, in a chariot and six, with galloping outriders in scarlet, and all the pomp and circumstance without which a former Prince of Wales would not have 522 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. taken a short airing. His Eoyal Highness seems to have moved pretty rapidly from place to place, which was of course a necessary precaution to escape the pursuit of the curious ; there being no secresy like celerity, as Bacon has remarked. The young Prince was very near being caught at Sidmouth, but, immediately on being recognised, he took flight, starting in a stage-coach for Exmouth, and thus adroitly eluding the flunkeys. No doubt it was a neck-and-neck affair in more places than one. A provin- cial paper complains, in a tone of affliction, that ' the in- habitants of Wimbourn and Weymouth were not aware of the rank of their visitor until after his Eoyal Highness had left their respective towns.' The Prince was favoured by fortune. Only think of all that the inhabitants of those towns would have done, nay, said and done, had they been aware that a Prince, an actual live Prince of Wales, was coming to see them. A local journal gives vent to its feelings in the following highly amusing paragraph, though little intended to amuse, the writer being no more capable of speaking of princes in any tone but the gravest, than in any but the most imposing language : — 6 The Prince was accompanied by three attendants, but such was the studied strictness of his incognito that he took his departure before the loyal inhabitants of the town became at all aware of the honour conferred upon them by the visit of the heir presumptive to the Crown of these realms. The young Prince perambulated the streets with the jaunty, independent air of an Englishman, and chatted, without the smallest restraint and the slightest show of formal condescension, to some of the poorest of SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 523 the inhabitants ; and he entered into a personal negotia- tion with the owner of an extraordinarily sagacious dog, with a view to the purchase of the animal.' This account of himself will probably entertain the 1 Heir Presumptive to the Crown of these realms,' as much as anything he saw in the West. We have only to add that we highly approve of all the princely proceedings so admirably recorded, — the walk to Torquay, the excursion to the Eoman camp at Wimbourn, the hearty luncheons eaten with an appetite worthy of his lineage, but, above all, of the ' personal negotiation with the owner of the sagacious dog, with a view to the purchase of the animal' —(1856.) THE NEWEST STREET NUISAXCE. Master Tommy's carriage ! — Master Johnny's perambu- lator coming up ! — Master Freddy ? s stops the way ! Masters Johnny, Freddy, and Tommy, in their perambu- lators, stop everybody's way at present. The Eoman satirist limits the dangers of the streets to a thousand — 'mille pericula sa3va3 urbis ' — but London has a thousand and one, since the perambulator was added to the list of nuisances. Our babes are just now the greatest enemies of human progress. Masters they may well be called, those forward infants, with their pushing maids behind them, who over-ride us at every turn. Niitant altae populoque minantur. We are safer amonof the omnibuses than in the em- barras of go-carts, and beg to be informed which is now the carriage-way and which the foot- way. The child is said to be ' the father of the man,' and we hope we have a proper filial respect for infancy ; but all ages have their 524 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. rights, and one of them clearly is to walk the flags without exposure to the wheels of any vehicle whatsoever, whether drawn by horses or driven by nurses. We protest against this innovation, which is only another form of curacy, the perambulator being the nurse-maid's curate, doing for her the work she is paid for doing with her own arms, and which she is very well able to perform. The thing is de- moralising in every respect : it teaches bad lessons. Not only is the child taught from his tender years to put the cart before the horse, but the seeds of vanity and extra- vagance are sown in his little mind, for we all know the absurd and mischievous importance attached in England by all classes to the keeping of a carriage of some de- scription, though only a gig. In these days, however, of feeble administration we hardly expect that our complaint upon this subject will be of much avail. The nuisance is indeed one that seems to demand something of the energy of a Herod ; and the most we can reasonably hope is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer may be induced to put a spoke in Master Johnny's wheel by a judicious tax upon this provoking innovation. — (1856.) THE GREATNESS THAT NEVER DESCENDS TO READ NEWSPAPERS. A respectable man has been denned one who keeps a gig : but a cut far above your respectable man is the man who does not read a newspaper. Members of the two Houses of Parliament never read newspapers. They would not, indeed, touch a newspaper with a pair of tongs. No great man, no one pretending to importance, ever avowed that he read anything of which he had to SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 52-3 complain, or upon which he had to comment, in a news- paper. It is always ' brought under his notice,' or ' his attention was drawn to it.' Never does it come naturally in his way in the course of his daily reading. The fact is always brought to his knowledge, as his articles of dress and use are brought to his hands. He is waited on with the news concerning himself, and would no more think of learning it by the use of his own eyes than he would think of brushing his own clothes or cleaning his own boots. All great folks have got friends who read for them. We are always mightily impressed when we see or hear that some one ' has had his attention drawn to certain comments ' which everyone else has read with his own eyes ; but seldom have we been more struck than by this commencement of a letter to the ' Daily News,' bearing the signature of Morris Moore : — 6 Sir, — Certain passages of your first leading article of the 29th of November have been brought to my notice.' How grand this is ! Certain passages brought to my notice. How high and mighty ! A man of no conse- quence, above all of no self-consequence, would have been searching all the newspapers for every syllable concerning himself, but Mr. Morris Moore, who has had a whole police after him, is waited upon with ' certain passages ' on a silver salver. After all, Mr. Morris Moore ought to be thankful to the abominable Prussian police, for if they had not laid hands on him, and made for him a grievance, the noise of which resounds through the world, rivalling the wails of Sir C. Napier, he never could have assumed the sublime airs of his address to the ' Daily News.' He woke in the Berlin watch-house and found himself famous, 526 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. and past reading newspapers on his own account. In his incarceration he scorned the couch on which 4 delators ' might have stretched themselves, but now he has his own ' delators ' to denounce to him passages in newspapers un- pleasing to his self-love. This is a step in greatness well worth a night in the watch-house. — (1856.) A SAD CASE. Madlle. Delauney, in her delightful memoirs, refers to the period of her incarceration in the Bastile as ' the happy days when we were so miserable.' It is indeed the inveterate habit of human nature to place happiness any- where but in the present. The pleasures of hope and the pleasures of memory are themes for poets: but to imagine pleasures of the present would surpass all inventive powers. Whether we look forward or whether we look back, distance lends enchantment to the view. Every man has his grief either for something he has left behind, or for something he cannot attain, and none surely of the former class is so unhappy as the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He does not ordinarily show it ; indeed he might easily be mis- taken for a cheerful or even a gay man : but the canker is in the bud, nevertheless. His high seat in judicature is not to his mind. He never sits down anywhere, indeed, that it does not sadly recall to his recollection the happy days when he sat for Southampton. Sitting for any other place might not have been much, but sitting for Southampton was a bliss of a supreme and unique sort. To the world, look- ing merely at the surface, it may appear a mighty fine thing to be Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, but what is the SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 527 dignity to him who confesses that he cannot hope ever again to represent Southampton ? In the lang;ua£re of lovers there is nothing more tender, more fervid, than the terms in which the Chief Justice speaks of his attachment to dear Southampton. His sun has set with his separation from that beloved borough. It is sad, indeed, to learn that so deserving a man has lost his greatest happiness past all retrieval, for, as the Chief Justice says, he cannot reasonably hope to sit again for Southampton. As the poet sings, ' other griefs to this are jolly.' Southampton lost for ever, what is there to live for ? The Common Pleas, bah ! What makes the case sadder is that the deprivation has been spontaneous. Sir A. Cockburn was told, indeed, that certain warnings were not to be neglected, and those pestilent counsellors ' wise and anxious friends ' advised him to relinquish the pride and joy of his life, and accept his present barren dignity. Little did the world divine the sacrifice made in this sad election. Let us pray that even now the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas may not run away from his place to present himself again for dear Southampton. The tendency to revert to the first love is proverbial, and when was there a first love like that of Cockburn for his Southampton ? ' Something too much of this,' as Hamlet says. The Chief Justice of the Common Pleas may well regret the political stage on which he played so distinguished a part, but perhaps a way may be found of restoring him to legis- lative activity and usefulness, though the avenue through Southampton is closed, alas ! for ever. The House of 528 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Lords is not, indeed, so suited to the genius of the Chief Justice as the House of Commons was to the brilliant Sir A. Coekburn : but still there would be scope for his great abilities in that House, especially in the field of law reform, for which he has every qualification. Such a man is wanted in the House of Lords as a fellow-labourer with Lord Campbell.— (1857.) THE FOKEIGN" VIEW OF OUR CASE. The husband who meekly assented to his wife's truism, that no one was without a fault, provoked the indignant question, ' And pray, sir, what fault have I ? ' Our country is at this moment very much like the lady angry at the acceptance of her own words. She has confessed her- self chastised by Heaven for her sins, and the world readily and eagerly taking her at her word, says Habemus confiten- tem., and expatiates on the offences that have brought down such a heavy punishment, the ' mighty pains to mighty mischiefs due.' England deserves it all, and more to boot, is the general cry of Europe. We are like the ass in the assembly of beasts convened to discover the peccant cause of a pestilence, who confessed to having committed a trespass on a meadow, and the robbery of some blades of grass ; upon which the wolf howled out for judgment of death against so heinous a criminal. It is in vain to ap- peal against the sentence passed against us, not in default indeed, but upon actual confession, and awkward and in- effective are the pleadings of the Press against the conclu- sions, the premises of which have been laid by ourselves. —(1857.) SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 529 THE MAN IX THE RIGHT PLACE AT LAST. When we ventured to question the appointment of General Ashburnham to the command in China, we little knew on which side the fault really lay. We thought the command too great for the General, but it turns out that the General is too great for the command. ' ^Estuat infelix angusto limite Hong Kong.'' He is an Alexander in want of another world for his conquests. Finding the China war too small for his great military capacity, the General hied him to India for employment, but could not there get fitted with a suitable command. He was like a bagman travelling for orders ; — Ashburnham in search of command ! The pursuit was vain, and, finding no theatre for his vast military genius in the East, the General perforce had to bend his course back to the West, and to shame his country with the spectacle of great talent greatly wanted and culpably unemployed. And he has come as Napoleon returned from Egypt, in the very nick of time, for who does not feel how much our ticklish relations with France are improved by our having Ashburnham with us, ready at hand to be our Marlborough or Wellington upon any emergency ? What the China war was to the sudden Indian exigency, the return of our Ashburnham is to our position with France. The blustering sabreurs on the other side of the Channel would have thought twice of asking to be led against England if they had known that Ashburnham was again within call of the War Office. It has been objected, indeed, that he lias run away from his post, and thereby rendered himself liable to mili- M M 530 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. tary law. In this lie resembles Ceesar, to whom Lucan ascribes 'nescia virtus stare loco' — a restless virtue : though in Caesar's case it was not quite the impatience of one place with the view of getting a better. But it is rather too unjust on the part of those who blamed his appointment to blame also his resignation of it, if we may be allowed to give that name to what would be called desertion in a private soldier, whose fidelity to his duties were of incom- parably less moment. Cavil as you may, it is undeniable that either the man was in the right place in China, or that he is in the right place in Pall Mall. And for our own parts, having always a turn for optimism, and con- tent with things as they are, we incline to the latter conclusion. As for the Minister of War, of whom our Ashburnham is as great a favourite as of the god Mars himself, we may suppose him expressing himself in the words of the poet we have before quoted : — Quamvis digressu yeteris confusus amici, Laudo tarnen . The thing to be commended, according to the version of Gifford, was giving to the chosen locality ' one virtuous fugitive ' — the fugitive, in this case, from the scene of action in China. But has he not done good service ? Nay, what better ser- vice could he possibly have performed ? He knows best what he is fit for, and he comes home. What more, what better would you have ? He recalls himself. Would the Horse Guards have done as much ? He cancels his own appointment. Oh ! excellent judgment. Nothing in his command became him like unto the leaving of it. When- ever the war with China is crowned with success, the first SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 531 cause of the triumph will by impartial history be ascribed to Ashburnham, who withdrew himself from the conduct of the operations at the most critical juncture. The c Times ' does not give the General any credit for his refusal of the Lahore command on the ground of the superior claims of other officers, and ascribes all his con- duct to a settled purpose to seize any pretext to return home. That he was bound in duty to remain in Asia till recalled is not indeed to be disputed : but this is not the first instance in our military annals of a brilliant act of disobedience promotive of the most important interests of the service. In homely phrase, ' we must not look the gift horse in the mouth.' Let us be grateful that things have fallen out as they have done, and that General Ash- burnham is where it is best he should be for the triumph of our arms, and the success of the war. — (1858.) SOME MORAL AND SOCIAL PECULIARITIES OF SCOTLAND. The national character of the Scotch deservedly stands high. They are especially remarkable for industry, pru- dence, sagacity, and far-sightedness. The blessings of education are more generally diffused amongst them than in any other European community. Yet Scotland has really been the scene of some social phenomena which are far from giving proof or promise of a corresponding superiority in virtue or happiness. One of their most striking peculiarities is the Pha- risaical observance of the Sabbath. We all remember how a lady of rank was refused a place in a Sunday mail train, although her known and avowed object was to attend the bedside of a dying father ; which, if anything M M 2 532 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. does, surely comes within the Scriptural exception of works of necessity ; and we should have thought that the burst of indignation excited throughout the rest of the empire by this incident might have read an improving lesson to the sternest of Sabbatarians. Yet when, not many weeks since, a party of excursionists landed from a steamer at Glasgow, they were hooted, hissed, and sub- jected to every indignity short of personal violence, by a mob, alleged to have been set on by some of the Glasgow clergy. During the last general election the chances of a candidate were seriously impaired by a false report of his having once danced a reel on a Sunday even- ing; a charge which led to a long and angry contro- versy, although it was eventually softened down into a suspicion or insinuation of his having been a visitor at the house where the alleged enormity was perpetrated. In illustration of the same spirit of asceticism we may also refer to Lord Haddo's and Mr. Kinnaird's attempt to suppress, or stigmatise, what most people of sense, and all cultivators of the fine arts, have agreed to consider an essential part of a painter's or sculptor's education, namely, the study of living models. Alongside of these persevering efforts to enforce sanctity, gravity, and decorum, we are sorry to be obliged to place the portentous quantity of whisky consumed in dram- drinking in Scotland, and the startling proportion of illegitimate births, which are confessedly on the increase in many of the most important and populous districts. We have been deemed, uncharitable for suggesting that some connection may possibly be traced between the undue strictness and the culpable laxity ; in other words SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 533 that ascetic and sanctimonious feelings, however sincere, have been unconsciously indulged at the expense of sobriety and chastity. But history abounds with proofs that, when human nature is too heavily tasked or bur- dened, it either breaks down, or, by a natural rebound, is carried over to the opposite extreme. ' Those passions and tastes,' says Lord Macaulay, ' which under the rule of the Puritans had been gratified by stealth, broke forth with ungovernable violence as soon as the check was with- drawn. Men flew to frivolous amusements and to crim- inal pleasures with the greediness which long and enforced abstinence naturally produces. Little restraint was im- posed by public opinion. For the nation, nauseated with cant, suspicious of all pretensions to sanctity, and still smarting from the recent tyranny of rulers austere in life and powerful in prayer, looked for a time with compla- cency on the softer and gayer vices.' ISFor were the immediate and direct results of Puritan manners and legislation more successful than the indirect or subsequent ones ; for we must not be deceived by the outward and visible signs of piety and austerity. The expelled devils (if they were expelled) of profaneness and licentiousness were succeeded by a fiercer and equally dangerous troop ; and society rather lost than gained when the jovial bumper of the cavalier was exchanged for the solitary dram of the military saint. The monotony of intellectual labour and mechanical drudgery must be relieved in some fashion for the sake of botli mind and body. The longing for change and the thirst for excitement are irrepressible ; and we are surely justified in believing that all the gay, beautiful, and 534 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. enlivening objects which we see around us were not created to be shunned. Would the finest of our faculties and the highest of our aspirations, especially those which find vent in painting, sculpture, music, and song, have been conceded or permitted to us, if the most charming productions of genius were to be proscribed, and its very cultivation to be punished as a sin ? Sir Walter Scott, who had carefully studied the charac- ter of his countrymen, has left more than one suggestive picture of the baneful influence of their self-denying or- dinances. In ' Eeclgauntlet ' we have the appalling port- rait of Mr. Thomas Trumball, who holds forth against the heinous sin of Sabbath-breaking. by way of preface to a bout of ribaldry and profanity ; and in the ' Heart of Mid- Lothian,' the inopportune denunciation of dancing by David Deans is represented as one leading cause of poor Effie's ruin. It is remarkable that the only schemes or measures for the suppression of inebriety that have even temporarily prospered, have proceeded, like Father Mathew's self- imposed and highly honourable mission, on the voluntary principle. The sole weapon of the promoters has been persuasion, and they have exclusively addressed them- selves to the reason and well-understood interests of mankind. Scotland has persevered in trying what can be effected by harshness. She has had Forbes Mac- kenzie's Act, and she is one of the very few countries in which simple incontinence is criminally punishable. Yet, up to the present time, .she has undeniably failed ; and it is well worthy of the grave consideration of her railway directors, assemblies of elders, and various boards for SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 535 self-government, lay or spiritual, whether it would not be advisable to fall back upon that milder and more tolerant mode of dealing with human frailty which is sanctioned by Scripture, and recommended by examples drawn indiscriminately from the entire current of ancient and modern history. — (1858.) THE BATH AND THE GARTER. When Lord Melbourne left office it was without any honour of the Crown, except indeed the honour of having served it faithfully, and trained the young Queen in the constitutional path which she has since held so uniformly and steadily. Lord Melbourne conferred ribbons and titles, and he did not think it was for him to take the baubles of which he had been the dispenser. Lord Derby is of another opinion. This is a matter of taste, and perhaps the Garter is a consolation and set-off for the vote of want of confidence. The Crown and the Com- mons take a very different measure of Lord Derby's deserts, the one delighting to honour, the other removing him from her Majesty's counsels. The Order of the Bath, which has been conferred upon Lord Malmesbury and Sir John Pakington, is. as we all know, a decoration intended to reward eminent services, particularly of a military character. Is it not natural that the Minister who so successfully preserved the peace of Europe should aspire to a warlike decoration, or that the hero of Dover should look with envy upon the order which glitters on the breast of him of Bala- clava ? Our only surprise is that those distinguished states- men were satisfied to receive, as an acknowledgment of 536 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. , their great services, the same order as was conferred upon such a man as Sir Henry Lawrence, who only saved the Indian empire. Miss Freer, in one of her latest works, tells us that the Order of St. Michael the Archangel, instituted by Louis XL, was so lavishly and indiscriminately distributed that it came to be called ' Collier a toutes betes.'' Let us be proud and thankful to think that the Order of the Bath can never by possibility earn a similar appellation. — (1859.) THE GREAT STREET NUISANCE. A Persian Ambassador, hearing the tuning of instru- ments at the Italian opera, was in ecstasies. The music was divine. But, when the din ceased and the magnificent overture of Don Giovanni commenced, his Excellency was mightily displeased. ' Pooh, pooh,' said he, ' this is poor stuff, not to be compared with the first piece, which was worthy of Paradise.' We cannot but suspect that our worthy magistrate, Mr. Brounhton, has a taste for music similar to that of the Persian. In dealing with Mr. Babbage's complaint of the annoyance of a brass band, Mr. Broughton laid down the law that these brass bands are not like the hurdy-gurdy s and some of the barrel organs, which play loudly and out of tune. ' These German performers,' continued the magistrate, ' play remarkably well, and in consequence thereof are encouraged by many who have a love for music' We cannot dispute the assertion, as Ave cannot prove a negative, and there may be brass bands which deserve tins praise ; all we can say is, that it has SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 537 not been our good fortune to hear them. The bands by which we are besieged day and night produce sounds having a most wonderful resemblance to the squeaking and grunting commixed of a herd of swine. There are ears that they may please undoubtedly, and the ears of Midas would certainly be of the number. But we do not believe that their profit is made of the pleasure they give to a taste for music which is not shocked by offences against tune, but, on the contrary, by the torture they inflict on ears which can distinguish bad music from good, and also by the interruption of any business or study requiring undivided attention. A gentleman employed as Mr. Babbage would generally be must either buy off these tormentors or bring them before the magistrate, who gives or withholds protection, according, not to the letter of the law but, to his good or bad taste for music. A better expedient than either of those we have named is to answer the first demand for money in these terms : ' I am delighted to hear you play ; the oftener you come to my door, and the longer you stay at it performing, the better I shall be pleased, but I make it a matter of prin- ciple never to give any money for the treat.' Unfortunately Mr. Babbage cannot resort to this strata- gem, as he has made his hostility to the street nuisance notorious by his vain endeavours to protect himself against it. What is the unhappy mathematician to do ? Mr. Broughton considerately asks him whether he cannot take refuge for study in some apartment at the back of his house. Has lie no cellar to which he can fly, no dust-hole where lie may pursue his studies out of earshot of the tormentors ? It is for the German vagabonds to 538 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. lord it over the streets and front apartments. We call them by a bad name because they are as remarkable for their ruffianly conduct as their villanous noises. If there be any truth in Shakespeare, and music soothes the savage breast, the brutality of these fellows alone argues them unversed in the humanising art. Mark a troop of them walking along with the poles with which they sup- port their books, and see how they hustle all who appear unable to resent their insolence, and how also they con- trive to strike blows with their poles and instruments, pretending accident. This is their most successful instru- mental performance. — (1859.) HONESTY NOT THE BEST POLICY. How often is this text to be illustrated P A woman pawns some shirts entrusted to her to be made up. She is sen- tenced to a fortnight's imprisonment. The report of the case is an advertisement. Subscriptions pour in, and at the end of the term of punishment she appears at the police court to receive her reward in the sums of money contributed by charitable persons for her use. Had she re- sisted temptation and refrained from pawning the property confided to her, she would have remained unfriended, un- succoured in her misery. How many poor creatures are there at this very moment, who are submitting to the cruellest privations and hardships rather than commit a dishonesty ; and what an example for them is this ? And we should like to ask the charitable persons who sub- scribed in this instance whether they would have given the woman the same assistance to prevent her lapse from honesty. We suspect that few would do so. Charity SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 539 would not be touched by a knowledge before the offence in the same lively way in which it is moved by the know- ledge after the fact. Home Tooke told a story in point of an applicant for admission to the Magdalen, who, upon being received into the institution, expressed her gratitude that she was saved from ruin. The governess, alarmed by this intimation, questioned the girl and, finding her innocent, informed her that the rules of the institution did not allow of her receiving its advantages. In a short time she returned with undeniable claims to admission. — (1859.) THE MINISTER AND THE PRESS. Horace Walpole frightened an old lady out of her wits by observing that there was a strong smell of thieves in her house. We have amongst us persons, not old women, but high and mighty statesmen, who take a similar alarm at the scent of the Press. There are people who have an instinctive and disagreeable consciousness of the presence of a cat, and there are Ministers who are in like way apprised of and disturbed by the presence of a reporter. For example, a deputation, armed with a reporter, is to the Duke of Newcastle what the Embassy to Pekin, with its escort of troops, was to the Chinese. The Colonial Minister protected himself against the insidious approaches with a barrier not to be forced. He said to the Cape deputation, there is ' a chiel amongst you taking notes,' and explained that a reporter took away his breath, and reduced him to speechlessness. Whether he spoke with or without reserve was to depend on the presence or absence of the reporter. We confess our inability to 540 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. understand this. As line ladies are privileged to faint, or go into fits, at the sight of a mouse or spicier, so a Minister may be frighted from his propriety by the pre- sence of a reporter ; but then let him avow his antipathy and act upon it alone. So the Duke of Newcastle might have said to the Cape deputation, ' Gentlemen, there is a fly in the pot of ointment ; you have brought the Press with you, and it is a thing I cannot endure. The Press is all very well in its place ; very useful and all that in its way ; but, in an official chamber, it is as much out of its sphere as a pig in a flower garden.' This might be arbitrary, but would at least be intelligible ; not so the Colonial Minister's declaration that his reserve or unreserve would depend on the presence or absence of the reporter. Surely a gentleman who intends to say what he thinks and means to do, can have no objection to- the exactest account of his words. ' Do not pin me to my words, and I will talk freely to you,' is a condition to be answered thus : ' Your talking freely to us will be of no use, if you are not to be fixed to your words.' What is the difference between reserve and unreserve? Unreserve with a man of honour must be the full truth, and what harm can there be in having the whole truth exactly noted down if it be proper to be spoken at all ? We do not mean to question a Minister's right to reserve. There are many occasions when a statement of views or intentions may be unseasonable and impolitic, but what we question is the reserve, not because the subject calls for it, but merely because, the departure from it to a frank statement would be put in black and white. The Per- SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 541 sians have an expressive phrase for a certain sort of loose talk ; they call it ' throwing words into the air.' Now a Minister who tells a deputation that he cannot speak without reserve to them in the presence of a reporter, seems to us to say, 'I will throw words into the air to amuse you, provided there is no one amongst you who has the skill to catch them, and make them tangible things.' And to what does the objection to reporters amount? Every member of a deputation is a reporter, aye, and a volunteer reporter, too, for the Press. Of a score of gentlemen who have represented a case to a Minister, and heard his questions, answers, comments, and intimations, no two will agree as to the expressions and their purport. All will go away with different versions of what has passed. The sanguine will put a favourable colour on the Minister's words, those of a different temperament will report them of an opposite tendency. All will be reporters, and bad reporters, not only from want of habit and skill, but because of their very interest in the subject matter. The newspaper reporter is an uninterested witness, whose business it is to note with exactness what he hears. Of course, if a Minister talks loosely and at random, this record must be extremely inconvenient to him ; but how anyone can object to it who has confidence in his own discretion and the purpose of sincerity, we are utterly at a loss to conceive. And we should have thought the Duke of Newcastle one of the men the least likely to make the objection for the reasons assigned. After the affair of the Deputation respecting the recall of the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, at the 542 SOCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Colonial Office, any deputation that waits upon a Minister without the help of a reporter may be considered as going on a fool's errand. The attempt to exclude the Press ought to provoke deputations to insist on the presence of the Press.— (1859.) INDEX ALBERT, Prince, attacks on, 243 Ally, a new, 241 Anglesey, Lord, 114 Army reform, 209 Art, fine, 431 Assassinations, the worse of two, 387 BALLOT, the, 225 Behaviour, rewards for good, 469 Bentinck, Lord George, 98 — , and Xenophon, 195 Bill-stickers beware ! 416 Bishops, 288 Blue-books, 212 Brougham's, Lord, flowers of speech, 174 Budget, the moralised, 236 Byron's statue and the Abbey, 313 CANNING, George, 71 Case, a sad, 526 — , foreign view of our, 528 Catechism, episcopal, 304 Charity abroad, 430 — , intolerant, 319 Chartists, the:— Demonstration re- versed, 216 Church, a free, of England, 296 — rates, 304 Civilisation, signs of, 405 Compliment, a royal, 185 Contrition and egg-sauce, 286 Cookery, English, and French wines, 486 Corn Laws, 156, 157 Counsel, privileges of, 334 Court, the Palace, 368 Criminals, comforting comparison for, 350 Crushing necessary to mental ele- vation, 417 Custom, rogues of, 413 DEBTS, New World way to pay Old World, 384 Derby Administration, the, 242 Diet, discoveries in, 467 Disraeli, Mr., his manifesto, 201 — and the farmers, 232 Doctor, the skin, 187 Dodge, the Doncaster, 281 Dogs, fate of the, 510 Dream, the, 402 Duel, the triangular, 383 Duellists, the, and the. cock phea- sant, 495 Duke, melancholy case of a, 412 Dukes to the front ! 209 — and oxen, 477 Durham, Lord, 80 — , his moderation, 122 ELDON, Lord, 413 Ellenborough, Lord, 259 Ellesmere's, Lord, letter, 488 544 INDEX. England, Old, wooden heads of, 410 Espartero and the Bourbons, 381 Etiquette, the wars of, 377 Evidence, medical, in criminal trials, 372 Extenuating circumstances, 359 FAINEANT Administration, the, 176 Farmer, the unprotected, 232 Farmers' friends, cruel sufferings of, 167 Federalism explained, 473 Feeding on reputations, 507 Fellowes, Dr., 25 Financiers, loves of the, 275 Finsbury, the man for, 426 Foie gras, municipal, 422 Fool, the Kafir, and Cape Governor, , 490 Fopperies and essentials,' 511 Francis, case of, 346 Free Trade, 198 Friends, save us from our, 495 GALLOWS, a plea for the, 353 Garter, the, 472 — and the Bath, 535 George IV., 75 Gladstone, Mr., secession of, 477 Gough's, Lord, last exploit, 226 Graham, Sir James, 173, 188, 419 Graveyard, exclusive system in the, 323 Greatness above reading newspapers, 524 Greek people, our wrongs to the, 398 HAVELOCK, General, 117 Holland, Lord, 83 Honesty not the best policy, 538 Hook or by crook, by, 314 Humanity at sea, 429 Hume, thanks for a, 171 Hunt, John, 96 IF not, why not? 124 India, value of directors, 267 — , glory and embarrassment, 261 Ireland, examples for Young, 221 JENNERS, the court of, 367 Jews in Parliament, 146 Jokes, injured, 493 Jury, trial by, 358 Justice, alderinanation of, 371 ■jTITE-FLYING, 521 LABOURER, the agricultural, 465 Law, immorality of, 326 Lawyers at loggerheads, 360 Liberty, the tree of, 121 Literature, immoral, 428 •Lords, House of, the, 206 Lovelace, Lady, 113 MACHEATH, the political, 151 Magistracy, the unpaid, 406 Maynooth grant, the, 202 Malmesbur}', the double, 284 Martial law, 238 Measures, the dropped, 224 Melbourne, Lord, 85 Merc}', capricious exercise of Crown, 353 Metaphor, triumphs of, 480 Micawber, the Protectionist, 200 Missing political party, the, 269 Motion, the monster, and what came of it, 213 Mystification, the, 243 NAME, virtues of a, 263 Not to do it, how, 519 Nuisance, street, the great, 536 — , — , the newest, 523 INDEX. 545 0" 'CONNELL and the Bourbons 180 Operation, a painless, 152 PACIFICO'S claims, 494 Paris, the fortifications of, 374 — , the coup d'etat in, 398 Parliament, privileges of, 224 Partition of Great Britain, plan for the, 417 Peace-mongering inconsistencies, 499 Peel, Sir Robert, 101 — and the Tories, 143, 144 — sauce, 153 — , and the Corn Laws, 156, 157 — , Sir Robert, and Pickford, 162 — , will he swear it ? 172 — , the quadrilles, 183 — , his portrait gallery, 185 — , an all-principled man, 205 — , his devotion to his friends, 206 Philippe, Louis, 378 Pig, roast, 414 Poland avenged, 464 Postage, the penny, 137 Prayer, restitution better than, 156 — , noble, and vulgar thanksgiving, 322 Press, the newspaper, 445 Primogeniture. 504 Protection and Free Trade, 193 Punishments, inequality in, 341 aUEEN, who shall dine with the ? 128 — , outrage on, 229 Quid pro quo, 193 RABBITS, passage in history of the, 497 Railway management, 475 Reciprocity and retaliation, 492 Repeal of the Union, 130 Republic, Lamartine's, without Re- publicans, 392 Retribution, unprofitable, 160 Revolution, scarecrow of, 379 Right place, the man in, at last, 529 Rivals, the, 461 Roast Papist, 318 Robbery, a sine qua non, 194 Roebuck, Mr., his cure for Ireland, 125 — 's Liverpool speech, 272 Russell, Lord John, 276 — , downfall of Administration, 239 SABBATH, bitter observance of the, 306 Sanitary improvement, plan for, 485 Scotland, moral and social pecu- liarities of, 531 Sheriffs, story of the, 420 Silence, the portentous, 403 Sobriety, dangers of, 315 Stage, the new, 478 Stealing, danger of little, 343 Stone-broth, 148 Stop-gap, the, 277 Suffrage, universal, 159 Sultan, a religious, 406 TABLE-TURNING and table- talking, 502 Tail, end of the, 194 Tailors, autocrat of all the, 373 Talking nuisance, the, 226 Tariff, the, and Income Tax, 160, 161 Taste, progress in good, 521 That's not it! 180 Throne, a stable, 123 Tory disloyalty, 140, 142 Treason, law of, 345 Treating, cure for, 145 Trials, the year of, 227 Truth, how to tell the, 460 NN 546 INDEX. Tyranny, the, and its dangers to Europe, 400 VERDICTS, dubious, 354 Virtue, market price of, 482 WALTER, John, of the < Times,' War, the sources of, 510 Wellington, the Duke of, 108 — , the Canada Bill, 146 — standing in his own way, 147 Wellington, dislike to change, 211 — at home, 407 Whewell, Dr., on English, 508 Whiskey, the Coercion Act, 316 William IV., 77 Wit, City, 517 'OUTH and age, 514 ZEAL more than discretion, 122, 357 LONDON' : PRINTED BY arOTTISWOODE" AND CO.. NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET uO 1. .LgRARY OF CONGRESS 020 702 495 8 m '# 1 H w m ■