_THE POLITICAL SKETCHES OF_ HB (_Continued_).
LORD JOHN RUSSELL.
Sydney Smith said of little Lord John Russell, that he was "ready to
undertake _any_thing and _every_thing--to build St. Paul's,--cut for the
stone,--or command the Channel fleet," and this satire of the wit was
true. He tried politics and he tried literature, and few people will say
that he was entirely successful at either. As a politician, for
instance, his general capacity for getting himself and his party into a
mess, earned from the most intellectually powerful of his political
opponents the enduring title of "Lord Meddle and Muddle." He has not
been dead very long, yet what reputation has he left behind him as a
dramatist--novelist--historian--biographer--editor--pamphleteer, all of
which _roles_ he essayed at some time or other of his long and eventful
career? His _Nun of Arronca_ (1822) fetches it is true an exceedingly
high price, because having been rigidly suppressed by its author it is
now exceedingly rare. The best that can be said of Lord John--and that
is saying a great deal--is, that he was a consistent Liberal according
to his lights, and that to him belongs the honour and glory of bringing
about the great measure of Reform, which, as we have seen, was, mainly
through his instrumentality, accomplished in 1832.
Lord John, as might have been expected, frequently appears in the
"political sketches" of HB. He cuts an amusing figure in one where
_Jonah_ (Lord Minto) is about to be thrown overboard by Lords Lansdowne,
Palmerston, and Duncannon, by order of the captain (Lord Melbourne), to
appease the storm raised by Lords Brougham and Lyndhurst in reference to
a rumour that Lord Minto (First Lord of the Admiralty), had instructed
British cruisers to stop all Sardinian vessels carrying warlike stores
for Don Carlos. Lord John, while clinging to the mast behind, and
viewing with terror the impending fate of his colleague, evidently
solaces himself with the conviction that his own weight is too
insignificant to have any material effect upon the safety of the ship.
Minto owed his safety to the Duke of Wellington, who therefore figures
in the sketch as the whale; for, although convinced that his lordship
had been imprudent, he successfully resisted Brougham's motion for a
copy of the instructions, and thereby succeeded in lodging poor Jonah on
dry land.
STAMP DUTY ON NEWSPAPERS.
One of the "sketches" in which Lord John Russell figures reminds us of a
remarkable discussion which possesses considerable interest for every
reader of the cheap newspapers of to-day. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer (the Right Hon. Thomas Spring Rice) in opening his budget on
the 6th of May, 1836, showed a disposable surplus of L662,000 only,
which he proposed (in the usual way) to apply towards the reduction of
taxation. He proposed, in the first place, to consolidate the paper
duties and to reduce their amount in a manner which he proceeded to
explain; and after accounting for L200,000, the balance of the surplus
he intended to apply to the reduction of the stamp on newspapers. The
duty minus the discount was fourpence, which he proposed to reduce to a
penny, and to give of course no discount. The reader must not suppose
from the foregoing, however, that all the proprietors of newspapers of
that day paid the duty; on the contrary, the large majority evaded it in
every possible way. The measure in fact was intended as much as a
protection to the revenue as anything else, for the sale of unstamped
newspapers throughout the country had become so extensive that no series
of prosecutions was found effectual to put them down. Every sheet, it is
true, professed to bear on it the printer's name; but the name so
appended was in six cases out of eight a false one. Exchequer processes
were issued; all the power of the law was set in motion; in the course
of three weeks three hundred persons had been imprisoned for selling
unstamped papers in the streets, but without in the slightest degree
repressing the illegal sale. The Chancellor argued that the loss which
the revenue would sustain in the first instance would be more than
compensated by the enormous increase of duty to be obtained from the
enlarged circulation; from the additional duty arising from the greater
consumption of paper; and from the very large increase which might be
expected from the produce of the duty on advertisements.
The opponents of the measure were of three classes: first, those who
looked upon the proposal as radical and subversive; secondly, those who
because a reduction is suggested in one quarter invariably consider it
the correct thing to propose it in another; and lastly, the owners of
the established newspapers of the day. The arguments of the first class
assumed the following form: "In proportion as any political party
approaches more or less towards pure democracy and the right divine of
mere numbers, its interests will require that the means should be
increased of disseminating among the lower classes, and as nearly
gratuitously as possible, the exciting and poisonous food which is at
last to end in the revolutionary fever."[113] The second class, strange
to say, rested their hopes in this instance on the singularly slippery
basis of _soap_. Sir C. Keightley moved (on the 20th of June) that
instead of diminishing the stamp duty on newspapers, the duty on hard
and soft soap should be reduced. The reduction of such duty would, he
argued, by aiding cleanliness, promote the health and comfort of the
people, while the lowering of newspaper stamps would do nothing of the
kind, but would tend rather to introduce a cheap and profligate press,
"one of the greatest curses which could be inflicted on humanity." He
contended, moreover, that it was absurd to argue that the poor were
debarred from reading the public prints, when in a coffee shop, for
three-halfpence, they could obtain a cup of coffee and a sight of every
newspaper published in London. Mr. Barclay, one of the members for
Surrey, thought it impossible for any reasonable being to hesitate
between the relative virtues of newspapers and soap; and as for the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, he could not believe for one moment that if
left to his own unaided judgment he would hesitate to give his
preference to the latter. The Chancellor nevertheless avowed in the
plainest terms his preference for newspapers, and his conviction of the
advisability of an immediate reduction in the stamp duty; the result,
after the lapse of less than forty years, has conclusively proved the
wisdom of the measure which he succeeded in carrying.
CURIOUS ARGUMENTS OF THE NEWSPAPER PROPRIETORS.
Newspaper proprietorship was then a monopoly; and the argument by which
the rich proprietor, the representative of the third class of opponents,
sought to maintain his monopoly cannot fail to amuse the newspaper
reader of to-day. The monopoliser who, to maintain the character of his
paper and to supply the public with the best and earliest information,
incurred the expense of procuring parliamentary reports, obtaining
foreign intelligence, anticipating the arrival of the post by expresses,
and by having correspondents in every quarter of the world where matters
of interest were going forward, said, that should the measure pass, he
must thenceforth either be content to lower the tone of the public press
by not giving the same amount of accurate intelligence, or must carry on
the contest with those who went to no expense at all. "The result would
be not only the ruin of the property of the newspaper proprietors and
the destruction of their property, but it would be something much more
fatal to the general interests of the country, for the editors of the
present respectable papers would not be able to compete with these
predatory publications, and would be compelled to forego that extent of
information which was then so accurately given. We should have the
newspaper press"--mark this, ye omnivorous readers of to-day, who
commence with _The Times_, adjourn to the _Telegraph_, peruse the pages
of the _Morning Post_, wander through the columns of the _Daily News_,
and finish off with the express edition of the _Globe_ or _Evening
Standard_, reserving your _Saturday Review_, your _Truth_, and your
_Vanity Fair_ for Sunday solatium--"we should have the newspaper press
simply reduced to this state: that no longer would there be a regular
and correct supply of information to the public respecting the debates
of Parliament or _other important matters, but there would be only such
an amount and such a description of information as could be furnished
upon the inaccurate data of a man who would not go to any expense in the
use of the means at present employed_." These were the views of the
newspaper proprietors of 1836, as expounded by that respectable but
distinctly Tory authority, "The Annual Register."[114]
The measure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of which we have
attempted the foregoing explanation, appears to have suggested to John
Doyle his sketch of _The Rival Newsmongers_, in which the leading men of
all parties are represented in the act of endeavouring to force the sale
of their own journals. The scene is supposed to be enacted in front of
the Elephant and Castle, where we find the "Union Coach" waiting to take
up passengers,--the three who occupy the roof being a Scotchman,
indicated by his bonnet and plaid, Paddy by his shocking bad hat, while
in the portly, jolly-looking party next him we have no difficulty
whatever in recognising honest John Bull. The three are listening to the
appeals of O'Connell, close to whom is Mr. Roebuck, and behind him again
Mr. Hume. Sir Roger Gresley addresses himself to the insides, and the
person holding up his paper to the special notice of John Bull is the
Marquis of Londonderry. The driver of the coach is Lord Melbourne, and
the ostler little Lord John Russell.
LORD BROUGHAM.
The public man who perhaps of all others earned and deserved his place
in the pictorial satires of the nineteenth century was emphatically
Brougham. The verdict of posterity on this restless but unquestionably
brilliant man of genius must of necessity be a somewhat disappointing
one; he aimed at being nothing less than an Admirable Crichton, and such
a character in the nineteenth century, when every public man must be
more or less talented, more or less brilliant, would be an impossibility
even to a genius. A rival lawyer and political opponent, Sir Charles
Wetherell is reported to have said of him that he knew a little of
everything but law; and although this statement was spiteful and untrue,
there is no doubt of the truth of Mr. Greville's remarks, that his duty
as Chancellor was confined to appeals which _must_ come before him,
lunacy and other matters over which he had sole jurisdiction, and that
"nobody ever thought of bringing an original cause into his court."[115]
We think we may even go farther than this, and say that no lawyer of the
present day would dream of relying on Lord Brougham's decisions.
O'Connell said of him, "I pay very little attention to anything Lord
Brougham says. He makes a greater number of foolish speeches than any
other man of the present generation. There may be more nonsense in some
one speech of another person, but in the number, the multitude of
foolish speeches, Lord Brougham has it hollow. I would start him ten to
one--ay, fifty to one--in talking nonsense against any prattler now
living."
Some amusing examples of his restless anxiety to figure on all occasions
in the character of an Admirable Crichton are given by Mr. Charles
Greville, whose "Memoirs" stand in much the same relation to the graphic
satires of the nineteenth century as the "Odes" of Dr. Walcot do towards
the caricatures of James Gillray. "Dined," says Mr. Greville (under date
of 7th June, 1831), "with Sefton yesterday, who gave me an account of a
dinner at Fowell Buxton's on Saturday to see the brewery, at which
Brougham was the _magnus Apollo_. Sefton is excellent as a commentator
on Brougham; he says that he watches him incessantly, never listens to
anybody else when he is there, and _rows_ him unmercifully afterwards
for all the humbug, nonsense, and palaver he hears him talk to
people.... They dined in the brewhouse and visited the whole
establishment. Lord Grey was there in star, garter, and ribbons. There
were people ready to show and explain everything. But not a bit.
Brougham took the explanation of everything into his own hands; the mode
of brewing, the machinery, down to the feeding of the cart-horses.
After dinner the account books were brought, and the young Buxtons were
beckoned up to the top of the table by their father to hear the words of
wisdom which flowed from the lips of my Lord Chancellor. He affected to
study the ledger, and made various pertinent remarks on the manner of
book-keeping. There was a man whom Brougham called 'Cornelius' (Sefton
did not know who he was), with whom he seemed very familiar. While
Brougham was talking he dropped his voice, on which 'Cornelius' said,
'Earl Grey is listening,' that he might speak louder and nothing be
lost. He was talking of Paley, and said that 'although he did not always
understand his own meaning, he always made it intelligible to others,'
on which 'Cornelius' said, 'My good friend, if he made it so clear to
others, he must have some comprehension of it himself;' on which Sefton
attacked him afterwards, and swore that 'he was a mere child in the
hands of "Cornelius;" that he never saw anybody so put down.' These
people are all subscribers to the London University,[116] and Sefton
swears he overheard Brougham tell them that 'Sir Isaac Newton was
nothing compared to some of the present professors,' or something to
that effect. I put down all this nonsense because it amused me in the
recital, and is excessively characteristic of the man, one of the most
remarkable that ever existed. Lady Sefton told me that he went with them
to the British Museum, where all the officers of the Museum were in
attendance to receive them. He would not let anybody explain anything,
but did all the honours himself. At last they came to the collection of
minerals, when she thought he must be brought to a standstill. Their
conductor began to describe them, when Brougham took the words out of
his mouth, and dashed off with as much ease and familiarity as if he had
been a Buckland or a Cuvier. Such is the man, a grand mixture of moral,
political, and intellectual incongruities."[117]
If the part which Brougham's position as attorney-general to Queen
Caroline obliged him to take at the memorable period of the "Bill of
Pains and Penalties" had not closed the door of professional advancement
against him, he had most effectually locked it against himself so long
as her husband lived by the intemperate and ill-judged language in which
he alluded to that event in the speech which he delivered at Edinburgh
on the 5th of April, 1825.[118] But Brougham was constantly on the watch
for its being opened, and on the very day when George the Fourth died,
that is to say on the 20th of June, 1830, he spoke in the House of
Commons in eulogistic terms of the new sovereign, praising him for
allowing the Speaker to take the oaths at an unusually early hour in
order to suit the convenience of members, a graceful act, which Mr.
Brougham declared he hailed as a happy omen of the commencement of an
auspicious reign. The astute K. C.'s object did not escape the
penetrating eye of HB, who forthwith represented him as _The Gheber
Worshipping the Rising Sun_, in whose smiling face we recognise the
unmistakable lineaments of William the Fourth. The sun proved not
unmindful of the attention; for, on the formation of Earl Grey's
ministry in 1830, Mr. Brougham was made Lord Chancellor, with the title
of Baron Brougham and Vaux. The appointment took the nation by surprise;
for although a consistent upholder of Whig principles, he had always
maintained a peculiar and independent position with his party, and was
expected to prove rather an embarrassment than otherwise. These
expectations were fully realized, and there can be no doubt that the
sentiments which Lord Brougham's bearing as Chancellor excited among his
colleagues and contemporaries, excluded him for the remainder of his
life from all official life and employment.
With all his wonderful powers, however, Lord Brougham could make, as
O'Connell asserted of him, as inconsiderate a speech as any man. One of
these speeches, which was delivered on the 14th of August, 1833, in a
debate on the bill for the abolition of slavery in the West Indies,
suggested to HB a happy subject. His lordship is reported to have said
that, "the object of the clause [then under discussion] was to make the
black, from the moment that he arrived on the shores of this country, a
free man in all respects: to make him eligible to sit in Parliament,
either in the House of Lords, if it should be his Majesty's pleasure to
give him a title to a seat, or in the other House if he should be
elected." HB, with his usual facility for seizing an idea, took his
lordship at his word, and forthwith elevated the emancipated "nigger" to
the woolsack, clothing him in the wig and gown of Lord Chancellor
Brougham, and giving him the features of the noble and learned lord
himself: this sketch bears the title of _A Select Specimen of the Black
Style_.
The House of Lords was a lively place whilst my Lord Chancellor Brougham
was in office, and in the "scenes" in which he figured, and which drew
down upon him the hatred and resentment of his contemporaries, he not
unfrequently displayed a want of judgment which was nothing less than
lamentable. We might give many instances of these regrettable scenes,
but one shall suffice. On the 29th of September, 1831, the Lord
Chancellor made the following answer to a question put by the Marquis of
Londonderry:--"My lords," he said, "I beg to state to you once for all,
that I will not sit here to be _bothered_ with questions which emanate
from the ridiculous ideas of certain absurd individuals who cannot or
will not see anything, however clear, and seem lamentably incapacitated
by nature from comprehending what is going on. Moreover, I beg to state
to the noble marquis, that for the future I will answer no question of
his,--will give him no information whatever." The amazed patrician said
in reply, "As to the language which the noble and learned lord has
ventured to apply to me here, I will only say that I shall wish those
words to be repeated in another place." The Lord Chancellor rejoined
that he had said nothing which he was not prepared to repeat elsewhere;
and here the matter appears to have ended, for strange to say it was the
Marquis of Londonderry and not the irascible Brougham who subsequently
apologised, a circumstance which occasioned the artist's satirical and
telling sketch of _The Duel that did Not Take Place_. These scenes do
not appear to have been the result of any mere ebullition of temper; on
the contrary, Brougham would seem to have delighted in these
undignified exhibitions. "The Chancellor, who loves to unbosom himself
to Sefton, because he knows the latter thinks him the finest fellow
breathing, tells him that it is nuts to him to be attacked by noble
lords in the Upper House, and that they had better leave him alone if
they care for their own hides. Since he loves these assaults, last
night," continues Mr. Greville, "he got his bellyful, for he was baited
by a dozen at least, and he did not come out of the _melee_ so chuckling
and happy as usual."[119]
Parliament was dissolved on the 15th of August, 1834, and by that time
his party, the king, and everybody else, had grown pretty well tired of
Lord Chancellor Brougham. His head would seem to have been almost turned
by his success; for he employed the recess which followed the
prorogation in making a sort of royal progress through Scotland,
parading the Great Seal on his way, to the great disgust of the king,
who seriously thought he had taken leave of his senses, and protested
against it being carried across the border. In the course of this
strange progress he reached Inverness in the beginning of September,
1834, and was presented by the magistrates with the freedom of their
city. In returning thanks for this honour, Lord Brougham said he was
conscious "that it was not owing to any personal merits that he had
received this mark of distinction at their hands. First of all he owed
it to the circumstance that he had the honour of serving a monarch who
lived in the hearts of his subjects. He had enjoyed the honour of
serving that prince for nearly four years, and during that time he had
experienced from his Majesty only one series of gracious condescension,
confidence, and favour. To find that he lived in the hearts of his loyal
subjects in the ancient and important capital of the Highlands, as it
had afforded him (Lord Brougham) only pure and unmixed satisfaction,
would, he was confident, be so received by his Majesty, when he (Lord
Brougham) told him, _as he would by that night's post_ (cheers), of the
gratifying circumstances."[120] So far, however, from being gratified,
the bluff sailor king was tremendously annoyed. These fulsome
adulations, and the ridiculous manner in which his eccentric and
embarrassing Chancellor tortured any personal attention to himself
(Brougham) into a personal compliment to his royal master, thoroughly
disgusted him. For some weeks previously _The Times_ had attacked the
eccentric Chancellor with a constancy and vigour of satire quite
unexampled; the tide of ridicule was swelled by contributions from the
London and provincial press; Brougham made some foolish speeches at
Aberdeen and Dundee, which excited the laughter of his enemies and the
alarm of his friends. "Those who are charitably disposed," remarks the
unfriendly Greville, "express their humane conviction that he is mad,
and it probably is not very remote from the truth."
Intellectually strong as he was, a Chancellor so eccentric as this was
an _incubus_ to be got rid of at the first convenient opportunity. In
May, 1834, Mr. Stanley, Sir James Graham, the Earl of Ripon, and the
Duke of Richmond, seceded from the ministry; but the Whig party, in
spite of these resignations and the subsequent one of Lord Grey in July,
continued in office under Lord Althorp till the following November, when
the latter being called (by the death of his father) to the Upper House
as Earl Spencer, the king seized the opportunity which he had so long
desired of placing a less embarrassing and self-willed Chancellor on the
woolsack. This circumstance prompted the clever sketch of the _Fall of
Icarus_. Icarus in this instance is of course Brougham, who, flying in
defiance of the injunctions of Daedalus too near the sun--that is to say,
William the Fourth--the wax of his mechanical wings melted and he fell
into the sea. That there may be no mistake as to the artist's meaning,
the wings aforesaid are labelled with the titles of various publications
which were loudest in sounding the praises of the King and of the "noble
and learned lord," and to which he himself, with the questionable taste
which distinguished him, was reputed (with justice) to be a contributor.
Whether my Lord Chancellor Brougham caught the infection from his
client, Queen Caroline, we know not; but his conduct, whether in or out
of office, appears to have been of the most undignified character.
Ignoring the fact that his party were no longer in power, there is no
doubt whatever that he wrote a letter to his successor, Lord Lyndhurst,
actually suggesting his own nomination to Lyndhurst's vacant office of
Chief Baron of the Exchequer, thereby (as he pointed out) saving to the
public his own pension of ex-Chancellor. What his real motive may have
been is of little consequence; it was certainly a most undignified
proceeding, made the more undignified, if possible, because the proposal
was not accepted. It suggested to the artist one of his pictorial puns,
_The Vaux and the Grapes_, and to the Rev. Richard Harris Barham the
following amusing verses, which we have extracted from a contemporary
poetical skit:--
"Then in Great Stanhope Street
The confusion was great
In a certain superb habi-tation,
Where seated at tea,
O'er a dish of Bohea,
Brougham was quaffing his 'usual potation'
(For you know his indignant ne-gation,
When accused once of jollifi-cation),
Down went saucer and cup,
Which Le Marchant picked up,
Not to hear his lord mutter 'd--n-ation.'
But this greatest of men
Soon caught hold of a pen,
And, after slight delibe-ration,
No longer he tosses
His flexile proboscis
About in so much exci-tation;[121]
But scribbling with great ani-mation,
He sends off a communi-cation:--
'Dearest Lyndhurst,' says he,
'Can't you find room for me
When constructing your adminis-tration?
Though the _Times_ says I'm mad,
And each rascally Rad
Abuses my tergiversation;
Though those humbugs, the Whigs,
Swear that my "thimble-rigs"
Were the cause of all their vacill-ation;
The whole story's a base fabri-cation
To damage my great reputa-tion;
So now to be brief,
_Only make me Lord Chief_,
And I'll serve without remuner-ation!'
When he found 'twas 'no go,'
And that Lyndhurst and Co.
Were deaf to all solici-tation,
As 'twas useless with Lyndy
To kick up a shindy,
He resolved upon peregrin-ation.
Not waiting for much prepa-ration,
He bolted with precipi-tation;
A sad loss, I ween,
To Charles Knight's magazine,
And to Stinkomalee edu-cation."
Lord Brougham, indeed, by his despotic, intractable conduct, had
thoroughly shut himself out from all chance of office. Sir Robert Peel's
Conservative ministry lasted till April, 1835, when a second Whig
government came into power, under the premiership of Lord Melbourne, and
from the re-constructed cabinet, Brougham--much to his own surprise, but
to the surprise of no one else--was excluded.[122]
IRISH DISAFFECTION.
Irish disaffection was, unfortunately, as stale a subject in 1833 as in
1883. For what particular sins of her own England has been cursed with a
neighbour so bloodthirsty, so unreasonable, and so troublesome as
Ireland, it would be difficult to say. Although we had no Irish
Americans--no cowardly "dynamitards"--in those days, Ireland was
nevertheless in a state of chronic disaffection, and an "Irish Coercion
Bill" was found just as necessary to restrain the excitement of Irish
political malcontents in 1833 as in 1883. Irish history, in this respect
at least, has a method of repeating itself which is singularly
embarrassing, and the student of the history of Irish disaffection
cannot fail to be interested in the statement with which Lord Grey
introduced his measure fifty years ago. We learn from this statement
that a state of things existed little short of actual rebellion. Bodies
of men were collected and arrayed by signals, evidently directed by a
system of organization in which many were combined, and such system was
conducted in a manner which had hitherto set at defiance all the
exertions of law and order. The disturbers of the peace prescribed the
terms on which land was to be let, and any one who presumed to disobey
their orders was subject to have his property destroyed or be put to
death. The reign of terror was complete. The organization which supplied
the place of the Land League of to-day dictated what persons should
employ and be employed; and while they forbad labourers from working for
obnoxious masters on the one hand, they prevented a master on the other
from employing as labourers any but those who were obedient to their
orders. They enforced their decrees by acts of cruelty and outrage; by
spoliation, murder, attacks on houses in the dead of night; by dragging
the inmates from their beds and so maltreating them that death often
ensued, or by inflicting cruelties which were sometimes worse than
death. The persons belonging to this organization assembled by signals,
made concerted movements, watched the movements of the troops, and by
information received so avoided them that the military were rendered
practically useless.
The ordinary tribunals were powerless to arrest this iniquitous
organization of murder and terror, which the Irish disaffectants and
their advisers even in that day appear to have brought to a system of
execrable perfection. Witnesses and jurors were terrified into silence.
In one case the master of a female servant was commanded to dismiss her
because her _mother_ had given evidence against a person brought to
trial for a capital crime, and similar cases were of almost daily
occurrence. Five armed men went to the house of Patrick Lalor, a man of
nearly seventy years of age, and shot him through the body. His crime
had been disobedience to a mandate to give up some ground which he held
contrary to the will of the Terrorists. The same system prevented a son
of Lalor, and an eye-witness of his murder, from giving evidence against
his murderers. On the trial of these miscreants at Kilkenny assizes, the
jury not being able to agree was dismissed. It had been arranged in the
jury-room that nothing should transpire as to the opinions of individual
jurymen, and yet, in _half an hour_, the names of those in favour of an
acquittal or of a conviction were printed--the former in black, and the
latter, or as they were designated the "jurors who were for blood," in
red ink. The result was that those whose names were printed in red were
obliged to leave the country. At the Clonmel assizes the previous
October (1832), when a person was to be tried for resisting the payment
of tithe, only 76 jurors out of 265 who had been summoned made their
appearance. A gentleman had been murdered in sight of his own gate in
consequence of some dispute in connection with tithes. The answer of his
son-in-law, summoned by the coroner to give evidence against the
supposed murderer, was this: "That he would submit to any penalty the
crown or the law would impose upon him, but he would not appear at the
trial, because he knew that if he stood forward as a witness his life
would inevitably be forfeited." The Irish Government received a notice
from Kilkenny "that many gentlemen who had always" most conscientiously
discharged their duties, "would not attend at the next assizes. They
cared not what penalty was imposed upon them. They refused to attend,
because they knew that death" awaited them if they dared to do their
duty. "It is the boast of the prisoners," continued this document, "that
they cannot under existing circumstances be found guilty." Under such a
disgraceful state of things, outrage had become of course triumphant.
The sickening catalogue of Irish cruelty and crime during the previous
year comprised 172 homicides, 465 robberies, 568 burglaries, 455 _acts
of houghing of cattle_, 2,095 illegal notices, 425 illegal meetings, 796
_malicious injuries to property_, 753 _attacks on houses_, 280 arsons,
3,156 serious assaults, making an aggregate of crimes of every
description during the year, connected with the disturbed state of the
country, exceeding 9,000 in number, and the number was evidently still
on the increase.
EFFECT OF THE IRISH COERCION BILL OF 1833.
The third reading of the Coercion Bill was carried in the Commons on the
29th of March, by 345 to 86, and the Act was to continue in force till
the 1st of August, 1834. It led of course to many scenes in the House
between English and Irish members, although the Irish members of that
day, to do them simple justice, had not graduated in the aggravated
system of obstruction they have since developed, and thereby earned for
themselves the character of political nuisances. One of these scenes led
to the sketch entitled _Prisoners of War_, which has reference to a
serio-comic interlude, in which the principal performers were Lord
Althorp and Mr. Shiel, member for Tipperary. On the 5th of February,
1834, Lord Althorp charged (without naming them) certain Irish members
who had particularly distinguished themselves by violent opposition to
the Bill in the House, with using very different language in reference
to it in private conversation. Up then rose one Irish member after
another, inquiring if he was the person alluded to. To Mr. O'Connell and
Mr. Finn the answer was in the negative, while Mr. Shiel was given
directly to understand that _he_ was one of the members intended, his
lordship declining at the same time to name his authority, but avowing
his belief in the truth of the story, and his willingness to take upon
himself the full responsibility. The result of course was a "scene." Mr.
Shiel, after the manner of fire-eating Irishmen of that day, having
hinted his intention to demand satisfaction elsewhere, Sir Francis
Burdett arose and said that, unless the "honourable members pledged
themselves to preserve the peace, he should instantly move that they be
committed to the custody of the Serjeant-at-arms." As neither of the
parties would give such assurance, the motion was put from the chair and
carried. The _Prisoners of War_ portrayed in the sketch are of course
Mr. Shiel and Lord Althorp. After a brief absence from the House, each
having given the required assurance was discharged from custody, and
there the matter ended. The benefits of the Act were almost immediately
made apparent. The association, which called itself, by the way, "The
Irish Volunteers" (the Land League of 1833), was promptly suppressed by
the Lord Lieutenant; and the list of offences during the month of March
which preceded and the month of May which followed the passing of the
Act most conclusively proved its efficiency, for, while in the former
month the records of crime in eleven counties reached a sum total of
472, they had declined in the latter month to 162.[123]
O'CONNELL.
Irish agitators of the nineteenth century are all more or less "tarred
with the same brush," but the conditions under which an Irish agitator
of 1883-4 must be content to figure in that character are, it must be
remembered, widely different from those which influenced the agitators
of 1833. The Irish "Home Rulers" have sown the wind and have reaped the
whirlwind which carries them along in its progress, and we doubt whether
if they wished to stop the hideous Frankenstein they have created, it
would allow them to do so. The Home Rulers, however, are not in any way
to be pitied. Not content with Land League terrorism, they sought to
force their measures upon John Bull himself by an unheard-of system of
parliamentary obstruction, which has inevitably recoiled upon
themselves. O'Connell was far too sharp-sighted--far too intelligent and
clever a man to make so grave a mistake as this. By the sheer force of
his genius he exercised for many years of his life a most powerful
influence on English politics. He figures in one of John Doyle's
sketches in the character ascribed to him probably by most of his
contemporaries. In the sketch referred to, the Governor of Barataria is
represented by the typical Irish peasant; O'Connell appears in the
character of the Doctor; and Lord John Russell as the attendant and
amused servitor. Pat's eagerness to enjoy the good things he has been
led to expect, and his mortification at their being removed out of reach
and out of sight are ridiculously rendered.
We must not be misunderstood; although O'Connell had far greater
personal influence over the Irish than his successors, he was for all
that in political matters eminently unscrupulous.[124] At the general
election of 1835, the avowed principles on which he stood forth as a
candidate were: repeal of the union,--universal suffrage, vote by
ballot,--triennial parliaments,--and the abolition of tithes. "I am," he
said, "decidedly for the vote by ballot. Whoever votes by ballot votes
as he pleases, and no one need know how he votes." Yet, in spite of
these avowed principles, he controlled the election of Irish candidates
after the following fashion:--The Knight of Kerry started as a candidate
for his native county, but dared to avow his intention to take an
independent course. He had spent all his life in resisting Orangemen,
and yet O'Connell said, "Every one who dares to vote for the Orange
knight of Kerry shall have a death's head and cross-bones painted on his
door." The voters at the Irish elections were collected in the chapels
by the priests, and led forth to the poll under threats of being refused
all the rites and visited with all the punishments of their Church.
Under these influences, the Knight of Kerry, supported by nearly all the
property, intelligence, and respectability of the county, was defeated.
Of a candidate for New Ross who had refused to enlist under his banner,
O'Connell said, "Whoever shall support him his shop shall be deserted,
no man shall pass his threshold; put up his name as a traitor to
Ireland; let no man speak to him; let the children laugh him to scorn."
His example was followed of course by his lieutenants. It says something
for Irish independence that these unscrupulous "dodges" were not always
successful; and O'Connell himself, and his colleague, Mr. Ruthven,
secured their own seats by comparatively small majorities. At the
previous election O'Connell had obtained a majority of 1,549, and Mr.
Ruthven of 1,490 above the highest Conservative candidate: at the
election in 1835, O'Connell's majority had fallen to 217, and Mr.
Ruthven's to 169. The "Irish agitator" was manifestly no favourite with
HB, who depicted him as the comet of 1835. Comets being supposed by the
vulgar to portend disaster, it is represented as leaving Ireland in a
flame, and passing over St. George's Channel to exercise a malign
influence on peaceful England. The head of course is that of O'Connell,
while the tail is studded with the countenances of the Irish members who
made up his "following." In a previous sketch he had figured as the Wolf
to Lord John Russell's "Little Red Riding Hood," in allusion to a
statement made by the opposition journals that the Government had made a
league with the restless agitator with the view of securing his support
in the House of Commons. We have heard something very like this lately,
in relation to what is now known as the "Kilmainham Treaty."
SIR ROBERT PEEL.
The rapidity with which John Doyle caught an inspiration from a few
chance words in a speech, may be aptly illustrated by the manner in
which he served Sir Robert Peel. On the occasion of his being installed
Lord Rector of Glasgow University, in November, 1836, the distinguished
statesman made a speech to his patrons, in which he meant to tell them
that, admiring Scotland and Scottish scenery, he thought the best mode
of seeing both was on horseback instead of travelling in a public or
private conveyance. He expressed the idea, however, in the following
round-about fashion:--"I wished," he said, "to see something of Scotland
which I could not have seen from the windows of a luxurious carriage; I
wished to see other habits and manners of life than those which the
magnificent hospitable castles of the nobility presented. Yes," he
continued, "in Glasgow I hired an _humble but faithful steed_; I
travelled partly on horseback and partly on foot through almost every
county that lies southern of Inverness; I have read the map of Scotland
upon the great scale of nature, from the summits of Ben Nevis and Ben
Lomond; I have visited that island whence savage and roaming bands
derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. Yes,
amid the ruins of Iona I have abjured the rigid philosophy which would
conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground that has been
dignified by wisdom, by bravery, and by virtue. I have stood on the
shores of Staffa,--I have seen the temple not built with hands,--I have
seen the mighty swell of the ocean,--the waves of the great Atlantic
beating in its inmost recesses, and swelling notes of praise nobler than
ever pealed from human organs." Well, other tourists besides the
statesman have stood on the summit of Ben Nevis and Ben Lomond,--have
visited Staffa and Iona,--and yet, the rigid philosophy which Sir Robert
credited himself for abjuring, has unconsciously conducted them
comparatively "indifferent and unmoved" over much ground that may have
been "dignified by wisdom, by bravery," and even "by virtue." The
stilted remarks of Sir Robert will serve to remind some of us of the
very original sentiments we find recorded in "visitors' books" of sundry
home and continentals hotels much affected by members of the gushing
order of travellers. Some such idea seems to have struck the artist; for
in his next satire Sir Robert very deservedly figured as _Dr. Syntax
setting out on his Humble but Faithful Steed in Search of the
Picturesque_.
As a rule the titles of these sketches, which reach the amazing number
of nine hundred and seventeen, afford no clue whatever to their subject
matter. Here are the titles of a few, taken at random from the general
bulk:--_An Affair of Honour_; _A Group of Sporting Characters at Epsom_;
_A Nice Distinction, or a Hume-iliating Rejoinder to a Warlike Ap-Peel_;
_A Political Ruse_; _Swearing the Horatii_; _Retaliation_; _Goody Two
Shoes turned Barber_; _State Cricket Match_; _Taking an Airing in Hyde
Park_;--and so on. A description, however short, of the events to which
these "Political Sketches" refer, would occupy probably a couple of
volumes; and, following the course which we have hitherto adopted, we
have preferred to make selection of a few which seemed to us--either
from the persons satirized or the scenes in which they figure--likely
to interest the general reader. Thackeray said of them at the time they
were appearing, "You never hear any laughing at HB, his pictures are a
great deal too genteel for that,--polite points of wit which strike one
as exceedingly clever and pretty, and cause one to smile in a quiet,
gentlemanlike kind of way." Forty-two years have elapsed since this was
written;--the sketches fail now almost to provoke the "gentlemanlike
kind" of smile mentioned by the humourist, for the events and the
persons which caused it and to which they relate have alike passed away
out of sight and out of memory.
FAULTS OF THE "SKETCHES."
The number which they attained is due no doubt in a large measure to the
facility with which they were produced. They were all drawn on stone,
and exhibit the faults so often to be found in the productions of
artists who confine themselves to this material, which, owing to the
comparative facility of the process, has a tendency to induce a
slovenliness in execution unusual with artists accustomed to the careful
discipline under which a successful etching on steel or copper can alone
be produced. A writer in _Blackwood_[125] says with much truth that HB
"would have been a greater artist had he worked on the same material and
with the same tools as Gillray and Cruikshank, but we should probably
not have possessed so complete a gallery of portraits, comprising all
the men of note who took part in political affairs from before the
passing of the Catholic Relief Bill until after the repeal of the Corn
Laws, a period more eventful than any of a similar length since the
Revolution of 1688." John Doyle, too, had no great powers of sarcasm,
and he was timid in design, contenting himself with as few figures as
were possible for the purposes of his drawings. Robert William Buss,
himself a comic artist of ability, in his brief notice of him charges
him with a certain feebleness in the attitude of the persons who figure
in his sketches, and gives us to understand that to balance a figure
properly requires a knowledge and practice in drawing to which HB was a
stranger; and further, that by reason of the absence of such knowledge
and practice, he falls far behind Hogarth, Gillray, Bunbury, Rowlandson,
or the Cruikshanks. With these artists indeed, as we have endeavoured to
show, John Doyle has nothing in common, and he evidently designed that
no comparison should ever be instituted between any one of them and
himself. His chief merits are to be found in the facility with which he
grasped an idea; the harmlessness and playfulness of his satire, which
wrought a complete revolution in the style and manner of caricaturists;
and above all in the excellence of his likenesses. The best and most
graceful of the series was produced just after the wedding of her
Majesty, and is a transcript (as it were) of Stothard's beautiful design
of _The Procession of the Flitch of Bacon_, the leading personages being
the young Queen and the late Prince Consort, whose portraits are
admirably executed. Towards the close of the series they show signs of
failing power, not unnatural in an artist who during a course of twenty
years had produced upwards of a thousand drawings. I have seen it
somewhere stated that this deterioration dates from the period when the
identity of HB was discovered; but inasmuch as this secret had been
practically revealed long before the decadence commences, there is no
just ground for any such assumption.
The reputation of the "Political Sketches" was, however, ephemeral, and
considering their popularity and the eagerness with which they were
bought up at the time, it is surprising how completely they have passed
into oblivion. The name of HB, or of John Doyle, is now not only
"caviare to the general," but it is amazing how little until lately he
was known even to men not altogether ignorant on the subject of
satirical art. A gentleman to whom I am indebted for some valuable
information, tells me that some three or four years since "a large
number of _original_ sketches (not the engravings) were catalogued and
announced for sale at Christies'. I went," he says, "possibly to buy
several, but (and it is curious as showing the decadent interest in the
pictures) no sale took place, because I was told there was no one to
buy. I think," my informant adds, "that I was the only person, or
nearly the only person, in the room." Distinguished people, however, had
been to look at the drawings, and among them the late Lord Beaconsfield.
The success of the artist produced, of course, a number of imitators.
Their productions were of various degrees of merit; but like most
imitations they generally accentuated the faults without reproducing the
excellencies of the model. Some of them are entitled "Political Hits,"
"Royal Ramblings," "The Belgian Trip," "Parisian Trip," and so on; some
are signed "Philo H. B.," "H. H.," "B. H.," while others have neither
initials or signature. They comprise some eighty or a hundred plates at
least, many of which were probably suppressed, whilst others no doubt
served the useful purposes of the greengrocer, the bookbinder, or the
trunk-maker; and if, as we are told--
"Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away;"
there can be nothing after all very dishonourable or very surprising in
their ultimate destination.
The artist died in 1868.
FOOTNOTES:
[113] Annual Register, 1836, p. 237.
[114] 1836, p. 244. Mr. Baldwin (one of the proprietors of the
_Standard_ newspaper) stated that "if the bill passed in its present
shape, it would deteriorate his property fifty per cent., and would
operate in the same way with all property of that
description."--_Ibid._, p. 247.
[115] Greville's "Memoirs," pp. 3, 71.
[116] In which Lord Brougham took a special interest.
[117] Greville's "Memoirs," ii., p. 148.
[118] For the silly and spiteful observations made in this speech,
see "Annual Register," 1825, p. 43.
[119] Greville's "Memoirs," iii. p. 85.
[120] _Inverness Courier_, Sept. 3rd (quoted in "Annual Register,"
1854, p. 129).
[121] From a nervous habit he had contracted of twitching his nose
Lord Brougham was known to his contemporaries by the nickname of
"Jemmy Twitcher."
[122] On this occasion the Great Seal was reserved and for the time
put in commission, the commissioners being Sir Charles Pepys (Master
of the Rolls), Vice Chancellor Shadwell, and Mr. Justice Bosanquet.
Eventually it was presented to Sir Charles Pepys (Lord Cottenham),
and the slight produced such a stunning effect on Brougham that he
retired from active public life for a time, and sought solace in the
pursuit and study of literature and philosophy.
[123] For this interesting table, see "Annual Register," 1833, p. 83.
[124] "One whose name is unconnected with any honourable action,
whose whole life has been one scene of skulking from dangers into
which he had drawn others, and who is occupied from one end of the
year to the other in devising plans of drawing enormous fortunes from
squalid beggary."--_Dr. Maginn._
[125] Vol. xciv., August, 1863.