CHAPTER V.—FALLING FLEUR-DE-LYS.

“Quel triste abaissement!

Quelle immortelle gloire!

Que de cris de douleur!

Que de chants de victoire!

Cessons de nous troubler; notre Dieu, quelque jour,

Devoilera ce grand mystère.

Révérons sa colère;

Espérons en son amour.”

_Athalie._

Pleasant was it, on that bright hot morning, to escape at last from

Paris altogether. Sir Godfrey, indeed, remained at home to write his

letters, with the purpose of riding out to meet them on their return:

and Mr Thorpe, on horseback, with charge of the magic passports, was the

sole cavalier; shrewdly overseen, doubtless, by the hard-eyed,

rough-visaged, experienced Jackson, to whose sturdy driving there lay no

perplexity about those great, straight, formal French roads, with

staring guide-posts and swarms of Parisian people.

Soon, in fact, does the grand road towards Versailles sweep away from

sight of Paris in its wide basin, among avenues and closing woods. With

no lanes, nor secluded cross-ways, save to towns, it was harder to leave

behind the Parisian people; and they soon heard that Versailles was

stripped of its glory, so far as they were concerned, since nothing was

doing there that day; the king had gone to Marly, or Fontainebleau,

instead of passing in state to the Assembly, as had been expected from

the journals. Much to the relief, it must have been, of Lady Willoughby,

who disliked crowds and pressures of people, with the bustle and the

dust; and to whom foreign kings and queens had but a dim,

half-chimerical reality, after all, compared with the accustomed

Georges, whose power and royalty were interwoven with any thoughts she

had of public life; yet she appeared as much vexed as it was possible

for her to be, proposing still to go on and see the outside of the

palace, the fountains, or the remaining courtiers, the “houses of

parliament,” which perhaps might be worth the pains. But these Charles

disdained till another day, when the king should have returned—being

even set against the remotest view of the town, its very smoke or

spires; and, out of his father’s presence, Charles was always, by some

peculiar force of his, indirectly master. His sister Rose, though the

expedition had been fondly planned, nor did his arguments seem worth

answering, too well knew the issue not to be resigned; while her

governess, referred to as a matter of course, expressed as duly an

entire acquiescence in any arrangement most satisfactory to Lady

Willoughby, preserving an intense calm, and seeming to observe the

various objects as their course was changed, the leaves of the trees,

the tops of palisades, the very hats of market-people, with strange

elevation of countenance, and with an air of suffering which required

her vinaigrette. Even Jackson, who had a great share of the selfishness

of privileged old servants, and greatly consulted his own personal ease,

ventured to console his mistress, turning round and touching his hat, to

remark that it was a long drive after all, and they would have had to

put up at the town to bait these Flanders beasts—he carefully abstained

from calling them horses—_which_ it might cost a deal of trouble, as

these French inns very likely had no stables; the inward satisfaction of

Jackson, indeed, somewhat belied his rueful effort to look grieved. All

appeared disappointed, save the tutor, ever fain to be serviceable, if

seldom very successful where the office was of the present kind. Yet

that day Mr Thorpe was excelling himself, now riding on, or now

remaining behind, always for some object; nor was it long ere he came

posting back, his plain, ineffectual features animated, and his mild

short-sighted blue eyes shining moist through the thin-framed spectacles

which enlarged them, to mention that they were close to Sèvres, where

the royal porcelain was made. And at Sèvres, with its quaint old village

houses, and its bridge across the Seine to another village, seeing what

could be seen of its manufactory, its water-mill where the clay was

ground, or its woody island amidst the river, the earlier part of the

day was spent. Then turning to make a wide circuit into the Versailles

road again, where the afternoon was to bring Sir Godfrey, the carriage

passed at leisure through the quieter country that slopes and rolls

westward from the Seine.

It was scarce country, indeed, where no hedgerows seemed to break up the

wide spaces, no field-gates or clustered farms, nor half-sequestered

hamlets, with the sprinkling on of solitary cottage and quiet house

toward the next, where the church spire should rise, or tower; but

sometimes with no division from the wide crops, save the lines of bushy

pollards, they rolled over the paved roadway; again between continual

park walls or wooden palisade, from which suddenly it would burst on the

space about a large square village, with its cabaret and sign-board of

the _Lion d’or_ or _d’argent_, its old fountain-well, and double row of

trees, noisy, and alive with children, while another road brought

through it the market-life from Paris. Though over the nearest wood

would peep the white turrets of chateaus, peaked with purple slate, or

tin, or gilding, like chandeliers extinguished in the light of day; and

near to them were the little stunted churches, with their rounded ends,

the squat towers that had lids to them like pots and vases, or the mean

belfries perched on the roofs; where the church-yard was blooming with

flowers that made its cypresses and yews look gloomier, and the small

lonely curacy near it, snowing the cross on some wide gable, had an air

of pious seclusion from the world. And still the parks spread round; the

woods, with formal alleys striking through them, widened and surged

outward, downward, into vale and over height; sometimes opening to let

the high road pass on with its vehicles and pedestrians, or the traffic

that seemed greater for its confinement,—oftener to show the terraces

and bowers of still nobler mansions than before, till the country

appeared fading away. They had forgotten their forenoon disappointment:

the girl’s eyes sparkled as the sweet sense of being out of Paris grew,

in spite of all it held in it; placid, tranquil, her mother leant

opposite, while she breathed the freshness, enjoying the mere motion,

and the vague variety as she heard it noticed, on pure trust, pleased at

what pleased the others—it was not like England, indeed, but how pure

and exhilarating seemed the French air—its sun gave a still sleepier

stillness to her mild eyes, yet with so healthy a tint and soft fulness

of person, that the holding of her parasol, in Lady Willoughby, the

trouble she took to observe an object, were pleasant to see; as Mr

Thorpe, riding by, devoted his conversation to the governess and her;

the while Charles, still in a discontented mood, vented it on the whole

country, and leaning across to his sister, one elbow on his knee, kept

up his side-current of livelier talk.

For one thing, their constant popularity displeased him, however

acceptable to Rose. That national sharpness and curiosity had all at

once become particularly disagreeable to the youth, in his grumbling

humour; and it mingled through the whole thread of his discourse, not

without some acute notions of the people’s character, on which he

appeared to have been oddly brooding. Nor the less was his zest in

showing that France and England were natural foes, because his tutor on

the other side rode discoursing benevolently to the reverse effect;

while Mrs Mason responded, in all that propriety of sentiment, which was

blended, in her dialogue to gentlemen, with a slight shade of delicate

reserve. But really there was a domineering style of argument in

Charles, if one ventured to express a different view, that provoked his

sister in the end—especially as he was a year younger; she turned her

shoulder to him, and sat resolutely looking the other way, as if

absorbed in the mild commonplaces of Mr Thorpe, and Mrs Mason’s weary

platitudes, which diffused such additional complacency over her mother.

After all, they _were_ tiresome things, such as all good books and

worthy people said over and over; though Charles had no right to look

down on his tutor with such secret contempt, because he knew nothing of

what Charles called “life”—or to hint, because he looked serious, that

his mind had got bewildered among triangles ever since he studied so

terribly for a degree, leaving out nothing but his memory: perhaps,

indeed, it _might_ be true that Mrs Mason, in spite of her early loss of

some inestimable kind, had a sort of soft regard for him, and paid him

little attentions, especially at table, with the sugar,—though

moderately, till the curacy at Stoke should be sure; but what she would

not for a moment be so disrespectful to Mr Thorpe as to credit, was that

a hopeless love, never to be revealed, consumed him, amidst all his

learning, for—for herself. Her indignation mounted at the thought,—for a

moment even at the excellent tutor, so highly respected by Sir Godfrey,

with his thin hair already leaving his forehead bald, through long delay

of any preferment—whose sister was his only relative alive, and was to

keep his house when he had one,—but most to Charles, with his rough

boy’s jokes; even although the girl’s thoughts wandered the more

irresistibly to foreign counts and picturesque barons that had hovered

in vision before the whole boarding-school, being now eagerly inquired

after by her dearest friend, who was still there.

There were none of these, certainly, about the highway which the

carriage struck into, alive though it was with people of every kind.

Charles had ceased, at his mother’s unusually earnest request, to

whistle indistinctly between his teeth, as it was of all sounds the one

that most annoyed her; he had even left off, of his own accord, the

substitution of a drumming motion with a small cane against his boot, as

he superciliously noticed the passengers. He got quite silent, in fact,

to watch the passing faces that seemed bent towards Paris; though the

faint smoke of another large village appeared in the hollow, prettier

than any they had passed, among inclining vineyards and whole knolls of

roses. It might have been St Genevieve’s own, with that holy well

resorted to by kings, where she had kept her sheep long ago; and where,

at the May fête of _la rosière_, they still crowned the most virtuous

girl in the place with roses; as the last work of Madame de Genlis had

informed Mrs Mason. The summer afternoon sloped wide above it, full of

light and the swarming hum of insects, through the outspread walnut

leaves, flickering amber in the sun, from over the white wall that was

dappled by the shadows; while the hedgeless corn-fields on the other

side were rippling under the long air from the woods, one sea of

tenderest green, full of blue-cockle flowers and scarlet poppies; the

cottage casements flashed from amidst a pink-white glow of

orchard-blossom, of milky cherry-boughs, of old rugged propped-up

pear-trees that foamed over to the moss-green thatch, with the wooden

chimney shot high, as it breathed blue among the leaves; with here and

there a hooded dovecot window on the roof, where the pigeons sat sunning

and swelling themselves, and cooing, white, blue, and purple together,

in a gush of warm light—all the place beneath them bespattered and

splashed with whiteness, through the shadow, to the very foliage of the

nearest branch. The hum of the place burst round them as they crossed

its little bridge, rattling over the rough causeway; and there were no

carriage-ways save through the villages and towns.

It was odd that for some time along the road, as if to meet the lad’s

inclinations, the notice of them had been unaccompanied with signs of

interest; every one had seemed occupied with his neighbour, talking, or

hastening on somewhere; the voices had even grown suppressed as they

passed. Here they were busier still, and talking louder, in a perfect

babble of sounds. It was wonderful, at least to Charles Willoughby in

his private mind, how the cobblers lived—the weavers, blacksmiths, or

carpenters, found time to work; how the mill-wheel had a hand to feed

it, or the women to mind their matters; they were letting their pitchers

run over, in fact, at the old carved fountain-spout, till there was a

little brook across the street, down into some one’s door-steps, and a

duck that seemed comparatively quiet began to lead her troop of

ducklings that way. The French infants even, held plainly enough here

and there, in full sunlight, to their slatternly feeding-places, looked

dissatisfied as the throng pressed about the doorway of a cabaret, with

the sign of the Golden Crown: a horse stood by it with foam-flecked

sides, and his head stooped in its corn-bag; while a man in a green

jacket, with a leather case slung across him by a belt, apparently a

courier, gesticulated in vain from the open window; the door being

blocked up by a drunk dragoon, who stood swaying slightly to and fro,

yet balancing himself carefully, as he surveyed the various groups from

his half-closed eyelids with extreme sternness and grave suspicion; till

at length drawing himself up, to extend his hand with a summons for

attention, he essayed to speak; but all at once rushed forward with

furious gesture amongst the crowd, where he fell flat from the steps.

The blood gushed from his features, women shrieking, men running,

without a glance behind, as the landlord hurried to his aid from the

tavern, followed by more dragoons, who stamped their spurred feet upon

the steps, and half drew their sabres, with fierce gestures and

execrations. Yet as the carriage passed on through the narrow and

awkward street, however slowly, it did not attract attention from any of

the party except Charles, who preserved a seemingly sullen silence; not

distracted by so much as a look to his sister, when her governess said

there must be something improper going on, and sloped her parasol that

way, using a scented handkerchief, with evident desire that the young

lady should do the same; while his mother had no more suspicion of its

not being common to villages all over the world, possibly on a

market-day, than a duchess. The tutor was, as usual, on before, with his

little note-book, to put down the name of the place, the probable

population, and apparent area of the church, according to some dim

theory that had been growing on him since he crossed the Channel. As for

Jackson, he merely whipped his horses, and made a slash at some dogs,

with obvious inclination to curse whatever came in his way. So they

rolled through by degrees in sight of the church; but there was a

greater throng at that end, in and about the low-walled enclosure before

a smart new building, the use of which was not plain at first sight; for

considering the size of the place, with the general squalidness of the

long cottages or bald white houses, really the number of people of all

ages was extraordinary, till one observed that single roofs seemed

shared among ever so many families,—a thing the odder to the lad, as at

school he used to know plenty of Eton folks, from bargemen to bat-maker.

He even thought, somehow, of that one visit to Stoke. Oh! that was the

school—the first he happened to have seen in France; and that youngish

man, in an old figured dressing-gown, with a sharp dry face, standing up

on something, without a hat—the schoolmaster; while they pushed and

jumped to hear him, though quietly enough except for the hushing of each

other, since the schoolmaster had evidently a weak voice; it only

reached the carriage in an occasional screech, when he lifted his hand

impressively in the air. “_Ecoutez—ecoutez, au Père Pierre!_” This Père

Pierre must be rather an odd fellow; why, his school was in a perfect

riot within, to judge by the dust, the flying books, and the noise

sometimes louder than his voice outside. But he was not making a

speech—the white article he held up to the blaze of the sun was not a

pocket-handkerchief, but—yes—a newspaper. He must have a good deal of

influence there, this teacher—at least over the grown-up men, with

leather aprons and bare arms—one could not help marking him—with that

scanty head of hair done up in bobs from his temples, and such a short

queue behind, not to think of his short nose and high cheekbones, or a

chin as bare as one’s palm. Perhaps something had happened—something

important—a battle somewhere? There was peace, though. Some murder, it

was likely—or a shipwreck—well, at any rate these boys didn’t mind, so

crop-headed and stunted-looking, who were playing pitch-and-toss with

such an old-mannish look in their eager faces, at the end of the school.

There were more beneath the big bulging church-gable, with its black

ugly windows and its zigzag crack in the plaster—in such long old livery

coats, with plated saucer-buttons. Actually it was with the buttons they

were playing—as if it had been money—cutting them off their coats, too,

and their breeches, to rush back for another chance! The silent

speculations of Charles reached their climax in profound wonder. It was

beneath his notice to regard Mrs Mason’s words, as they cleared the

place, and began to rise from the hollow—that it was an interesting

village, so lively, so full of a holiday air, not without a degree of

quick intelligence. “After labour,” his mother said, lifting up her

eyelids, “it must be pleasant.”

Beyond the church and an old crooked, high-arched bridge, was Mr Thorpe

in the turning of a very narrow by-road, stony and grass-grown, that

took a winding as if to avoid the village, by ditch-side and over

rubbish, till it caught the highway behind again: the worthy tutor had

drawn up his horse, he was settling his spectacles, putting in his

note-book, and feeling in his pocket for some coin, apparently to bestow

on a man he had been talking to. A very singular group revealed itself

as they reached him. A dark-faced jet-eyed man with a beard, black and

bushy, his rough cap in hand, and a little organ slung from his back,

stood replying to Mr Thorpe in strange broken French, mingled with

English; while he seemed carefully to keep the trees between himself and

the village: somewhat further down the by-way sat a disconsolate-looking

boy with a guitar, beside a crouching monkey; while another man held the

chain of a huge muzzled beast, shaggy and brown, which reared on its

hind-legs, now growling, now dancing, now shrinking from the threatened

whip, like a creature enraged by the distant voices. Their trade had

been ruined, the man said; for it was the first time they had been

turned out into the _chemin des affronteux_, belonging to thieves and

villains. It would be known for miles round Paris in a day, for it was

wonderful how the news travelled there. They had often been at

Charlemont before, and were received well. The bear felt it worst, he

thought. He was as good a bear as you would see, owing to his love of

society. Perhaps it might have been owing to some news in the place—but

one could not know what tunes would offend people nowadays, to dance to.

At Mr Thorpe’s condolence, however, backed by his gift of a six-sous

piece, the Italian retreated thankfully. They watched him as he was

joined by his singular company, slowly and with a crestfallen air

disappearing round the by-way. All the tutor could find out was that

they had been chased out from that end of the place just before, with

sticks, stones, and pitchforks, by the very young people who had been

dancing sociably enough along with the bear and monkey—because an air

they commenced was _contre la liberté_. How any tune could be against

liberty, Mr Thorpe could not conceive: nay, if they did not like dancing

to it, they might have stood still; they might have requested it to be

stopped; indeed, it was probable that some of these very people might

have wished the liberty of dancing it! Still less could he perceive how

_liberty_ could be connected with that particular tune—“_Richard o mon

roi_”? And he looked interrogatively to Mrs Mason. Certainly not, the

governess responded: Gretry’s new music! In fact, he rejoined, the

musician could not, either: but that day mysteries seemed to grow, he

added,—for, before himself emerging from the place, at sight of the

church, he had very civilly inquired, from a group of inhabitants, what

was the name of the village. What had been his astonishment to perceive,

that passing from uncivil silence, from stares of wonder, and

extraordinary, sudden indignation, they looked very much disposed to

treat him as it now seemed they had before treated these inoffensive

strangers. Until, adding insult, they had significantly touched their

foreheads, looking to each other, or whispering, until one, perhaps

still more ingenious in giving offence, had suddenly called out, “Bah!

c’est un Anglais!” There had been then no farther notice of him—indeed

absolute indifference; nor did he discover, till he encountered the

injured foreigner, what the name of the place actually was. And was

there, then, really any peculiar crime in asking the name of

_Charlemont_—any strange privacy—any unutterable horror connected with

_it_—that no one should put the mere question? But, at all events, was a

spirit of inquiry to be thought madness! Nay more, was it lower than

madness to be—an Englishman!

Mr Thorpe looked a little discomposed and changed, in fact, even since

they last had seen him. Usually, though not pedantic, he was tedious;

but he began for a moment to appear almost respectable in the very eyes

of his pupil, who had often thought before that the present curate at

Stoke could not be more monotonous, nor the old rector duller: a spark

of spirit seemed for the time to have given emphasis to his words, and

meaning to his face—some faint dignity to his lengthy awkward person,

sitting ordinarily like a sack on his horse, with the gaiters dangling

in the stirrups. Yet how amazingly simple was Mr Thorpe; it was chiefly

the Italian with his battered instruments and beaten animals that seemed

to have roused him from his wont: while as for his chief puzzle, a light

broke on it to the boy at once, from all he had seen and heard of these

French. Why,—of course they thought the whole world should know

Charlemont already!

But, to the ladies, softly plashed and clattered below, from among

alders in the deeper hollow, the mill-wheel of the village, dusty light

flying from the upper door: the cracked striking of a clock was heard

from farther off, till they saw the grey turrets of another yellow

chateau among trees, though but a thread of smoke rose from it, and its

discoloured plaster, where the sunlight struck, gave it a dilapidated

aspect, helped by the pigeons from the dovecote tower close by, that

were sitting on the window-sills and eaves. Full to the light on the

brow of the eminence rose the carriage, widening the landscape on every

side, save where the woods before it extended: there was a smooth, broad

road in front, sweeping round where the labourers were still at work on

it: they were on a hill, and all was exquisitely solitary otherwise for

the first time, except close by, where the highway ran between the two

porter’s-lodges of two great gates that faced each other. These great

gates were, indeed, gorgeously beautiful, being each double, with

side-wickets, all of open ironwork, elaborately complex; gilt crowns

surmounted the globes upon their massy pillars of stone, their upper

rims were formed of fleur-delis, as if of lance-heads, richly gilded;

while the blade-shaped leaves, damasked and lettered with mottoes,

stretched throughout the whole, hither and thither, like guardian

swords, from the uncouth grasp of grotesque naked monsters at the lower

corners; everywhere were small puzzling circles of cipher, and in the

midst the joined halves composed a grand shield-shaped device, burnished

and resplendent on either hand, of the royal arms of France. The very

radiance of the afternoon sun came dazzling towards it, and threw the

other way on the cross road, into one park, a mottled shadow of

fleur-de-lis; shapes of crowns, ciphers, and monsters, even vanished

among the dust of the horses’ feet on the highway as they trotted

past—strange traces from the days of Louis Quatorze. Still was all that

nothing to the broad glimpses of park scenery both ways through them.

Mrs Mason herself saw one way, with unusual commendation, where a

stately distance was made by Lenotre’s taste, in straight avenue, level

turf, and high-clipped side-alleys, where a few well-dressed people were

walking; her frequent headache did not, perhaps, at any time wholly

leave her, but the vinaigrette paused in her hand, as she directed the

attention of Lady and Miss Willoughby to each fine effect. Yet it was

difficult to draw the latter from her absorbed delight the other way;

for there the wilder chase seemed left to nature, the sun levelled more

and more all his yellowing splendour through its deep-green, sinking

glades, flinging out fantastic shadows, shooting gushes of verdurous

light, in which the delicate young fern peeped from about the trunk of

some far-off oak, while the broad umbrage of its gnarled boughs

retreated crisply into cooler shade; the knolls were hung with the

foxglove buds, like crimson bells that had not found a tongue; and all

there was moist, secluded, solitary, sweet, save when some single bird

seemed to wake up and make it musical, till again it trilled and rang

with their innumerable notes. But gradually the road had lifted the

carriage higher yet; it seemed to drive slow by instinct; and ere they

well knew, the whole party made exclamations together, as, with Rose,

they did not know which way to look first. Mr Thorpe came to a

stand-still, and Jackson was shading his eyes, whip in hand, to look

under the sun. Even Lady Willougbby said, fanning herself gently, “Dear

me—what a fine country! what crops!” “Yes—the harvest will be excellent,

I should think,” Mrs Mason replied, using her fan also, it was so hot.

The young lady stood up, and her brother jumped out to get from the top

of the bank upon the wall.

They were nearer Paris than they thought; it bristled and shone through

its haze, some miles away on the plain: westward, the high woods of

Marly showed faint through the edges of two broad sunbeams, as through a

veil, with bluer distinctness between, here a spire, there smoke; the

waves of forest verdure undulating round, began to burn and blaze

towards sunset; all was spotted with towns, sprinkled rich-red and white

with villages, flushed with orchards, and in the barer spaces

embroidered like a carpet that blended with the dark suburbs of the city

on the horizon. Here and there appeared a soft misty glitter of the

circuitous Seine in the level, with some faint white sails; the distant

azure of some hills could be seen; it was all like one mighty map made

real. Yet greatest of all to their eyes, even greater than the dusky

grimness of Paris in the sun, showing its domes so helmet-like, and its

pinnacles so like weapons—was where, with one accord looking back, they

could perceive the silvered slates of one large town among the avenues

they had turned from that forenoon, its steeples shining, its windows

sparkling—and through that transparent French air, some lustrous snowy

glimpses between embosoming bowers, of long level palace-roofs,

embossed, and fringed, and tipped with undistinguishable ornament.

Palaces, indeed, seemed to be visible in every direction; but they

thickened towards _it_; all that way the landscape was but one mass of

park-woods, and with those alleys, gardens, terraces, that long road at

intervals perceived, it could be nothing but Versailles! Charles himself

could not but look. The rainbow flashing of the fountains, and gleam of

statues—the grand stairs of the terrace—they could almost fancy they

distinguished.

It was he who first broke the thread of their interest. Well, he

shouldn’t care to have seen King Louis XVI.; he had once seen George

III. It was easy enough to see him, in fact; if you only but knew it was

he. He had seen a boy at Eton, fag to a friend of his, who was once

spoken to a good while at a turnstile in Windsor Park by an elderly

gentleman in drab gaiters, a nankeen waistcoat, and a blue coat with

bright buttons; and when a ranger came up afterwards from behind, and

told him it was the king, he nearly fainted. He could never learn

anything after that, and always turned pale at the sight of a gold

sovereign, so he had to be sent to sea.

“My dear young gentleman,” said Mr Thorpe seriously, “the King of France

is a much more powerful monarch than even His Majesty King George! I

must beg to correct you on a point of history. He is absolute ruler, not

only of all the land we see, but over the property, nay, the very

persons of his subjects—he is the State himself—as the great Louis XIV.

so emphatically told his nobles. Think of those _lettres du cachet_,

given away even blank in thousands upon thousands—a kind of money, as it

were—exchanged by the courtiers for all kinds of objects—with which, for

all one knows, were he worth notice from some enemy, he may be sent to a

Bastille on no account whatever, to remain there unknown the rest of his

life!”

Charles Willoughby still endeavoured to look indifferent, though the

slight whistle died between his teeth, while he pushed his cap down on

his head, deeply resolved never to lift it to a French king. Mr Thorpe,

drawn into unwonted earnestness, by the expression of the ladies’ faces,

sought to reassure them.

“The character of the present king is such as to make this power a

benefit,” he said. “There seems a rapid decrease of superstition in the

church. Really, Lady Willoughby, there was something idolatrous in this

excessive honour to a human being! To conceive that at his Majesty’s

death, while the body lay for forty days embalmed in lead, a waxen

effigy was placed in the grand hall of entertainment, and served by

gentlemen-waiters at the usual times, while the meal was blessed by the

almoner, the meat carved, and the wine presented to the figure; its

hands were washed and thanks returned. The queen, in white mourning—”

“In white mourning?” inquired the governess, with interest.

“In white, I think, Mrs Mason—sat for six weeks in a chamber lighted by

lamps alone. For a whole year she could not stir out of her own

apartments, if she had received the intelligence there. Although similar

ceremonies were observed after her own decease.”

The feminine impression of former evils in France grew deep. The tutor

could not say whether his present majesty would require such honours.

There was only one person of inferior rank who had ever been

distinguished by a shade of the same respect, though for a shorter time

her effigy had sat. It was the far Gabrielle d’Estrées. “Who was she?”

Rose asked,—“and why”—

“Miss Willoughby,” interrupted Mrs Mason with a sudden air of severity,

rustling and extending and drawing herself erect, “there are some

questions too shocking and improper for us to ask?” Mr Thorpe, with a

frightened look, sat dumb in his saddle; yet Mrs Mason professed to know

history, and her charge must surely learn it: nay, unknown to them all,

among the distant chateaus, palaces, and mansions they were gazing at,

were St Germain’s in the blue eminence, which the great Louis had given

to La Vallière when he wearied of her for Madame de Montespan; and

Luciennes, where Madame du Barry was then living in fashionable

retirement. But the one had been gallant, stately even in his vices; the

royal patron of the other, in his dissipations, had at least been

elegant. Probably Mr Thorpe’s confusion led him to a graver topic.

“The chronicler I have lately perused,” he said, hastily, “is really

worth study. Nothing can be so mournfully salutary. As the coffin was

borne at night to yonder Notre Dame, and thence thereafter to the

ancient town of St Denis, the streets were hung with black, and before

every house was planted a tall lighted torch of white wax. First went

the Capuchins, in their coarse sackcloth girt with ropes, bearing their

huge cross, crowned with thorns—then five hundred poor men, under their

bailiff, all in mourning as for a father—the magistrates and courts of

justice, the parliament of Paris in rich sable furs, the high clergy in

purple and gold—followed by the funeral car drawn by white horses,

covered with black velvet crossed with white satin, and the long train

of officers of the household.”

The great knowledge of the tutor as to textile fabrics interested Mrs

Mason. “Think of the expense!” Lady Willoughby said.

“This vast procession,” pursued Mr Thorpe with solemnity, “went on in

silence, while, as the chronicler quaintly expresses it, ‘ever and aye

the royal musicians made a sound of lamentation, with instruments

clothed in crape, very fierce and marvellously dolorous to hear or to

behold, until they arrived at the church of St Denis,—blessed be his

name! And the bier was borne into the choir, it being a-blaze with lamps

and tapers beyond number, and the service lasted for the King’s soul

several days—whereupon was the body let down into the vault, but not

admitted within the inner chamber until the end of the next reign—and

Normandy, the most ancient king of arms, summoned with a loud voice,

that the high dignitaries should therein deposit their ensigns and

truncheons of command—which done, the sacred oriflamme of France was let

fall down upon the coffin, until the _fleur-de-lis_ began with the noble

Bourbons—and the king of arms cried three times so that the vaults heard

and replied—Ho! the king is dead! The king is dead! The king is dead!

And when silence had been renewed, the same voice proclaimed—Long live

the king!—and all the other heralds repeated it. Then was all finished,

and they departed joyously.’ Really, in those older writers, compared

with those of the present day,—however superstitious, there is

considerable profit to be found.”

And the worthy graduate settled his glasses complacently, used his

pocket-handkerchief in the loud manner he was addicted to, and looked

round with increased attention on the mighty view; for devouter wishes

had long been breeding dimly in his mind, such as the chill

Protestantism even of his revered mother-church did not at that period

satisfy. He did not notice the shrinking, under that full sunlight and

wide azure, with the swarm of summer flies in the ears, and the warble

of birds at hand, with which the youngest of his hearers, at least, felt

the thought of death—above all, that universal one, of sovereign power.

As for Lady Willoughby, her anxious look was chiefly from a reference to

her watch; and it had been growing. She had not even heard Mr Thorpe. It

was time for them to turn into the road from Versailles, as Colonel

Willoughby—Sir Godfrey—would soon be leaving Paris, and he was punctual

to a moment. There was no other way, Jackson said in reply, but by

turning right again through the last village; at his mistress’s request,

accordingly, he suited the action to the word, by backing and wheeling

round. But where was Charles? He had vanished over the wall, apparently,

during his tutor’s irrelevant remarks. To the calls of Mr Thorpe, echoed

from among the woods, he returned no sign. It was annoying. They must

wait; and, at any rate, according to the views of Jackson, generally

unfavourable if required—with these beasts, it would be impossible to

get on in good time, besides having to walk through that village, which

was like nothing English whatever—with perhaps a bucket of water needed

at that there tavern, if such a thing was to be had. The sudden

intelligence of Mr Thorpe suggested a way: he could ride off at once to

meet Sir Godfrey, and set him at ease; in fact, for himself, at least,

it would be easy to avoid the village of Charlemont altogether—by—yes—by

taking that _chemin des affronteux_, as they called it. Lady

Willoughby’s face brightened. Her thanks to Mr Thorpe were something

energetic for _her_: and spurring, rising in his stirrups, bumping up

and down on his white mare, that worthy man disappeared. Rose pressed

her parasol against her mouth to repress a smile, at the thought how

Charles would have enjoyed his following the bear and monkey: but,

through _her_ means, she was resolved he should know nothing of it.

When least expected, Charles reappeared, jumping with a flushed face

over the wall, and carrying a load of wild-flowers for his mother, for

Rose, even for Miss Mason. He had heard distant sounds over the woods of

the chase, which he thought were those of hunting-horns. But all was

again still, bright, sleepy and solitary, under the glory of the sloping

sun. He got in; Jackson whipped his horses at last to a trot, for again

and again they had been passed each way by humbler vehicles; and they

rolled on their way back towards Charlemont. Mr Thorpe’s mission excited

no extraordinary satisfaction in Charles, though he was sure they would

get on better without him. Mr Thorpe ran a strong chance of being taken

up as a spy. All at once it occurred to him that Mr Thorpe had all their

passports. But a scene of far more exciting interest next moment

eclipsed everything like that. Again, from the distance of those

secluded glades, did a sound draw his ear—and it was really the sound of

a bugle-horn—a faint, far-off, musical sound, sometimes smothered by the

woods, then breaking out clearer. It sank into a long-drawn, almost

wailing note, that rose up into a livelier quaver, joined by a burst

from others. It must be a hunt. They were blowing the _Mort_—as they did

only for a stag, and a stag that was dead. Such luck!—for it came ever

nearer. But what a crowd at the turning, near those splendid

gates—twenty times even Charlemont must be there, by the swarming noise!

And the gates themselves, thrown each way open with their double leaves,

closed up the road.

The lad rose half up, with breath suspended, and without a look to spare

for his party, kept mute as the carriage rolled into the crowd on that

side. He did not so much as think what it could be.

Though had there been a chance of the _chemin des affronteux_, and the

carriage could have gone through it—indeed through one long enough and

circuitous enough to avoid all France—it might have been better for the

Willoughbies. Yet who knows? The master-history that shapes our ends is

wiser than we.

CONSERVATIVE REASCENDANCY CONSIDERED.

Ours is an age of peculiar importance. Events seem to be crowded into a

small space of time which, if, spread over half a century, would yet

mark the time as one of peril, action, and renown. In the political

world we view a rapid succession of exciting scenes. The calm of peace

yields to the turmoil of war, and Europe, but lately placid, is now

rocked to its very base, and every nation on the Continent seems torn

with present evils or convulsed in the contemplation of those to come.

The strife of nations has doubtless called forth all the energies of

mankind; and though England is removed from the sphere of action, and

the immediate influence of the war, yet it cannot be said but that she,

too, lies in peril, and partakes the general restlessness of the times.

It becomes her, then, to consider in what lies her safety, and into

whose hands she should commit the guidance of her affairs at this moment

of danger.

Is not England, too, a sharer in this general convulsion? Let us look to

her senate, the heart of this great nation, where all the movements by

which she is agitated can be seen and analysed. First, we see the Whigs

quarrelling amongst themselves, and their consequent fall from power.

Next, we see the Conservative party, with the general acquiescence of

the country, installed in power. Ten short months have elapsed, and we

see that Government, after having conferred, in its short tenure of

office, lasting benefits upon the country, now falling, though by a

slight majority, before a combination of all those various sects,

panting for office, which range between conservatism and turbulent

democracy—between Popery on the one hand, and practical atheism on the

other; at war amongst themselves, yet combined together against a

Government which seemed determined to legislate for the country, and not

for the exclusive interests of any one party. Well might the Minister

exclaim, as he fell before the machinations of his enemies, prescient of

the future, while contemplating the events of the present—“England has

not loved coalitions.” Well might he “appeal from that coalition to that

public opinion which governs this country,” and before whose searching

tribunal that unprincipled combination must soon be brought. If he

desired revenge, he has it now. A government of “all the talents,”

containing, as we are told, within its ranks all the men of official

experience, administrative ability, of parliamentary renown, and so

forth, calling down upon them the contempt of Parliament and the scorn

of the country, succeeds the Derby administration. Forced to abandon

measure after measure, fairly vanquished in those with which they

proceed, obliged to fall back upon their own imagined talent and

ability, which must at any sacrifice of character be preserved at the

service of the country, they are evidently, to all men but themselves,

and a few of their own devoted adherents, eliciting the pity of their

friends and the derision of their enemies. But, then, we are told that

it is the war which prevents them from carrying their measures; that

last session they carried their budget, India bill, &c., with large

majorities, which they regard as a sign that they possess the confidence

of Parliament, and that now Parliament and the country, with their

attention distracted by the war, simply refuse to legislate. We protest

against such arguments as these. It is introducing a dangerous

principle, though it may serve as an excuse for clinging to office with

a disgraceful pertinacity. But does it not occur to them, that probably

the reason they carried their measures last year with such a semblance

of triumph, was in consequence of that forbearance—nay, even favour—with

which every government, new to office, is regarded; that it was, to a

great extent, the result of that disorganisation of their opponents

which ever follows defeat; and that the people, dazzled with

appearances, were willing to admit that we had a government which was

worthy of the confidence of the country. But how have these feelings

been dispelled? Credulity or connivance, disgraceful in such

keen-sighted and patriotic statesmen, has done it all—Parliament has

lost confidence in them, and the country contemns them. Moreover,

blinded by their confidence in their own talents, which has now become a

byword among sensible men, they still declare they carry with them the

confidence of the country, because in all matters connected with the war

they still possess majorities. Such reasoning as this does not hold. The

reason that they carry their financial measures so decisively through

the House is, that many, who do not feel so strongly as others on the

injustice of the measures proposed, are willing to support those

measures rather than have it appear on the Continent that the House of

Commons has refused the sinews of war at the very commencement of the

struggle. It is not the war which prevents their carrying other

measures, it is the war which enables them to carry what they do.

But how has this been brought about?—how is it that this Government has

so rapidly lost the favour of the people, and been reduced to the

position of being a Government on sufferance? The reason is to be found

in that general discontent and excitement which from Europe have

infected England. Men are excited at what is passing abroad, and

distrustful of affairs within. The want of union and mutual distrust

which exist in headquarters, is spread throughout the kingdom. Those

feelings of distrust and disagreement existing in the Government become

every day more apparent, and add to the anxiety with which its motions

are regarded. This distrust and anxiety must be prevalent whilst this

state of things continues. It is only by the reascendancy of the

Conservative party that they can be surmounted, and by the advent to

power of men who have confidence in each other, who have unity of

sentiment amongst themselves, and who are backed by united followers;

who have, each and all, the same objects in view—viz., a firm resistance

to Russian aggression and the establishment of a durable peace, the

maintenance of our Protestant religion, and justice to all parties in

the State. Unity of sentiment amongst the members of a government is of

the greatest importance to the happiness and welfare of the people.

There never, probably, was a Cabinet in which there were so many “open

questions” as the present. Since so many of them are Peelites, we may as

well have the opinion of Sir Robert Peel himself on those self-same open

questions. We subjoin an extract of a speech delivered in 1840 by that

eminent statesman, on a motion of want of confidence in Ministers, in

which he refers, without any ambiguity of expression, to the fatality of

open questions:—

“But there is a new resource for an incompetent Administration—there

is the ingenious device of open questions, the cunning scheme of

adding to the strength of a weak government by proclaiming its

disunion. It will be a fatal policy, indeed, if that which has

hitherto been an exception, and always an unfortunate exception in

recent times, is hereafter to constitute the rule of Government. If

every government may say, ‘We feel pressed by those behind us—we find

ourselves unable, by steadily maintaining our own opinions, to command

the majority and retain the confidence of our followers, our remedy is

an easy one—let us make each question an open question, and thereby

destroy every obstacle to every possible combination;’—what will be

the consequence? The exclusion of honourable and able men from the

conduct of affairs, and the unprincipled coalition of the refuse of

every party. The right honourable gentleman has said that there have

been instances of ‘open questions’ in the recent history of this

country. There have been; but there has scarcely been one that has not

been pregnant with evil, and which has not been branded by an

impartial posterity with censure and disgrace. He said, that in 1782

Mr Fox made Parliamentary Reform an open question; that Mr Pitt did so

on the Slave-trade; and that the Catholic Question was an open one.

Why, if ever lessons were written for your instruction, to guard you

against the recurrence to open questions, you will find them in these

melancholy examples. The first instance was the coalition of Mr Fox

and Lord North, which could not have taken place without open

questions. Does the right honourable gentleman know that that very

fact—the union in office of men who had differed, and continued to

differ on great constitutional and vital questions—produced such a

degree of discontent and disgust, as to lead to the disgraceful

expulsion of that Government? The second instance was that of the

Slave-trade; but has not that act of Mr Pitt (the permitting of the

Slave-trade to be an open question) been more condemned than any other

act of his public life? The next instance cited was that of the

Catholic Question. I have had some experience of the evils which arose

from making Catholic emancipation an open question. All parties in

this House were equally responsible for them. Fox made it an open

question; Pitt made it an open question; Lord Liverpool made it an

open question; Canning made it an open question. Each had to plead an

urgent necessity for tolerating disunion in the Cabinet on this great

question; but there cannot be a doubt that the practical result of

that disunion was to introduce discord amongst public men, and to

paralyse the vigour of the executive government. Every act of

administration was tainted by disunion in the Cabinet. Every party was

jealous of the predominance of the other. Each party must be

represented in the government of that very country which required,

above all things, a united and resolute Government. There must be a

lord-lieutenant of one class of opinions, a secretary of the opposite,

beginning their administration in harmony, but in spite of themselves

becoming each the nucleus of a party, gradually converting reciprocal

confidence into jealousy and distrust. It was my conviction of the

evils of such a state of things—of the long experience of distracted

councils, of the curse of an open question, as it affected the

practical government of Ireland—it was this conviction, and not the

fear of physical force, that convinced me that the policy must be

abandoned. I do not believe that the making the Catholic question an

open question facilitated the ultimate settlement of it. If the

decided friends of emancipation had refused to unite in government

with its opponents, the question would have been settled at an earlier

period, and (as it ought to have been) under better auspices. So much

for the encouraging examples of the right honourable gentleman. They

were fatal exceptions from the general policy of Government. If, as I

before observed, such exceptions are to constitute the future rule of

Government, there is an end to public confidence in the honour and

integrity of great political parties, a severance of all ties which

constitute party connections, a premium upon the shabby and shuffling

conduct of unprincipled politicians.”

Such were the sentiments of Sir Robert Peel with regard to open

questions in the Melbourne Cabinet: how much more completely those

remarks apply to the present Government it is needless to point out.

Again are the open questions in the Melbourne Cabinet vigorously

attacked; but this time in the House of Lords, and by a more energetic

and fiery orator:—

“My Lords,—‘_Idem sentire de republicâ_’ has been in all times, and

amongst the best of statesmen, a bond of union at once intelligible,

honourable, conducive to the common weal. But there is another kind of

union formed of baser materials—a tie that knits together far

different natures, the ‘_eadem velle atque nolle_,’ and of this it has

been known and been said, ‘_ea demum, inter malos, est prime

amicitia_.’ The abandonment of all opinions, the sacrifice of every

sentiment, the preference of sordid interest to honest principle, the

utter abdication of the power to act as conscience dictates and sense

of duty recommends—such is the vile dross of which the links are made

which bind profligate men together in a ‘covenant of shame;’ a

confederacy to seek their own advancement at the expense of every

duty;—and this, my Lords, is the literal meaning of ‘open questions.’

It is that each has his known recorded opinions, but that each is

willing to sacrifice them rather than break up the government to which

he belongs: the ‘_velle_’ is to keep in office, the ‘_nolle_’ to keep

out all antagonists; and none dare speak his mind in his official

capacity without losing the ‘_firmitas amicitiæ_,’ by shaking the

foundations of the Government.”

Here is a splendid outburst of vehement denunciation. If that could be

applied with justice to the Government of Lord Melbourne, if such an

invective as that is an index of the state of opinion in the country at

that time, with reference to the dissensions in the Whig Cabinet, how

much more applicable is it to the Coalition of the present day, with

regard to whose members, putting out of sight the question of Free

Trade, which is now the law of the land, there is hardly a question of

public importance to which we can point as an example that ‘_idem

sentire de republicâ_’ is their bond of union. Discontent and anxiety

may well prevail when we have, in times so important as these, a

Ministry in power so disunited, and composed of such discordant

elements, such base materials as the present, and backed by followers

who, true to their nature, are constantly quarrelling amongst

themselves. Look at the diversity of sentiment displayed in their

recorded speeches on that subject which, more than any other, is

uppermost in the minds of the people. There is Lord John Russell in the

House of Commons inveighing against the criminal ambition of the Czar of

Russia, declaring that “this enormous power has got to such a pitch,

that even in its moderation it resembles the ambition of other states;”

arguing that that power must be checked; telling the people of England

that they must be prepared to enter the contest with a stout heart and a

willing mind, and then solemnly invoking the God of justice to prosper

her Majesty’s arms, to defend the right! We have the Home Secretary and

the Earl of Clarendon completely subscribing to these sentiments; but we

have the Prime Minister, who more than any other man ought, now that war

is declared, to be imbued with hostile feelings against Russian

aggression, and determined to carry on the war with vigour, eternally

whining after peace, and throwing cold water on the ardour of the people

by constantly enlarging on the horrors of war and the blessings of

peace. They say that old age is second childhood. England seems likely

soon to become aware of this fact, through dire experience. Her Premier,

on the Continent, is described, and rightly so, as “the apologist of

Russia;” the Minister who is supposed to be, more than any other, in the

confidence of his Sovereign. Talk of explanation! The very fact of his

entertaining sentiments with regard to Russia so ambiguous, so

equivocal, and so lenient towards the enemy of his country, that

actually in giving expression to them he is mistaken for offering an

apology for the Czar, and exposed to the scorn of the country and the

distrust of Europe, seems to us to be amply sufficient to disqualify him

henceforth for ever being “the first Minister of the first Sovereign in

the world” during the eventful period of war; and the only charitable

construction which we can give to the passage is, that he—our helmsman

in the storm—has entered upon his dotage, and returned to the proverbial

folly of childhood. If his sentiments are the result of mere folly, then

he may properly be charged with credulity; if his friendship for the

Czar regulates his conduct, then it is connivance for which he is

answerable. In either sense he is unfit for his office. There may be,

for aught we know—indeed there probably are—others in the Cabinet of the

same frame of mind. The man who could denounce Turkey as a country full

of anomalies and inconsistencies, and endeavour with all the force of

his “sanctimonious rhetoric” to excite an antipathy to that State, and

despair at her fate, just at the moment when it was necessary to rouse

the people against Russian aggression, was merely supporting the

Emperor’s theory of the “sick man,” and cannot be said to have any

definite ideas with reference to the aggressive policy of Russia, to

check which we are at war; or any very great sympathy with that country

to defend which we are also at war. Here is discordancy in the Cabinet

on the most vital question; and there is probably as much on every other

question that is brought before the notice of the British Parliament.

Here is food for discontent and anxiety to the people of England. Thus

may their ardour be damped and their spirits quenched long ere the

struggle has concluded. And if we look at the supporters of the

Government—the Ministerial party, as they are termed—there, too, we

behold the same intestine strife. What has been the attitude of the

Manchester party with regard to the Government?—what the attitude of the

Whig statesmen who have been “banished to invisible corners of the

senate?”—what of the Whig peers—such men, for example, as Lords Grey,

Clanricarde, and others? Mr Bright and the Whig peers are openly, though

on different grounds, hostile to the Ministerial policy, the others

scarcely less so. The Manchester party rank amongst the regular

supporters of the Government, yet they appeal to the Opposition to know

“whether they don’t occupy a very absurd position” in following men who

will not lead them, and are derisively answered in the affirmative. If

they criticise the course of the Government, their opinion is regarded

with the “greatest indifference and contempt.” Thus do matters stand,

and yet Ministers have the audacity to affirm that they possess the

confidence of Parliament, and that it is the war which prevents the

success of their measures. But is this the front which we are to present

to our foes? Are we to exhibit to Russia, as our leaders in the strife,

a Government on sufferance notoriously incompetent, whether at home

legislation or foreign negotiation? Is not Conservative reascendancy the

only salvation of the country? Does not the nation at large pant for

something like a Government—one which is followed by a united party—one

which is at unison in itself—one of principle and not of expediency?

When we see a Government openly hostile amongst themselves, scorned and

contemned by the country, beaten on every point by their opponents,

obliged to withdraw measure after measure, and retaining one only after

it, as has been observed before, has undergone as many metamorphoses as

ever Ovid described—when we see all this, which we can hardly do without

being roused to feelings of indignation, it appears to us necessary to

consider how may this be remedied, how may Russia be firmly opposed, how

may England be rescued from the pernicious effects of an incapable

Government, and how may unanimity be restored to the councils of her

Majesty?

It is very evident, that only by the reascendancy of the Conservative

party can these blessings be secured to the country. The tradition of

that party is, as its name implies, the preservation of our institutions

in Church and State. This is a definite object. That it is a desirable

one, is a conclusion which is arrived at by one course of reasoning, the

same premises, the same logical inferences. Hence the Conservative party

is a united band. A Conservative Minister cannot be a Minister on

sufferance; a Whig Minister must. The Whigs are ever desirous of change,

and the so-called amelioration of our institutions; but few of them

agree together in the paramount importance which attaches to the reform

of any particular abuse, or in the amount of innovation which it is

desirable to introduce. Hence they are always at variance with each

other when the time for action arrives; and this incapacitates them for

carrying on the Queen’s government. If popular enthusiasm comes to their

aid, and force them on in spite of themselves, then the case is

different. The Reform Bill of 1832 was carried triumphantly, but by the

people. Popular enthusiasm supplied vigour to the executive. Contrast

this with another Reform Bill, of no very distant date, as regards its

introduction at least, though few of the present generation are likely

to see that bill become the law of the land. The time was unfortunate

for Whig administrators, though backed by those who claim to themselves

the name of Conservatives. A Russian war carried that enthusiasm, so

necessary to the Whigs, through another channel, and exposed in a

ludicrous manner the true value of a Liberal Administration, and their

dependence upon the popular will. True, there was a large party in the

Senate clamorous for reform—perhaps a majority. There was no hesitation

amongst members to conclude that reform was necessary, for these are

liberal times. How, then, do we account for their ill-success? By

adopting a happy description of their worth as statesmen, given long

ago: “Their head is at fever heat, but their hand is paralysed.” They

are not slow to adopt as their own any principle, though calculated to

throw the country in a flame, so long as it is traditionally the

property of their party. But when the time for action arrives, when that

principle is to be embodied in a bill, and that theory is to be reduced

to a practical test, then comes division and discontent. One portion

objects to this part as too sweeping, while another declares it to be

too confined. This wants one remedy, the other declares the wished-for

remedy will only prove an aggravation of the malady. There is no

hesitation in adopting any principle, however dangerous. Give them the

opportunity—the advantageous opportunity, in the eyes of politicians—of

putting their plans into execution, and immediately we behold

irresolution, consequent upon dissension, and inactivity, the offspring

of indecision. Only divert the populace from them, who, when roused,

carry all before them, as it were, and force their leaders to bury their

dissensions—only deprive them of that support, and then you see the

intrinsic worth of your Whig statesman. He may carry, perhaps, one bold

measure; but his title to succeeding years of administration rests upon

the gratitude of his supporters. He is unable to carry those minor

measures—those measures of equal public importance, though of a less

conspicuous character—more solid though less showy—which contribute so

much to the moral happiness and physical enjoyment of a great nation,

and which are the pillars of a statesman’s fame. There is no firmness in

a Whig ruler—there cannot be, if he would reconcile and command the

confidence of all the various sects of his followers. Who was it that

held with a firm and steady hand the helm of England, when all other

Continental nations were submerged in ruin? A Conservative statesman. No

Whig Minister could have succeeded then. The utmost firmness and

steadiness in conducting the public business of this country were then

required. No Whig Cabinet could have guided the fortunes of England

then. Obliged to truckle first to this man’s fancies, then to another’s

follies, they are but a faithful index of the dissension amongst their

followers, and uncertainty and irresolution are sure to follow. Yet to

such as these are our fortunes, in times so perilous as our own,

committed; and already are the baneful effects visible. If the

Conservative party were to pursue the course which the Opposition of

former days is known to have taken, what would be the position of the

Government? If their opponents were not to support them in the war, the

conduct of it would be in the same position as all the other measures

which they have brought forward this session, and for the success of

which they are dependent upon their followers. Such a state of affairs

may continue for a time, but it must eventually call down the

indignation of the country. No wonder that the conduct of our Government

constantly gives rise to the suspicion that they are too desirous for

the cessation of hostilities. It is manifestly their interest so to

appear, if it be not also so to act. A peace, even though it were merely

an armed truce, would satisfy the cravings of many of their followers;

and probably the belief that such may be obtained, renders them less

disagreeable to the Government than they would otherwise have proved

themselves.

Never, perhaps, was the inability of the Whig party to govern exhibited

in such a marked manner as at the period immediately succeeding the

passing of the Reform Bill. With a majority of three hundred, they yet

disagreed amongst themselves concerning the desirability of introducing

innovations into the Irish Church, and they fell. Some have declared

that an excess of power—a majority too large to manage—was fatal to the

endurance of their power. We rather think that it was but a conclusive

proof that a Whig Minister _must_ be a Minister on sufferance—in other

words, is unable to govern. Unhappily for themselves, at the period to

which we are alluding, a rather more important question than usual

occasioned the schism. Those who disagreed did not merely, as generally

happens in these cases, hold aloof for a time, embarrass the Government,

and then return to their allegiance, but they went at once into open

hostility. They retired to swell the Conservative ranks. This is a

specimen, on an exaggerated scale perhaps, of what is constantly

occurring when a Whig Ministry is in power. For what do we see now? We

behold the Conservative party united in their opinions with regard to

Russian aggression upon Turkey. In the Ministerial host there is

nothing, as usual, but dissension and endless disagreement. The

Manchester party condemns the war and everything belonging to it. The

Peelites evidently look with a cold eye upon it; they believe not in the

vitality of Turkey, or in the danger of Russian aggrandisement. So far

there is agreement between these sects. They cannot, however, form one

party, for there is disagreement between them on vital points connected

with Home administration. Then, again, there are the philosophical

Radicals demanding the Ballot, while the aristocratic Whigs most

properly declare that secret voting shall never become one of the

institutions of the country. In short, the Ministerial camp is split up

into various and opposing sects, which are continually warring with each

other, while the Cabinet itself is but another scene of this general

medley and confusion, this discontent and convulsion; and its executive

power is paralysed by internal discord. The introduction of the Peelites

amongst the Whigs has but increased the differences in the camp. Never

was there a time when the internal dissensions of a Ministerial host

were so marked, so wide-spreading, or so notorious. And this, too, at

this critical time, when England ought especially to be calm and

tranquil within, in order to be able to consider well what are her

interests without. Is this to continue? Are the interests of England and

Europe to be jeopardied by the continuance in power of a Ministry so

divided and so weak? It is, we think, a truly logical inference that the

fall of the Coalition, and the reascendancy of the Conservative party,

is the only method by which an end can be put to that constant strife,

and unanimity restored to the councils of our Sovereign. In a time of

war, it is of the last importance that a Ministry should be united and

firm, and possessed of the confidence of the country. Every one will

probably admit this; but, then, does the Coalition answer to this

description?

It is idle to pursue this subject further. No one who really wishes well

to his country in this emergency, can say that it is to the present

Government that we ought to confide the direction of our affairs, unless

he be dazzled by the undoubted splendour of their names. There are,

doubtless, great talents amongst them; but there is such a thing as the

utmost danger in a superfluity of talent, particularly when applied to

pursuits to which they are not especially adapted. Too much collective

talent begets an overweening self-confidence, and lessens the sense of

responsibility; moreover, if this too great self-confidence be brought

to bear its influence in the direction of affairs of which one is

ignorant, no beneficial result is to be expected. Again, if all these

misdirected and misapplied talents be controlled by an incapable chief,

can it be said that their administrative abilities are placed at service

of the country? No! personal pique and private considerations prevent

it. We need not dwell upon the incapability of the First Lord of the

Treasury, which is now generally admitted. We now look to the other

prominent members of the Government. The office assigned to Lord

Palmerston is the most notoriously incongruous. With a world-wide

reputation for his administration of our foreign affairs, gained in an

experience of them for sixteen years, his lordship is placed in an

office where he may exercise his negotiative powers with county

magistrates, town constables, and the like. There he is—the most popular

Foreign Secretary of the day, the man in whom the country has perhaps as

great a confidence as in any one, engaged in squabbles over town police,

graveyards, sewers, and the rest. Lord Palmerston cannot be said to be

at home in his office. The country is disposed to look with favour upon

him on account of his great name and services; but does he really make a

better Home Secretary than Mr Walpole? Why was he not transferred to the

War Office on its creation, with his extensive knowledge of European

affairs? If the interests of the country had been consulted, undoubtedly

he would; but again private considerations were opposed to the national

will and the public weal; and the Duke of Newcastle, who has as yet no

claims to public confidence, is placed in an office to which, on the

formation of the Government, it cannot be said that he was assigned.

Again, there is Sir George Grey, who is adapted more especially to the

Home Office, if to any; but, “being more remarkable for his private

virtues than his administrative abilities,” is certainly not the man to

be unceremoniously pitchforked into an office with which he has no

acquaintance, other than the little he is supposed to have learnt during

the “disastrous administration of Lord Glenelg.” If there are talents

here—if there is experience here—as in Lord Palmerston’s case, so in

this; the experience is rendered nothing worth, and the talents

misapplied. It is unnecessary to dilate further upon this subject; let

us look at the blessings derived to the country from the administrative

abilities of those whose talents have not been misdirected. There is our

gifted Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has made more mistakes within a

given time than any of his predecessors in the past century; and when we

remember that financial blunders are national misfortunes, it is no

matter of wonder that people refuse to regard him with an eye of favour,

even though we overlook the probable pernicious effects of his

Tractarian tendencies over the Church of England, felt through his

influence over the disposal of the Church patronage. How long will

England, dazzled by names, overlook facts and their consequences? Divest

the members of the Government of their previous reputation, of their

great names—give them names unknown to the country, and what language

sufficiently strong would be found to apply to such an incapable

Administration, with all their blunders, their dissensions, and their

disastrous speculations? Had Lord Derby and his colleagues committed

half the blunders of this Cabinet—had they attempted to tamper

recklessly with our finances—had they involved us in a war which might

have been avoided by sufficient plain-speaking in negotiation, what

would their opponents have said? Would we have witnessed the patriotic

course which we have seen the Opposition of the present day adopt? Few

would suppose it, when they recall to mind the undignified hurry which

the Opposition manifested for office during the brief period which

elapsed between the assembling of Parliament in November 1852 and the

Christmas vacation—a restlessness which induced them all to combine

together, Whig, Radical, and Peelite, High Church and Dissent, in order

to overthrow the Administration of the day; while their unredeemed

compact with the Roman Catholics will not easily be forgotten. Few would

suppose it, when they recall to mind the course adopted by the Whig

Opposition during the last war, when, for factious purposes, victories

were represented as defeats, the movements of the British general

rendered the battlefield of party strife at home, and the motions of the

Government clogged by the hands of unprincipled and factious opponents.

Few would suppose it, when they recollect that Whig alacrity to accept

office is only equalled by Conservative disdain to hold it on

sufferance. But what was the conduct of the Government of Lord Derby? Is

not that Government now admitted to have been the instrument of more

good to the country, in its short tenure of office, than was ever

effected by any of its predecessors within so short a time? And if we

remember the immense amount of opposition which was brought to bear

against it; that, in the first few months of its existence, the

completion of the business of Parliament, previous to its dissolution,

was all that was expected or required at its hands; that, after the

dissolution, a majority of nineteen effected, though with the greatest

difficulty, the overthrow of the Administration, without allowing the

smallest time for the trial of their legislative powers, it must be

admitted that the members of that Conservative Government, in the face

of the greatest difficulties, exhibited administrative abilities of a

high order. They were unable, from circumstances, to take advantage,

like their successors, of the tide of popular favour which in these days

is sure to run in the direction of a new Administration, because they

were only expected to wind up, as quickly as they could, the

Parliamentary business of the session. Yet to them may be traced the

advantages we possessed in preparation for the present war. They were

the first Government who dared to come down to the British House of

Commons, and tell it the national defences were insecure, and demand the

means of placing England in a position to resist any threatened

invasion. Do we not owe to them the establishment of our militia? Was

not that a bill than which none has been more perfect in its details, or

more universally satisfactory to the country? Do we not owe to them the

establishment of our Channel Fleet on such a footing that it secured

England from all aggression? Then was laid the basis of that splendid

fleet which a few months back left our shores for the Baltic Sea. Again,

it is to their prescience that we can trace the advantages which are

derived to ourselves, and to the cause of civilisation and independence,

from our present amicable relations with France. Did they not, in

opposition to the popular will, unequivocally expressed, and in the face

of the utmost censure of the press, persist in cultivating the

friendship of France? To that firmness and political sagacity we trace

the advantages we derive from having so powerful a friend by whose side

to fight in the cause of Europe. Contrast this with the conduct of that

brilliant Administration which was to rescue England from the evil

position into which it was brought by the reckless Derby Government, and

what do we find? Two members of that Government, immediately on taking

office, commence their abuse of the French Emperor in no measured terms.

Nor is this all: Their brilliant opponent, who was naturally desirous to

bring such a glaring indiscretion before the notice of the Commons of

England, was charged by the triumphant Coalition with having a mind

deeply imbued with faction. The like absence of political sagacity is

observable throughout the whole course of the Government. With a war

staring us in the face, which ought to have appeared almost inevitable

to the Government, with their superior information and knowledge of

facts, the Chancellor of the Exchequer brings forward a Peace Budget,

parting with an important item in our revenue. This was another blow

levelled against the agricultural interest through the indiscretion of

the Government, for it resulted in soap being relieved at the expense of

malt. Our discreet Chancellor parts with a quantity of revenue derived

from indirect taxation one year, and redeems his blunder the next by

levying an increased tax on malt. But what are we to expect from a

Chancellor of the Exchequer whose administration of the finances has

been one continued system of blunders? The secret lies in this: All his

various failings arise from his having entered upon schemes in which, as

he proceeded, he soon found himself out of his depth. Another minister

would have been deterred from entering upon them, from a sense of the

responsibility he would incur. But when a Ministry fancies it contains

within itself all the available administrative talent in the Empire, the

sense of responsibility is lightened, because opponents are undervalued,

and self-confidence augmented. Here, again, do all the other

misdemeanours of the Cabinet take their origin. Confident in themselves,

and in their fancied influence over Parliament, they bring forward, in

the face of war, a larger number of important measures than ever before

were introduced to Parliament in the same session. They only exhibited

their own weakness. They proved that their plans of legislation differ

materially from those of the House of Commons. They discovered that even

all the talents cannot blunder with impunity, and they have rapidly sunk

in public estimation. Their conduct has disgusted their followers, and

provoked a powerful opposition. Their numerous indiscretions would

certainly not have been tolerated in any men but our talented rulers in

the Coalition; and even they are suffering from the effects of their

rashness, but nevertheless seem determined to “survive in office the

honour of their administration.” Referring, again, to the Derby

Government of 1852, we ask if the Earl of Malmesbury, or any two

important members of that Administration, had been afflicted with a like

absence of political sagacity to that displayed by Sir James Graham and

Sir Charles Wood, where would have been our relations with France? If

that Government had, for the sake of the popularity which Sir James

Graham values so much, but which no Minister has been so unfortunate in

his attempt to gain, joined in the temporary popular resentment against

the French Emperor, when would the breach have been healed? But _they_

showed that they understood the interests of the country, and contrast

in a favourable light with the members of the Coalition and their

misdeeds. They evidently were aware of the deep responsibility under

which they lay, and thus their actions were marked with a caution which

is not observed by their successors. If Mr Disraeli had not handed over

a large balance to his rival, what would have been the effect of the

failure of his schemes? It comes to this, then: The forethought and

prudence of the Derby Government have only had the effect of shielding

the Coalition from the worst consequences of their indiscretions and

total failures, and enabling the country to withstand the

mal-administration of its present rulers, instead of being improved and

brought to be of permanent advantage to the nation. It may, however, be

thought to be a great drawback to Conservative reascendancy, that the

leaders of that great party are, for the most part, comparatively

inexperienced in office. However that may be, the administration of ten

months’ duration stands out in broad relief between its predecessor and

the Coalition; at all events, it would be difficult for them to commit

more blunders than the present talented and _experienced_

Administration. But can a charge of inability be fairly urged against a

party which contains within its ranks men of such talent, parliamentary

experience, and sagacity as the Earl of Derby, Lord St Leonards, Lord

Eglinton, Disraeli, Walpole, Thesiger, Kelly, Pakington, Malmesbury,

Bulwer Lytton, Stanley, Manners, and the other Conservative statesmen?

The year 1852 must, in the eyes of thinking men, for ever dispel such an

imputation. The same party which, shorn of its leaders in 1846, yet sent

forward to maintain its cause in that “sad fierce session” its champions

in debate, so many and so powerful as to astonish its foes and restore

spirit amongst its ranks, produced also, in time of need, statesmen

whose official career, short though it was, does no discredit to their

followers—the gentlemen of England. The chiefs in either House, in

particular, are men of brilliant talent and tried sagacity. Trained in

the Liberal ranks, it may be presumed that they are deeply convinced of

the danger of continually seeking after that phantom, which, the nearer

we approach, the farther it recedes—viz., a system of representation

which shall do justice to all parties in the State; while, at the same

time, that very training has divested them of that spirit of exclusion,

and that horror of anything approaching to innovation, which were the

chief imputations against the Toryism of bygone times, but which do not

accord with the intelligence of the present age. The Earl of Derby, as

every one knows, was a member of that Cabinet which secured the reform

of Parliament. He has since been engaged in endeavouring, and not

unsuccessfully, to stem the tide of democracy which then set in. For

that end he joined Sir Robert Peel—for that end he left him. Mr

Disraeli, too, awakening to a full sense of the danger which “the

youthful energies of Radicalism” are too well calculated to produce,

became a decided Conservative, though not a bigoted exclusionist. To

these principles he has steadily adhered in the whole course of his

parliamentary career, which has now spread over a term of seventeen

years. No man needs to stand higher in the estimation of his party than

does the member for Buckinghamshire. Gifted with talents which fall to

the lot of but few, possessed of keen sagacity, indomitable resolution,

and extensive knowledge, he has never shrunk from placing at the service

of his country, and of the great party of which he is the recognised

chieftain, the utmost efforts of his admired and envied genius. Where is

the man who has more unflinchingly stood by his party at all seasons,

both of adversity and prosperity? His rapid elevation has, no doubt,

been viewed by many with feelings of dissatisfaction; for

“Envy does merit, as its shade, pursue.”

It is evident that he has also many personal enemies. The man who

overthrew a Government which many supposed would have continued during

the lifetime of its leader, and even have survived him, is not likely to

be regarded with any especial favour by the members of that Cabinet. The

uncompromising hostility which he bore to them has roused their utmost

indignation, and his character has been unsparingly attacked. Some have

had the sagacity to detect the cloven hoof in every step which he has

made in public life; nor has he been allowed by them to possess the

smallest particle of political virtue, and “one of the humblest

individuals of this vast empire” has thought fit to embody his views of

the political career of Mr Disraeli in a somewhat bulky volume, where he

has given vent to his holy indignation. Such a production would have

been a disgrace to the age, even if the author had had the courage to

place his name at the head of it, for it is introducing into party

warfare a weapon which is most unfair, unjust, and dishonourable. No

statesman can condescend to notice such an attack; and when the author

withholds his name and sends forth his anonymous slander into the world,

then it must be confessed that the cowardly spirit in which it has been

undertaken has only aggravated its revolting character.

Mr Disraeli is an original genius. His great fault in early life was,

that he formed his conclusions without deep study, and trusting chiefly

to the power of his own intellect. With all the conceit and precipitancy

of youth, he immediately gave forth to the world the conclusions at

which he had arrived. Many of these were wild and improbable, and his

maturer years discovered their true nature. His father was, as is well

known, a Jew, while his ancestors were, down to a recent period, the

natives of a foreign soil. The son, then, inherited no hereditary

political principles, which are in England, generally, handed down from

one generation to another, unchanging and unchanged. Mr Disraeli had

therefore to choose for himself, from the wide field of English

politics, those principles which appeared to his unbiassed mind most in

accordance with the true spirit of the British constitution. The choice

which he adopted, and the subsequent changes through which he passed,

appear to us to be nothing but the natural workings of an unfettered

mind, and which any man may, and probably often does, undergo, as he

ponders over the English constitution and the science of government in

the recesses of his own study. It is natural that, as an Englishman

contemplates our form of government, as he becomes acquainted with its

operations, and as he compares its results with reference to the mind,

the habits, and the temper of the people with the influence of

Continental governments over their subjects, he should be filled with

admiration at the wonderful manner in which the united harmonious action

of the Three Estates of the realm is secured; and his first thought is,

that it must be preserved unimpaired and inviolate. As he proceeds, he

finds blemishes, anomalies, and imperfections; these he concludes should

be eradicated, and with all the ardour of youth he thinks that, once

these disappear, a form of government remains complete in its splendour,

and splendid in its completeness. A wider intercourse with the world, a

more extensive knowledge of mankind, must dissipate in many minds this

perhaps fondly-cherished sentiment. Perfection cannot be

attained—contentment is never the lot of humanity; and perhaps it is

better that each should endeavour to forget his particular object of

antipathy, and unite in consolidating and preserving those institutions,

with their many imperfections, than hazard their extinction by endless

struggles after their purification. Are not these legitimate changes of

opinion? A man who has thus formed his political opinions, remains a

staunch Conservative, but eschews all those more repulsive features of

Toryism, which do but defeat their own end, and raise up against itself,

in power too strong to be resisted, the very influences it wishes to

control and counteract. But what shall we say of a young man who thinks

fit, in the impetuous ardour of his ambition, to publish to the world

his opinions as they are forming? We may smile at the vanity displayed,

and at the folly of such a course; but we may shrink from casting

imputations and urging motives, from which a virtuous mind recoils, for

the mere purpose of blackening and traducing the character of a

political opponent. Such, however, is the course pursued by Mr

Disraeli’s enemies; but we should think that the strong malevolence

displayed in those satires and slanders must insure their being

discarded by “all in whom political partisanship has not extinguished

the common feelings of humanity.” It is said that Mr Disraeli’s changes

of opinion were with a view to self-aggrandisement. The charge, we

presume, rests upon the pretence that he was the better for each change.

This may be; but we think an ardent, clever, and ambitious man like Mr

Disraeli, would have risen to eminence whatever line of politics he

adopted. It was not more difficult for him to get into Parliament as a

Radical than as a Tory; indeed, this seems to be unwittingly allowed by

his biographer when he states that his election for High Wycombe was

lost because Mr Hume withdrew his support in consequence of Mr

Disraeli’s refusing to compromise his opinions with regard to the Whigs.

It is, however, a decidedly unfair course to rake together all that has

fallen from an aspiring and even giddy youth, no matter whether in the

heat of political contest or in the turmoil of an election strife, and

then call him in his maturity to a severe account. No charitable

construction is ever allowed to Mr Disraeli’s public acts. It is always

easy to get up a colourable case against an English statesman, all whose

acts lay bare before the eager gaze of the public. It requires the

exercising of very little ingenuity to hang together a consistent string

of facts with which to stigmatise with baseness the career of any

politician, however brilliant in talent or in character. Mr Disraeli has

risen from the people; he has excited the envy of some and the hatred of

others, who indulge their vengeful feelings in spreading their malicious

slanders; nor is the most stainless character proof against such

assaults, since they can quickly acquire a consistency of character, and

gain a hold on men’s minds when they are dinned into one’s ears on all

sides. How easy it might be to make up a case of political profligacy

against Sir James Graham, who has been through more political changes,

and that, too, since he was a representative of the people, than any

other statesman of the day! How easy it might be to discern in this the

workings of a restless ambition! A colourable case is soon made, and

then let a certain number of newspapers indulge in comments upon it, and

spread the calumnies, each in his own strain, and all spiced with a

little outpouring of virtuous indignation, and the best character is

sure to be injured by it. There are some in these charitable times who

can defend a Cromwell; we apprehend that with far less exercise of

ingenuity can the character of the Conservative leader be maintained.

But if it be true that Cromwell is not the remorseless villain which his

history had depicted him, then it only shows how easily characters can

be fatally blackened by constantly harping on the evil points, and

quietly omitting all mention of the good.

Throughout the whole parliamentary career of Mr Disraeli, a consistent

course of conduct with reference to State policy has been pursued;

though it is observable that, in the first few years, he had not yet

thrown away some of his extraordinary theories. We see that, as he

advances in manhood, and becomes practically acquainted with

legislation, the vain conceptions and egotistic vanity of his youth pass

away, and he settles down into a steady, through-going, parliamentary

chief. The different opinions which he has at times expressed of various

statesmen are easily to be accounted for, though some who, as the poet

says, judge of others by themselves, may discern in this discreditable

motives. Public opinion is always varying with regard to public men, and

a young man is likely to be influenced by it. But, at all events, he

ought, through motives of modesty, to keep his opinion to himself; and

it is of the greatest importance that one who aspires to be a statesman

in this country, where parties are always changing, should not be

constantly giving expression to the feelings of the moment. It is not

safe for a politician; for while he is giving vent to what is generally

a mere fancied animosity to the mere party-feeling of the moment, he may

perhaps be throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of a future colleague;

and all for no purpose, for oftentimes there is no foundation for

aversion to a public man. Nor is it right that the House of Commons, our

country, and Continental nations, should be constantly hearing statesmen

mutually complimenting and abusing each other. It is a maxim in State

policy that you should deal with your enemy as though one day he may be

your friend, and _vice versâ_. In private life, it happens that one who

is a friend may first be viewed with coolness, and then treated as an

enemy; and this change in conduct may be legitimate, though not

creditable. Still more frequently may this happen in public life. Mr

Disraeli has, we should think, learnt from bitter experience the folly

of giving expression to mere transient feelings either of anger or

respect. He is a man of extremes; he knows no mediocrity of feeling;

witness the inflated style of the soliloquies in his novels, which have

drawn down upon him the unmitigated ire of his zealous biographer. With

him a statesman’s career is either “a system of petty larceny on a great

scale,” or it is “a precious possession of the House of Commons.” This

is a pity; but Mr Disraeli, unlike other statesmen, had not in early

life the friendship of those who had trodden the thorny paths of English

politics before him, to inculcate upon him the necessity of being

habitually reserved and moderate in his expressions; and neither reserve

nor moderation forms a part of his natural character. Too warm a nature,

or too ardent a temperament are not discreditable, though they often

bring pain and trouble along with them.

We now come to the most hackneyed, and, we admit, the most painful

portion of Mr Disraeli’s life—his treatment of Sir Robert Peel.

But these things belong to the past. Great blame, in the eyes of an

impartial observer, may be attached to Peel for the course he then took,

and great blame may also attach to Disraeli; much, on the other hand,

may be said in palliation of the conduct of both. The one has long ago

been forgiven by the great party which he irreparably injured; the other

will, we firmly believe, prove himself, at no distant period, as firm

and enlightened a Minister as he is now one of the most talented and

accomplished statesmen that ever adorned with his eloquence, or

controlled by his wisdom, the legislation of the British Parliament.

We now conclude by urging the necessity there is for the reascendancy of

the Conservative party. We are evidently on the verge of a momentous

period. Are we to commit the guidance of our affairs to a Government

whose conduct, as yet, has been one course of bungling—the result of

dissension, of abortive speculations—the result of a misplaced

self-confidence, and of unsuccessful negotiation—the result of an

infatuated love of peace? We make, then, our appeal to the Protestants

of England; are we any longer to truckle to the Pope of Rome—are we

still to devote the public money to the support of Roman Catholic

priests, and then call it “religious bigotry?” We make our appeal to the

friends of Turkey amongst us: are we to have a Ministry in power who are

divided in their opinions concerning the vitality of the country which

we are desirous of protecting, and amongst whose supporters are men who

deny our right to go to war at all? We make our appeal to the foes of

Russia; shall we have a Premier who declares that “what is called the

security of Europe” has nothing to fear from Russian aggression, and

then says that he has nothing to retract or explain? Let us have a

Ministry of able men, united amongst themselves, prepared to uphold our

Protestant religion, agreed upon the vitality of Turkey, resolved to

resist Russia, determined to secure a durable peace; and, above all, one

that is strong in the confidence of the country, and supported by a

united majority. Let us tear down the emblems of the most incapable and

mischief-making Coalition that ever any country was cursed with, and

proclaim over its fall the reascendancy of Conservative principles.

_Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._

-----

Footnote 1:

Σπυριδῶνος Τρικουπη ἱστορία τῆς Ἕλληνικῆς ἐπαναστάσεως. Τόμος Α.

London, 1853. (History of the Greek Revolution. By Spiridion Tricoupi,

Greek Minister, London. Vol. i.)

Footnote 2:

_History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession

of Louis Napoleon in 1852._ By Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart. Vol. iii.

Footnote 3:

The work, when completed, will, we understand, consist of four volumes

octavo; the second volume is expected to appear in a few weeks.

Footnote 4:

Sir A. Alison, perhaps, as we shall see afterwards, confines his

sympathy to the assertion that, _after the infamous butchery of the

Greeks at Chios_, the intervention of the Christian States in behalf

of the oppressed Christian people became a duty.

Footnote 5:

That this “_bloody_ and _brutal_” policy is still exercised by the

Turks, when they have their free swing, is evident from the letter of

Mr Saunders, the British Consul at Prevesa, which appeared about two

months ago in the _Times_, and of which a Greek translation now lies

before us in the Αθηνᾶ—an Athenian newspaper—of the 9th June.

Footnote 6:

It may be interesting to observe here, as a proof of the permanency of

the Greek language, that the phrase used by our modern Greek

ambassador in this place, ατενίσας είς τον ουρανον, is exactly the

same as that used by St Luke in the account of the martyrdom of St

Stephen, Acts, vii. 55. Indeed, the vocabulary of the living Greeks,

as well as their syntax, is strongly tinged by the language of the

Septuagint and the New Testament; a fact, of which our students of

theology, if they have any sense, will take note.

Footnote 7:

Δεν συστελλομαι νὰ ὁμολογήσω ὅτι ἤμῆν εναντιος τοῦ τοιούτου κινήματυς

κατὰ του Σουλτανου· ὄχι διότι θὲν επεθύμουν τῆν ελευθερίαν τοῦ ἔθνους

μου ἀλλὰ διότι μ’ εφαινετο ἄωρον το κίνημα, μὲ το νὰ ἦσαν

ἀπειροπολεμοι οἱ Ἕλληνες καὶ οἱ πλεῖστοι ἄοπλοι, ὁ δὲ κίνδυνος

μεγας.—PERRHAEBUS, _Military Memoirs_. Athens, 1836.

Footnote 8:

τοῦ Κερατιου κὁλπου—that is, we have no doubt, the large expansion of

the Golden Horn west of Galata, and north of the Fanar.

Footnote 9:

The modern Greek has lost not a whit of the fine rich flexibility

which has made the ancient dialect such a convenient organ for our

scientific terminology. The word for Lazaretto used here is

λοιμοκαθαρτήριον; and scores of such words are seen on the signboards

of the streets of Athens at the present hour.

Footnote 10:

_Appendix to Spottiswood_, p. 29.

Footnote 11:

Dr J. H. Todd, who first published this letter, (_English Churchman_,

Jan. 11, 1849), supposed Bishop Taylor to be speaking of Dr Peter

Barron of Cambridge, but afterwards, on the evidence being

communicated to him, was entirely satisfied, and corrected his

mistake. “The author referred to (writes Dr Todd) is certainly Dr

Robert Barron of Aberdeen, a divine of whom the Church of Scotland may

be justly proud.”—_Irish Ecclesiastical Journal_, March 1849.

Footnote 12:

Upon an allegation of unsoundness of doctrine in some of his works,

the General Assembly of 1640 dragged his widow, in custody of a “rote

of musketiers,” from her retreat in Strathislay, to enable them to

search his house for his manuscripts and letters, a year after his

death. The proceedings add some circumstances of inhumanity to the old

revolting cases not unknown in Scotland, where a dead man was dug out

of his grave to be placed at the bar, tried and sentenced.

Footnote 13:

P. 288.

Footnote 14:

Vol. iii. p. 331.

Footnote 15:

_History of Scots Affairs_, vol. iii. p. 231.

Footnote 16:

Aberdeen, 1635.

Footnote 17:

Vol. iii. p. 227.

Footnote 18:

In the Presbytery of Aberdeen, 26th May 1642. He died in 1659, in the

ninety-fifth year of his age.

Footnote 19:

_Life of Bishop Bedell_—Preface. Of most of these theological authors

I am obliged to speak in the language of others. I have not even, in

all cases, read the works which have formed their character.

Footnote 20:

_Dr M‘Crie’s Life of Melville_, vol. ii. p. 445. It is with hesitation

that any one who has benefited by this work will express a difference

of opinion from its author. But it seems to me that Dr M‘Crie has been

led by his admiration for Andrew Melville to rate too highly an

exercise in which he excelled. The writing of modern Latin poetry,

however valuable as a part of grammatical education, has, in truth,

never been an effort of imagination or fancy; and its products, when

most successful, have never produced the effect of genuine poetry on

the mind of the reader.

Footnote 21:

_History of the Rebellion_. Oxford, 1826. Vol. i. p. 145.

Footnote 22:

_Life of Bishop Bedell_—Preface.

Footnote 23:

_Delitiæ poetarum Scotorum hujus ævi illustrium_, and fifth volume of

the Great Atlas—both published by John Blaeu at Amsterdam, the former

in 1637, the latter in 1654.

Footnote 24:

_Joannis Leochaei Scoti musæ._ _Londini_, 1620. Leech was Rector of

the University in 1619.

Footnote 25:

“Ad Senatum Aberdonensem;” “Tumulus Joannis Colissonii;” “De

Abrenethæa;” “De aulæis acu-pictis D. Isabellæ Setonæ Comitissæ

Laderdeliæ.” _Epigrammata Arturi Jonstoni, Scoti, Medici Regii,

Abredoniæ: excudebat Edvardus Rabanus_, 1632.

Footnote 26:

STRACHAN’S _Panegyricus_. Among the strangers he distinguishes

Parkins, an Englishman who had, the year before (1630), obtained a

degree of M.D. in our University. The earliest diploma of M.D. I have

seen is that which I have noted (somewhat out of place) among the

academic prints, and which was granted in 1697.

Footnote 27:

“Patricius ... supremas dignitates scholasticas in viros onini laude

majores (_quorum vos hic vultus videtis_) qui vel ipsas dignitates

honorarunt, conferri curavit. Quid memorem Sandilandios, Rhætos,

Baronios, Scrogios, Sibbaldos, Leslæos, maxima illa nomina.... Deus

mi! quanta dici celebritas, quo tot pileati patres, theologiæ, juris

et medicinæ doctores et baccalaurei de gymnasio nostro velut agmine

facto prodierunt!” He alludes to the strangers attracted by the fame

of the society—to the divines, Forbes, Barron, &c.—to the physicians.

“Quantus medicorum grex! quanta claritas!... Quantum uterque

Jonstonus, ejusdem uteri, ejusdem artis fratres.... Mathesi profunda,

quantum poesi et impangendis carminibus valeant, novistis. Arthurus

medicus Regis et divinus poeta elegiæ et epigrammatis, quibus non

solum suæ ætatis homines superat verum antiquissimos quosque æquat.

Gulielmus rei herbariæ et mathematum, quorum professor meritissimus

est, gloria cluit. De Gulielmo certe idem usurpare possumus....

‘Deliciæ est humani generis,’ tanta est ejus comitas, tanta

urbanitas.”

Footnote 28:

These notices are taken from the _History of the University of

Edinburgh, from 1580 to 1646_, by Thomas Crawford, printed in 1808

from a MS. of the seventeenth century.

Footnote 29:

_Caballeros_ is the word used. It is hardly to be translated in an

English word.

Footnote 30:

As a single sample of these excavations, we may mention one made at

Portelette, on the Somme. At a depth of nine feet, a large quantity of

bones was met with; and one foot lower, a piece of deer’s horn,

bearing marks of human workmanship. At twenty feet from the surface,

and _five feet below the level of the present bed of the river_, three

axes, highly finished, and in perfect preservation, were turned up in

a bed of turf. Some axe-cases of stag’s horn were also discovered in

the same bed. Near these was a coarse vase of black pottery, very much

broken, and surrounded with a black mass of decomposed pottery; and

also large quantities of wrought bones, both human and animal.

Footnote 31:

Some very curious speculations and researches on this subject will be

found in a pamphlet entitled _A Vindication of the Bardic Accounts of

the Early Invasions of Ireland; with a Verification of the River-Ocean

of the Greeks_. M‘Glashan, Dublin, 1851.

Footnote 32:

It is not improbable that the old feudal law, which placed the person

of a female vassal at the disposal of the seigneur on her

wedding-night, originated in political motives as well as in a

tyrannous sensuality.

Footnote 33:

_Aperçus Genealogiques sur les Descendants de Guillaume._ _Rev.

Archéol._ 1845, p. 794.

Footnote 34:

_Types of Mankind._ By T. C. WATT and G. R. GLIDDON. London: 1854.

Footnote 35:

_What Good may come of the India Bill; or Notes of what has been, is,

and may be, the Government of India._ By FRANCIS HORSLEY ROBINSON.

_Modern India. A Sketch of the System of Civil Government; to which is

prefixed some Account of the Natives and Native Institutions._ By

GEORGE CAMPBELL, Esq., Bengal Civil Service.

_The Administration of the East India Company. A History of Indian

Progress._ By JOHN WILLIAM KAYE, Author of the “History of the War in

Afghanistan.”

_Life in the Mission, the Camp, and the Zenana; or Six Years in

India._ By Mrs H. COLIN MACKENZIE.

_Defects Civil and Military of the Indian Government._ By

Lieutenant-General Sir CHARLES JAMES NAPIER, G.C.B. Edited by

Lieutenant-General Sir W. F. P. NAPIER, K.C.B.

_How Wars arise in India. Observations on Mr Cobden’s Pamphlet

entitled “The Origin of the Burmese War._” By JOHN CLARK MARSHMAN.

_An Address to Parliament on the Duties of Great Britain to India in

respect of the Education of the Natives and their Official

Employment._ By CHARLES HAY CAMERON, late Fourth Member of the Council

of India, President of the Indian Law Commission, and President of the

Council of Education for Bengal.

Footnote 36:

_Modern India and its Government_, by G. CAMPBELL, Esq.; pp. 316, 317.

Footnote 37:

Pages 229, 230, 388.

Footnote 38:

We do not pretend to precise numerical accuracy; it is enough for our

argument that what we have gathered from the _Indian Register_ be

nearly correct.

Footnote 39:

Page 241.

Footnote 40:

Page 238.

Footnote 41:

Page 248.

Footnote 42:

Page 254.

Footnote 43:

Page 89.

Footnote 44:

Compare the fifth paragraph of the memorandum inserted at page 107

with the first nine lines of 114.

Footnote 45:

Court-house or Office.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last

chapter.

● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.