"Every man is not only himself," says Sir THOMAS BROWNE; "there hath been
many Diogenes, and as many Timons, though but few of that name. _Men are
lived over again_. The world is now as it was in ages past: there was none
then but there hath been some one since that parallels him, and, as it
were, _his revived self_." We are devout believers in the creed.
HERR VON TEUFELSKOPF was a High German doctor, of the first class. He had
taken his diploma of Beelzebub in the Black Forest, and was gifted with as
fine a hand to force a card--with as glib a tongue to harangue a mob at
wakes and fairs, as any professor since the birth of the fourth grace of
life,--swindling. He would talk until his head smoked of his list of
miraculous cures--of his balsams, his anodynes, his elixirs; in the
benevolence of his soul he would, to accommodate the pockets of the poor,
sell a pennyworth of the philosopher's stone; and, as a further
illustration of his sympathy for suffering man or woman, give, even for a
kreutzer, a mouthful of the Fountain of Youth. As a water-doctor, too, his
Sagacity was inconceivable. A hundred years ago, he told to a fraction
the amount of the national debt, from a single glance at the specimen sent
him by JOHN BULL; and more, for five-and-twenty years predicted who would
be the incoming Lord Mayor of London, from an inspection of a pint of
water presented to him every season from Aldgate-pump. He could prophesy
all the politics of the Court of Aldermen from a phial filled at
Fleet-ditch; and could at any time--no trifling task--tell the amount of
corruption in the House of Commons, by taking up a handful of water at
Westminster-bridge. On his stolen visit to England--for the honour he has
done our country has never been generally known--he calculated to a nicety
how many puppies and kittens were annually drowned in the Thames, and how
many suicides--particularising the sex and dress of each sufferer--were
committed in the same period, from a bottlefull of Thames water brought to
him wherewith to dilute his brandy at the Ship public house, Greenwich--a
hostelry much frequented by Doctor TEUFELSKOPF. We have seen the
calculation very beautifully illuminated on ass's skin, and at this moment
deposited in the college of Heligoland. It is not generally known that the
Doctor died in this country; lustily predicting, however, that after a nap
of a score or so of years he would return to this life in an entirely new
character. The Doctor has kept his word. HERR VON TEUFELSKOPF, as Sir
THOMAS BROWNE says, is "lived over again" in Sir ROBERT PEEL!
It is impossible to reflect upon the enlarged humanity of Sir ROBERT--for
though, indeed, he is no other than the old German quack revived, we will
not refuse to him his new name--toward the sufferers of Paisley, without
feeling that the fine spirit of finesse which made the reputation of the
student of the Black Forest has in no way suffered from its long sleep;
but, on the contrary, has risen very much refreshed for new practice. The
Doctor never compassed so fine a sleight as Sir ROBERT when lately,
playing the philanthropist, he struck his breeches' pocket with a spasm of
benevolence, and pulled therefrom--fifty pounds! Only a few weeks before,
Sir ROBERT had sworn by all his list of former cures, that he would clothe
the naked and feed the hungry, if he were duly authorised and duly paid
for such Christian-like solicitude. He is called in; he then prorogues
Parliament to the tune of "Go to the devil and shake yourself," and sits
down in the easy chair of salary, and tries to think! Disturbed in his
contemplations by the groans and screams of the famishing, he addresses
the starving multitude from the windows of Downing-street, telling them he
can do nothing for them in a large way, but--the fee he has received to
cure them can afford as much--graciously throwing them fifty pounds from
his private compassion! As a statesman he is powerless; but he has no
objection to subscribe to the Mendicity Society.
It is an old hacknied abuse of NERO, that when Rome was in flame he
accompanied the crackling of doors and rafters with his very best fiddle.
We grant this showed a want of fine sympathy on the part of NERO; there
was, nevertheless, a boldness, an exhibition of nerve, in such
instrumentation. Any way, it leaves us with a higher respect for NERO than
if he had been found playing on the burning Pantheon with a penny squirt.
His mockery of the Romans, bad as it was, was not the mockery of
compassion.
"I will make bread cheap for you," says Sir ROBERT PEEL to the Paisley
sufferers; "I will not enable you to buy the quartern loaf at a reduced
rate by your own industry, but I will treat you to a penny roll, at its
present size, from my own purse." Whereupon the Tories clap their hands
and cry, "What magnanimity!"
What should we say if, on another Pie-lane conflagration of London, the
Minister were to issue an order commanding all the fire-offices to make no
attempt to extinguish the flames, and were then to exclaim to the
sufferers, "My friends, I deeply sympathize with you; but the Phoenix
shall not budge, the Hand-in-Hand mustn't move a finger, the Eagle must
stay where it is; nevertheless, there is a little private fire-engine of
my own at Tamworth; you are heartily welcome to the use of it, and pray
heaven it may put this terrible fire out, and once more make you snug and
comfortable."
Quackery is of more ancient birth than many very honest people suspect;
nay, more than, were the register of its nativity laid before their eyes,
they would be willing to admit. We have no space for its voluminous
history; but it is our belief, since quackery first plied its profitable
trade with human incredulity, it never perpetrated so successful a trick
as that exhibited by Sir ROBERT PEEL in his motion of want of confidence.
The first scene of the farce is only begun. We have seen how Sir ROBERT
has snatched the cards out of the hands of the Whigs, and shall find how
he will play the self-same trumps assorted by his opponents. A change is
already coming over the Conservatives; they are meek and mild, and, with
their pocket handkerchiefs at their eyes, lisp about the distresses of the
people. "When the geese gaggle," says a rustic saw, "expect a change of
weather." Lord LONDONDERRY has already begun to talk of an alteration of
the Corn-laws.
"Who knows what a minister may be compelled to do?" says Lord LONDONDERRY.
These are new words for the old harridan Toryism. She was wont, like
_Falstaff_, to blow out her cheeks and defy compulsion. But the truth is,
Toryism has a new host to contend with. Her old reign was supported by
fictitious credit--by seeming prosperity--and, more than all, by the
ignorance of the people. Well, the bills drawn by Toryism (at a long date
we grant) have now to be paid--paper is to be turned into Bank gold.
Arithmetic is a great teacher, and, with the taxman's ink horn at his
button-hole, gives at every door lessons that sink into the heart of the
scholar. Public opinion, which, in the good old days "when George the
Third was king," was little more than an abstraction--a thing talked of,
not acknowledged--is now a tangible presence. The said public opinion is
now formed of hundreds of thousands whose existence, save in the books of
the Exchequer, was scarcely admitted by any reigning minister. Sir ROBERT
PEEL has now to give in his reckoning to the hard-heads of Manchester, of
Birmingham, of Leeds--he must pass his books with them, and tens of
thousands of their scholars scattered throughout the kingdom; or, three
months after the next meeting of Parliament, he is nought.
At this moment, it is said, Sir ROBERT is studying what taxes he can best
lay upon the people. We confess to the difficulty of the case. At this
moment there is scarcely a feather so light, the addition of which will
not crack the camel's back. No; Sir ROBERT will come to the Whig measures
of relief, having so disguised them as, like _Plagiary's_ metaphors, to
make them pass for his own. The object of himself and party is, however,
attained. He has juggled himself into place. With the genius of his former
existence, as TEUFELSKOPF, the Premier has shuffled himself into
Downing-street; and there he will leave nothing untried that he may
remain. "If Cato gets drunk, then is drunkenness no shame"--"If Sir ROBERT
PEEL alter the Corn-laws, then is it proper that the Corn-laws should be
changed." This will be the cry of the Conservatives; and we shall see men,
who before would have vowed themselves to slow starvation before they
would admit an ear of wheat from Poland or Egypt, vote for a sliding-scale
or no scale at all, as their places and the strength of their party may be
best assured.
Doctor VON TEUFELSKOPF for years of his life was wont to eat fire and
swallow a sword. We shall see how once more Sir ROBERT PEEL will eat his
own principles--swallow his own words. When men call this apostacy, the
Doctor will blandly smile, and denominate it a sacrifice to public
opinion. We have no doubt that, as long as he can, the Premier will put
off the remedy; he will try this and that; but at length public opinion
will compel him to cast aside his own nostrums and use RUSSELL'S--_bread
pills_!