not backed by strong feeling and principle. Where remote and speculative
objects do not excite a predominant interest and passion, gross and
immediate ones are sure to carry the day, even in ingenuous and
well-disposed minds. The will yields necessarily to some motive or
other; and where the public good or distant consequences excite no
sympathy in the breast, either from short-sightedness or an easiness of
temperament that shrinks from any violent effort or painful emotion,
self-interest, indolence, the opinion of others, a desire to please, the
sense of personal obligation, come in and fill up the void of public
spirit, patriotism, and humanity. The best men in the world in their own
natural dispositions or in private life (for this reason) often become
the most dangerous public characters, from their pliancy to the unruly
passions of others, and from their having no set-off in strong moral
_stamina_ to the temptations that are held out to them, if, as is
frequently the case, they are men of versatile talent or patient
industry.--Lord Eldon has one of the best-natured faces in the world;
it is pleasant to meet him in the street, plodding along with an
umbrella under his arm, without one trace of pride, of spleen, or
discontent in his whole demeanour, void of offence, with almost rustic
simplicity and honesty of appearance--a man that makes friends at first
sight, and could hardly make enemies, if he would; and whose only fault
is that he cannot say _Nay_ to power, or subject himself to an unkind
word or look from a King or a Minister. He is a thorough-bred Tory.
Others boggle or are at fault in their career, or give back at a pinch,
they split into different factions, have various objects to distract
them, their private friendships or antipathies stand in their way; but
he has never flinched, never gone back, never missed his way, he is an
_out-and-outer_ in this respect, his allegiance has been without flaw,
like "one entire and perfect chrysolite," his implicit understanding is
a kind of taffeta-lining to the Crown, his servility has assumed an air
of the most determined independence, and he has
"Read his history in a Prince's eyes!"--
There has been no stretch of power attempted in his time that he has not
seconded: no existing abuse, so odious or so absurd, that he has not
sanctioned it. He has gone the whole length of the most unpopular
designs of Ministers. When the heavy artillery of interest, power, and
prejudice is brought into the field, the paper pellets of the brain go
for nothing: his labyrinth of nice, lady-like doubts explodes like a
mine of gun-powder. The Chancellor may weigh and palter--the courtier
is decided, the politician is firm, and rivetted to his place in the
Cabinet! On all the great questions that have divided party opinion or
agitated the public mind, the Chancellor has been found uniformly and
without a single exception on the side of prerogative and power,
and against every proposal for the advancement of freedom. He was a
strenuous supporter of the wars and coalitions against the principles of
liberty abroad; he has been equally zealous in urging or defending every
act and infringement of the Constitution, for abridging it at home: he
at the same time opposes every amelioration of the penal laws, on the
alleged ground of his abhorrence of even the shadow of innovation: he
has studiously set his face against Catholic emancipation; he laboured
hard in his vocation to prevent the abolition of the Slave Trade; he was
Attorney General in the trials for High Treason in 1794; and the other
day in giving his opinion on the Queen's Trial, shed tears and protested
his innocence before God! This was natural and to be expected; but
on all occasions he is to be found at his post, true to the call of
prejudice, of power, to the will of others and to his own interest.
In the whole of his public career, and with all the goodness of his
disposition, he has not shewn "so small a drop of pity as a wren's eye."
He seems to be on his guard against every thing liberal and humane as
his weak side. Others relax in their obsequiousness either from satiety
or disgust, or a hankering after popularity, or a wish to be thought
above narrow prejudices. The Chancellor alone is fixed and immoveable.
Is it want of understanding or of principle? No--it is want of
imagination, a phlegmatic habit, an excess of false complaisance and
good-nature ... Common humanity and justice are little better than vague
terms to him: he acts upon his immediate feelings and least irksome
impulses. The King's hand is velvet to the touch--the Woolsack is a
seat of honour and profit! That is all he knows about the matter. As to
abstract metaphysical calculations, the ox that stands staring at the
corner of the street troubles his head as much about them as he does:
yet this last is a very good sort of animal with no harm or malice in
him, unless he is goaded on to mischief, and then it is necessary to
keep out of his way, or warn others against him!
Mr. Wilberforce is a less perfect character in his way. He acts from
mixed motives. He would willingly serve two masters, God and Mammon. He
is a person of many excellent and admirable qualifications, but he has
made a mistake in wishing to reconcile those that are incompatible.
He has a most winning eloquence, specious, persuasive, familiar,
silver-tongued, is amiable, charitable, conscientious, pious, loyal,
humane, tractable to power, accessible to popularity, honouring the
king, and no less charmed with the homage of his fellow-citizens. "What
lacks he then?" Nothing but an economy of good parts. By aiming at
too much, he has spoiled all, and neutralised what might have been an
estimable character, distinguished by signal services to mankind. A
man must take his choice not only between virtue and vice, but between
different virtues. Otherwise, he will not gain his own approbation, or
secure the respect of others. The graces and accomplishments of private
life mar the man of business and the statesman. There is a severity, a
sternness, a self-denial, and a painful sense of duty required in
the one, which ill befits the softness and sweetness which should
characterise the other. Loyalty, patriotism, friendship, humanity, are
all virtues; but may they not sometimes clash? By being unwilling to
forego the praise due to any, we may forfeit the reputation of all; and
instead of uniting the suffrages of the whole world in our favour, we
may end in becoming a sort of bye-word for affectation, cant, hollow
professions, trimming, fickleness, and effeminate imbecility. It is best
to choose and act up to some one leading character, as it is best to
have some settled profession or regular pursuit in life.
We can readily believe that Mr. Wilberforce's first object and principle
of action is to do what he thinks right: his next (and that we fear is
of almost equal weight with the first) is to do what will be thought so
by other people. He is always at a game of _hawk and buzzard_ between
these two: his "conscience will not budge," unless the world goes with
it. He does not seem greatly to dread the denunciation in Scripture,
but rather to court it--"Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of
you!" We suspect he is not quite easy in his mind, because West-India
planters and Guinea traders do not join in his praise. His ears are not
strongly enough tuned to drink in the execrations of the spoiler and the
oppressor as the sweetest music. It is not enough that one half of the
human species (the images of God carved in ebony, as old Fuller calls
them) shout his name as a champion and a saviour through vast burning
zones, and moisten their parched lips with the gush of gratitude for
deliverance from chains--he must have a Prime-Minister drink his health
at a Cabinet-dinner for aiding to rivet on those of his country and
of Europe! He goes hand and heart along with Government in all their
notions of legitimacy and political aggrandizement, in the hope that
they will leave him a sort of _no-man's ground_ of humanity in the Great
Desert, where his reputation for benevolence and public spirit may
spring up and flourish, till its head touches the clouds, and it
stretches out its branches to the farthest part of the earth. He has
no mercy on those who claim a property in negro-slaves as so much
live-stock on their estates; the country rings with the applause of
his wit, his eloquence, and his indignant appeals to common sense and
humanity on this subject--but not a word has he to say, not a whisper
does he breathe against the claim set up by the Despots of the Earth
over their Continental subjects, but does every thing in his power to
confirm and sanction it! He must give no offence. Mr. Wilberforce's
humanity will go all lengths that it can with safety and discretion: but
it is not to be supposed that it should lose him his seat for Yorkshire,
the smile of Majesty, or the countenance of the loyal and pious. He is
anxious to do all the good he can without hurting himself or his fair
fame. His conscience and his character compound matters very amicably.
He rather patronises honesty than is a martyr to it. His patriotism, his
philanthropy are not so ill-bred, as to quarrel with his loyalty or to
banish him from the first circles. He preaches vital Christianity to
untutored savages; and tolerates its worst abuses in civilized states.
He thus shews his respect for religion without offending the clergy, or
circumscribing the sphere of his usefulness. There is in all this an
appearance of a good deal of cant and tricking. His patriotism may
be accused of being servile; his humanity ostentatious; his loyalty
conditional; his religion a mixture of fashion and fanaticism. "Out upon
such half-faced fellowship!" Mr. Wilberforce has the pride of being
familiar with the great; the vanity of being popular; the conceit of an
approving conscience. He is coy in his approaches to power; his public
spirit is, in a manner, _under the rose_. He thus reaps the credit
of independence, without the obloquy; and secures the advantages of
servility, without incurring any obligations. He has two strings to his
bow:--he by no means neglects his worldly interests, while he expects
a bright reversion in the skies. Mr. Wilberforce is far from being
a hypocrite; but he is, we think, as fine a specimen of _moral
equivocation_ as can well be conceived. A hypocrite is one who is the
very reverse of, or who despises the character he pretends to be: Mr.
Wilberforce would be all that he pretends to be, and he is it in fact,
as far as words, plausible theories, good inclinations, and easy
services go, but not in heart and soul, or so as to give up the
appearance of any one of his pretensions to preserve the reality of any
other. He carefully chooses his ground to fight the battles of
loyalty, religion, and humanity, and it is such as is always safe and
advantageous to himself! This is perhaps hardly fair, and it is of
dangerous or doubtful tendency. Lord Eldon, for instance, is known to be
a thorough-paced ministerialist: his opinion is only that of his party.
But Mr. Wilberforce is not a party-man. He is the more looked up to
on this account, but not with sufficient reason. By tampering with
different temptations and personal projects, he has all the air of the
most perfect independence, and gains a character for impartiality and
candour, when he is only striking a balance in his mind between the
_éclat_ of differing from a Minister on some 'vantage ground, and the
risk or odium that may attend it. He carries all the weight of his
artificial popularity over to the Government on vital points and
hard-run questions; while they, in return, lend him a little of the
gilding of court-favour to set off his disinterested philanthropy and
tramontane enthusiasm. As a leader or a follower, he makes an odd jumble
of interests. By virtue of religious sympathy, he has brought the Saints
over to the side of the abolition of Negro slavery. This his adversaries
think hard and stealing a march upon them. What have the SAINTS to do
with freedom or reform of any kind?--Mr. Wilberforce's style of
speaking is not quite _parliamentary_, it is halfway between that and
_evangelical_. He is altogether a _double-entendre:_ the very tone of
his voice is a _double-entendre._ It winds, and undulates, and glides
up and down on texts of Scripture, and scraps from Paley, and trite
sophistry, and pathetic appeals to his hearers in a faltering,
inprogressive, sidelong way, like those birds of weak wing, that are
borne from their strait-forward course
"By every little breath that under heaven is blown."
Something of this fluctuating, time-serving principle was visible even
in the great question of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. He was, at
one time, half inclined to surrender it into Mr. Pitt's dilatory hands,
and seemed to think the gloss of novelty was gone from it, and the gaudy
colouring of popularity sunk into the _sable_ ground from which it rose!
It was, however, persisted in and carried to a triumphant conclusion.
Mr. Wilberforce said too little on this occasion of one, compared with
whom he was but the frontispiece to that great chapter in the history of
the world--the mask, the varnishing, and painting--the man that effected
it by Herculean labours of body, and equally gigantic labours of mind
was Clarkson, the true Apostle of human Redemption on that occasion, and
who, it is remarkable, resembles in his person and lineaments more than
one of the Apostles in the _Cartoons_ of Raphael. He deserves to be
added to the Twelve![A]
[Footnote A: After all, the best as well as most amusing comment on the
character just described was that made by Sheridan, who being picked up
in no very creditable plight by the watch, and asked rather roughly who
he was, made answer--"I am Mr. Wilberforce!" The guardians of the night
conducted him home with all the honours due to Grace and Nature.]
* * * * *
MR. SOUTHEY.
Mr. Southey, as we formerly remember to have seen him, had a hectic
flush upon his cheek, a roving fire in his eye, a falcon glance, a look
at once aspiring and dejected--it was the look that had been impressed
upon his face by the events that marked the outset of his life, it was
the dawn of Liberty that still tinged his cheek, a smile betwixt hope
and sadness that still played upon his quivering lip. Mr. Southey's mind
is essentially sanguine, even to over-weeningness. It is prophetic of
good; it cordially embraces it; it casts a longing, lingering look after
it, even when it is gone for ever. He cannot bear to give up the thought
of happiness, his confidence in his fellow-man, when all else despair.
It is the very element, "where he must live or have no life at all."
While he supposed it possible that a better form of society could be
introduced than any that had hitherto existed, while the light of the
French Revolution beamed into his soul (and long after, it was seen
reflected on his brow, like the light of setting suns on the peak of
some high mountain, or lonely range of clouds, floating in purer ether!)
while he had this hope, this faith in man left, he cherished it with
child-like simplicity, he clung to it with the fondness of a lover, he
was an enthusiast, a fanatic, a leveller; he stuck at nothing that
he thought would banish all pain and misery from the world--in his
impatience of the smallest error or injustice, he would have sacrificed
himself and the existing generation (a holocaust) to his devotion to the
right cause. But when he once believed after many staggering doubts and
painful struggles, that this was no longer possible, when his chimeras
and golden dreams of human perfectibility vanished from him, he turned
suddenly round, and maintained that "whatever _is_, is right." Mr.
Southey has not fortitude of mind, has not patience to think that evil
is inseparable from the nature of things. His irritable sense rejects
the alternative altogether, as a weak stomach rejects the food that
is distasteful to it. He hopes on against hope, he believes in all
unbelief. He must either repose on actual or on imaginary good. He
missed his way in _Utopia_, he has found it at Old Sarum--
"His generous _ardour_ no cold medium knows:"
his eagerness admits of no doubt or delay. He is ever in extremes, and
ever in the wrong!
The reason is, that not truth, but self-opinion is the ruling principle
of Mr. Southey's mind. The charm of novelty, the applause of the
multitude, the sanction of power, the venerableness of antiquity, pique,
resentment, the spirit of contradiction have a good deal to do with his
preferences. His inquiries are partial and hasty: his conclusions raw
and unconcocted, and with a considerable infusion of whim and humour and
a monkish spleen. His opinions are like certain wines, warm and generous
when new; but they will not keep, and soon turn flat or sour, for want
of a stronger spirit of the understanding to give a body to them. He
wooed Liberty as a youthful lover, but it was perhaps more as a mistress
than a bride; and he has since wedded with an elderly and not very
reputable lady, called Legitimacy. _A wilful man_, according to the
Scotch proverb, _must have his way_. If it were the cause to which he
was sincerely attached, he would adhere to it through good report and
evil report; but it is himself to whom he does homage, and would have
others do so; and he therefore changes sides, rather than submit to
apparent defeat or temporary mortification. Abstract principle has
no rule but the understood distinction between right and wrong; the
indulgence of vanity, of caprice, or prejudice is regulated by the
convenience or bias of the moment. The temperament of our politician's
mind is poetical, not philosophical. He is more the creature of impulse,
than he is of reflection. He invents the unreal, he embellishes the
false with the glosses of fancy, but pays little attention to "the words
of truth and soberness." His impressions are accidental, immediate,
personal, instead of being permanent and universal. Of all mortals he is
surely the most impatient of contradiction, even when he has completely
turned the tables on himself. Is not this very inconsistency the reason?
Is he not tenacious of his opinions, in proportion as they are brittle
and hastily formed? Is he not jealous of the grounds of his belief,
because he fears they will not bear inspection, or is conscious he
has shifted them? Does he not confine others to the strict line of
orthodoxy, because he has himself taken every liberty? Is he not afraid
to look to the right or the left, lest he should see the ghosts of his
former extravagances staring him in the face? Does he not refuse to
tolerate the smallest shade of difference in others, because he feels
that he wants the utmost latitude of construction for differing so
widely from himself? Is he not captious, dogmatical, petulant in
delivering his sentiments, according as he has been inconsistent,
rash, and fanciful in adopting them? He maintains that there can be no
possible ground for differing from him, because he looks only at his
own side of the question! He sets up his own favourite notions as the
standard of reason and honesty, because he has changed from one extreme
to another! He treats his opponents with contempt, because he is himself
afraid of meeting with disrespect! He says that "a Reformer is a worse
character than a house-breaker," in order to stifle the recollection
that he himself once was one!