The grand scramble for place was thus vividly painted by Mr. Sharp some
eighty years since: “The young people of this country, in every rank,
from a peer’s son to a street-sweeper’s, are drawn aside from a
praiseworthy exertion in honest callings, by having their eyes directed
towards the public treasury. The rewards of persevering industry are too
slow for them, too small, and too insipid. They fondly trust to the
great lottery, although the wheel contains so many blanks and so few
prizes; hoping that their ticket may be drawn a place, a pension, or a
contract; a living, or a stall; a ship, or a regiment; a seat on the
bench, or the great seal.
“It is, indeed, most humiliating to witness the indecent scramble that
is always going on for these prizes, the highest born and best educated
rolling in the dirt to pick them up, just as the lowest of the mob do
for the shillings or the pence thrown among them by a successful
candidate at a contested election.”
In this rush there must always be a host of genius and talent neglected
or overlooked; and this from various causes, some of which have been
thus sketched by a living novelist, accustomed to see far beyond most of
his literary brethren:
In all men who have devoted themselves to any study, or any art,
with sufficient pains to attain a certain degree of excellence,
there must be a fund of energy immeasurably above that of the
ordinary herd. Usually, this energy is concentred on the objects of
their professional ambition, and leaves them, therefore, apathetic
to the other pursuits of men. But where those objects are denied,
where the stream has not its legitimate vent, the energy, irritated
and aroused, possesses the whole being; and if not wasted on
desultory schemes, or if not purified by conscience and principle,
becomes a dangerous and destructive element in the social system,
through which it wanders in riot and disorder. Hence, in all wise
monarchies—nay, in all well-constituted states—the peculiar care
with which channels are opened for every art and every science;
hence the honour paid to their cultivators by subtle and thoughtful
statesmen, who, perhaps, for themselves, see nothing in a picture
but coloured canvas—nothing in a problem but an ingenious puzzle. No
state is ever more in danger than when the talent which should be
consecrated to peace has no occupation but political intrigue or
personal advancement. Talent unhonoured is talent at war with
men.[93]
Reliance upon family influence with persons in high stations is but a
poor dependence.[94] We happen to know a large family of sons unprovided
for, who have been calculating for years upon the influence of a
maid-of-honour with her relative, the Premier. But ministers who have
the good things to give away are often so pressed by their political
supporters, that their own connexions are made to yield. The late Lord
Melbourne was proverbially a good-natured man; but in a case of the
above kind he acted with a sense of duty more stringent than might have
been expected. It appears that Lord John Russell had applied to Lord
Melbourne for some provision for one of the sons of the poet Moore; and
here is the Premier’s reply:
“My dear John,—I return you Moore’s letter. I shall be ready to do
what you like about it when we have the means. I think whatever is
done should be done for Moore himself. This is more distinct,
direct, and intelligible. Making a small provision for young men is
hardly justifiable; and it is of all things the most prejudicial to
themselves. They think what they have much larger than it really is;
and they make no exertion. The young should never hear any language
but this: ‘You have your own way to make, and it depends upon your
own exertions whether you starve or not.’—Believe me,
&c. MELBOURNE.”[95]
The foundation of the Sidmouth Peerage is traceable to one of those
fortunate turns which have much to do with worldly success. It is
related that while Lord Chatham was residing at Hayes, in Kent, his
first coachman being taken ill, the postillion was sent for the family
doctor; but not finding him, the messenger returned, bringing with him
Mr. Addington, then a practitioner in the place, who, by permission of
Lord Chatham, saw the coachman, and reported his ailment. His lordship
was so pleased with Mr. Addington, that he employed him as apothecary
for the servants, and then for himself; and, Lady Hester Stanhope tells
us, “finding he spoke good sense on medicine, and then on politics, he
at last made him his physician.” Dr. Addington subsequently practised in
the metropolis, then retired to Reading, and there married; and in 1757
was born his eldest son, Henry Addington, who was educated at Winchester
and Oxford, and called to the Bar in 1784. Through his father’s
connexion with the family of Lord Chatham, an intimacy had grown up
between young Addington and William Pitt when they were boys. Pitt was
now First Minister of the Crown, and through his influence Addington
entered upon his long political career, and became in very few years
Prime Minister of England: his administration was brief; but he was
raised to the Peerage in 1805, and held various offices until 1824, when
he retired. Lord Sidmouth was an unpopular minister, and not a man of
striking talent; but his aptitude for official business was great. He
survived until 1844, when he was succeeded by his eldest son, the
present Viscount, in holy orders.
The origin of Lord Liverpool is scarcely less striking. The father of
this statesman was Mr. Robert Jenkinson, a man of no patrimony, but who,
by his application and aptitude for State affairs, gave lustre to his
name. In 1778 he succeeded Lord Barrington as Secretary-at-War: he rose
at last to be Earl of Liverpool; and his son, the second Earl, to be
fifteen years First Lord of the Treasury.
Another instance of successful integrity in Official Life is presented
by the Right Hon. George Rose, one of the most valuable public servants
which this country has known,—“an able, clear-headed, straightforward
man of business, whose steady industry, devoted for years to the service
of the State, won for him, and most deservedly, not only political
importance, but the personal regard of his sovereign, and indeed of all
who knew him.”[96] He was, in early life, purser of a ship-of-war, where
his abilities became known to the Earl of Sandwich, by whom he was
recommended to Lord North, who gave him an appointment in the Treasury:
he was a man of frugal habits, and often ate his mutton-chop at the Cat
and Bagpipes tavern, at the corner of Downing-street; _pari passu_, he
was one of the early encouragers of Savings-Banks. He was the sincere
and devoted friend of Pitt, whose personal character and administrative
zeal are nobly vindicated by the recent publication of Mr. Rose’s
Diaries and Correspondence. In 1777 he superintended the publication of
the Journals of the House of Lords, in thirty-one folio volumes, from
which time he rarely failed to be employed in a public capacity by
successive administrations. In the intervals of his heavy official
duties, he was enabled to write several works upon political and
administrative questions of importance.
John Barrow, born in a lowly cottage at Dragley Beck, in Lancashire,
rose, by his own earnest industry, to the responsible post of a
Secretary to the Admiralty, for forty years, under thirteen
administrations. When sixteen years old, he made a voyage in a whaler to
Greenland; he next taught mathematics in a school at Greenwich. He
attended Lord Macartney in his celebrated embassy to China, and took
charge of the philosophical instruments carried out as presents to the
Emperor of China; of this journey Barrow subsequently published an
account in a quarto volume. He was next appointed Secretary to Lord
Macartney, Governor of the Cape of Good Hope; and during his leisure Mr.
Barrow, in various journeys, collected materials for a volume of
_Travels in South Africa_, which he published on his return to England.
Throughout his Admiralty secretaryship he was indefatigable in promoting
the progress of geographical or scientific knowledge, especially in
recommending to the governments under which he served various voyages to
the Arctic Regions. He was a man of untiring industry, and devoted his
leisure to literature and scientific pursuits: he published various
works; contributed 195 articles to the _Quarterly Review_; and at the
age of eighty-three (one year before his death) wrote his Autobiography.
His public services had been rewarded by a baronetcy in 1835; and
shortly after his death, in 1848, upon the lofty Hill of Hoad, near to
the humble cottage in which Sir John Barrow was born, there was erected,
by public subscription, to his memory, a sea-mark tower, as a record of
what noble distinction may be earned in this happy country by
well-directed energy and strictly moral worth.
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Footnote 93:
Sir E. L. Bulwer Lytton’s _Zanoni_.
Footnote 94:
Family reputation is generally considered but an insecure stock to
begin the world with: nevertheless there is much truth in the
experience of Lord Mahon (now Earl Stanhope), who says: “In public
life I have seen full as many men promoted for their father’s talents
as for their own.”
Footnote 95:
This letter is quoted in Mr. Smiles’s _Self-Help_.
Footnote 96:
_Notes and Queries._
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