(_Edinburgh Review_,) June, 1827.
We {405}ought to apologize to our readers for prefixing to this article
the name of such a publication. The two numbers which lie on our table
contain nothing which could be endured, even at a dinner of the Pitt
Club, unless, as the newspapers express it, the hilarity had been
continued to a very late hour. We have met, we confess, with nobody
who has ever seen them; and, should our account excite any curiosity
respecting them, we fear that an application to the booksellers will
already be too late. Some tidings of them may perhaps be obtained from
the trunk-makers. In order to console our readers, however, under this
disappointment, we will venture to assure them, that the only subject on
which the reasonings of these Antijacobin Reviewers throw any light,
is one in which we take very little interest--the state of their own
understandings; and that the only feeling which their pathetic appeals
have excited in us, is that of deep regret for our four shillings, which
are gone and will return no more.
It is not a very cleanly, or a very agreeable task, to rake up from the
kennels of oblivion the remains of drowned abortions, which have never
opened their eyes on the day, or even been heard to whimper, but have
been at once transferred from the filth in which they were littered, to
the filth with which they are to rot. But unhappily we have no choice.
Bad as this work is, it is quite as good as any which has appeared
against the present administration. We have looked everywhere, without
being able to find any antagonist who can possibly be as much ashamed of
defeat as we shall be of victory.
(1) _The New Antijacobin Review_.--Nos. I. and II. 8vo.
London, 1827.
The {406}manner in which the influence of the press has, at this crisis,
been exercised, is indeed, very remarkable. All the talent has been on
one side. With an unanimity which, as Lord Londonderry wisely supposes,
can be ascribed only to a dexterous use of the secret-service money, the
able and respectable journals of the metropolis have all supported the
new government. It has been attacked, on the other hand, by writers who
make every cause which they espouse despicable or odious,--by one paper
which owes all its notoriety to its reports of the slang uttered by
drunken lads who are brought to Bow Street for breaking windows--by
another, which barely contrives to subsist on intelligence from butlers,
and advertisements from perfumers. With these are joined all the
scribblers who rest their claim to orthodoxy and loyalty on the
perfection to which they have carried the arts of ribaldry and slander.
What part these gentlemen would take in the present contest, seemed
at first doubtful. We feared, for a moment, that their servility might
overpower their malignity, and that they would be even more inclined to
flatter the powerful than to calumniate the innocent. It turn-out that
we were mistaken; and we are most thankful for it. They have been kind
enough to spare us the discredit of their alliance. We know not how we
should have borne to be of the same party with them. It is bad enough,
God knows, to be of the same species.
The writers of the book before us, who are also, we believe, the great
majority of its readers, can scarcely be said to belong to this class.
They rather resemble those snakes with which Indian jugglers perform
so many curious tricks: The bags of venom are left, but the teeth are
extracted. That they might omit nothing tending to make them ridiculous.
they have adopted a title on which no judicious writer would have
ventured; and challenged comparison with one of the most ingenious and
amusing volumes in our language. Whether they have assumed this name on
the principle which influenced Mr. Shandy in christening his children,
or from a whim similar to that which induced the proprietors of the most
frightful Hottentot that ever lived, to give her the name of Venus,
we shall not pretend to decide; but we would seriously advise them
to consider, whether it is for their interest, that people should be
reminded of the celebrated imitations of Darwin and Kotzebue, while they
are reading {407}such parodies on the Bible as the following:--“In those
days, a strange person shall appear in the land, and he shall cry to the
people. Behold, I am possessed by the Demon of Ultra-Liberalism; I have
received the gift of incoherence; I am a political philosopher, and a
professor of paradoxes.”
We would also, with great respect, ask the gentleman who has lampooned
Mr. Canning in such Drydenian couplets as this:
“When he said if they would but let him in,
He would never try to turn them out again,”
whether his performance gains much by being compared with New Morality?
and, indeed, whether such satire as this is likely to make anybody laugh
but himself, or to make anybody wince but his publisher?
But we must take leave of the _New Antijacobin Review_; and we do so,
hoping that we have secured the gratitude of its conductors. We once
heard a schoolboy relate, with evident satisfaction and pride, that he
had been horsewhipped by a Duke: we trust that our present condescension
will be as highly appreciated.
But it is not for the purpose of making a scarecrow of a ridiculous
publication, that we address our readers at the present important
crisis. We are convinced, that the cause of the present Ministers is
the cause of liberty, the cause of toleration, the cause of political
science,--the cause of the people, who are entitled to expect from
their wisdom and liberality many judicious reforms,--the cause of the
aristocracy, who, unless those reforms be adopted, must inevitably be
the victims of a violent and desolating revolution. We are convinced,
that the government of the country was never intrusted to men who more
thoroughly understood its interest, or were more sincerely disposed to
promote it--to men who, in forming their arrangements, thought so much
of what they could _do_, and so little of what they could _get_. On
the other side, we see a party which, for ignorance, intemperance, and
inconsistency, has no parallel in our annals,--which, as an Opposition,
we really think, is a scandal to the nation, and, as a Ministry, would
speedily be its ruin. Under these circumstances, we think it our duty to
give our best support to those with whose power are inseparably bound
up all the dearest interests of the community,--the freedom {408}of
worship, of discussion, and of trade,--our honour abroad, and our
tranquillity at home.
In undertaking the defence of the Ministers, we feel ourselves
enbarrassed by one difficulty: we are unable to comprehend distinctly of
what they are accused. A statement of facts may be contradicted; but the
gentlemen of the Opposition do not deal in statements. Reasonings may
be refuted; but the gentlemen of the Opposition do not reason. There is
something impassive and elastic about their dulness, on which all the
weapons of controversy are thrown away. It makes no resistance, and
receives no impression. To argue with it, is like stabbing the water,
or cudgelling a woolpack. Buonaparte is said to have remarked, that the
English soldiers at Waterloo did not know when they were beaten. The
Duke of Wellington, equally fortunate in polities and in war, has
the rare felicity of being supported a second time by a force of
this description,--men whose desperate hardihood in argument sets all
assailants at defiance,--who fight on, though borne down on every side
by overwhelming proofs, rush enthusiastically into the mouth of an
absurdity, or stake themselves with cool intrepidity on the horn of a
dilemma. We doubt whether this unconquerable pertinacity be quite as
honourable in debate as in battle; but we are sure, that it is a very
difficult task for persons trained in the old school of logical tactics
to contend with antagonists who possess such a quality.
The species of argument in which the members of the Opposition appear
chiefly to excel, is that of which the Marquis, in the _Critique de
l’Ecole des Femmes_, showed himself so great a master:--
“Tarte, à la creme--morbleu, tarte à la creme!”
“Hé bien, que veux tu dire, tarte à la erême?”
“Parbleu, tarte à la crème, chevalier!”
“Mais encore?”
“Tarte à la crème!”
“Dî-nous un peu tes raisons.”
“Tarte à la crème!”
“Mais il faut expliquer ta pensée, ce me semble.”
“Tarte à la crème, Madame.”
“Que trouvez-vouz là à redire?”
“Moi, rien;--tarte à la crème!” With equal taste and judgment,
the writers and speakers of the Opposition repeat their favourite
phrases,--“deserted principles,” “unnatural coalition,” “base love of
office.” They have not, we must allow, been unfortunate in their choice
of a topic. The English are but too much accustomed to consider
every public virtue as comprised in consistency; and {409}the name of
coalition has to many ears a startling and ominous sound. Of all the
charges brought, against the Ministry, this alone, as far as we can
discover, has any meaning; and even to this we can allow no force.
To condemn coalitions in the abstract, is manifestly absurd: Since in a
popular government, no good can be done without concert, and no
concert can be obtained without compromise. Those who will not stoop to
compliances which the condition of human nature renders necessary, are
fitter to be hermits than to be statesmen. Their virtue, like gold which
is too refined to be coined, must be alloyed before it can be of any
use in the commerce of society. But most peculiarly inconsistent and
unreasonable is the conduct of those who, while they profess strong
Party-feelings, yet entertain a superstitious aversion to Coalitions.
Every argument which can be urged against coalitions, as such, is also
an argument against party connexions. Every argument by which party
connexions can be defended, is a defence of coalitions. What coalitions
are to parties, parties are to individuals. The members of a party,
in order to promote some great common object, consent to wave all
subordinate considerations:--That they may co-operate with more effect
where they agree, they contrive, by reciprocal concessions, to preserve
the semblance of unanimity, even where they differ. Men are not thought
unprincipled for acting thus; because it is evident that without such
mutual sacrifices of individual opinions, no government can be formed,
nor any important measures carried, in a world of which the inhabitants
resemble each other so little, and depend on each other so much,--in
which there are as many varieties of mind as of countenance, yet in
which great effects can be produced only by combined exertions. We must
extend the same indulgence to a coalition between parties. If they agree
on every important practical question, if they differ only about objects
which are either insignificant or unattainable, no party man can, on his
own principles, blame them for uniting. These doctrines, like all other
doctrines, may be pushed to extremes by the injudicious, or employed
by the designing as a pretext for profligacy. But that they are not in
themselves unreasonable or pernicious, the whole history of our country
proves.
The Revolution itself was the fruit of a coalition between parties,
{410}which had attacked each other with a fury unknown in later times.
In the preceding generation their hostility had covered England with
blood and mourning. They had subsequently exchanged the sword for the
axe: But their enmity was not the less deadly because it was disguised
by the forms of justice. By popular clamour, by infamous testimony, by
perverted law, they had shed innocent and noble blood like water.
Yet all their animosities were forgotten in the sense of their common
danger. Whigs and Tories signed the same associations. Bishops and
field-preachers thundered out the same exhortations. The doctors of
Oxford and the goldsmiths of London sent in their plate with equal zeal.
The administration which, in the reign of Queen Anne, defended Holland,
rescued Germany, conquered Flanders, dismembered the monarchy of Spain,
shook the throne of France, vindicated the independence of Europe, and
established the empire of the sea, was formed by a junction between men
who had many political contests and many personal injuries to forget.
Somers had been a member of the ministry which had sent Marlborough to
the Tower. Marlborough had assisted in harassing Somers by a vexatious
impeachment. But would these great men have acted wisely or honourably
if, on such grounds, they had refused to serve their country in concert?
The Cabinet which conducted the seven years’ war with such distinguished
ability and success, was composed of members who had a short time before
been leaders of opposite parties. The Union between Fox and North is,
we own, condemned by that argument which it will never be possible
to answer in a manner satisfactory to the great body of mankind,--the
argument from the event. But we should feel some surprise at the dislike
which some zealous Pittites affect to entertain for coalitions, did we
not know that a Pittite means, in the phraseology of the present day, a
person who differs from Mr. Pitt on every subject of importance. There
are, indeed, two Pitts,--the real and the imaginary,--the Pitt of
history, a Parliamentary reformer, an enemy of the Test and Corporation
Acts, an advocate of Catholic Emancipation and of free trade,--and the
canonized Pitt of the legend,--as unlike to his namesake as Virgil the
magician to Virgil the poet, or St. James the slayer of Moors to St.
James the fisherman. What may have been the opinions of that unreal
being whose birthday {411}is celebrated by libations to Protestant
Ascendency, on the subject, of coalitions, we leave it to his veracious
hagiographers, Lord Eldon and Lord Westmoreland, to determine. The
sentiments of the real Mr. Pitt may be easily ascertained from
his conduct. At the time of the revolutionary war he admitted to
participation in his power those who had formerly been his most
determined enemies. In 1804 he connected himself with Mr. Fox, and,
on his return to office, attempted to procure a high situation in the
government for his new ally. One more instance we will mention, which
has little weight with us, but which ought to have much weight with
our opponents. They talk of Mr. Pitt;--but the real object of their
adoration is unquestionably the late Mr. Percival, a gentleman whose
acknowledged private virtues were but a poor compensation to his country
for the narrowness and feebleness of his policy. In 1809 that minister
offered to serve, not only _with_ Lord Grenville and Earl Grey, but even
_under_ them. No approximation of feeling between the members of the
government and their opponents had then taken place: there had not even
been the slightest remission of hostilities. On no question of
foreign or domestic policy were the two parties agreed. Yet under such
circumstances was this proposition made. It was, as might have been
anticipated, rejected by the Whigs and derided by the country. But the
recollection of it ought certainly to prevent those who concurred in
it, and their devoted followers, from talking of the baseness and
selfishness of coalitions.
These general reasonings, it may be said, are superfluous. It is not to
coalitions in the abstract, but to the present coalition in particular,
that objection is made. We answer, that an attack on the present
coalition can only be maintained by succeeding in the most signal way in
an attack on coalitions in the abstract. For never has the world seen,
and never is it likely to see, a junction between parties agreeing on
so many points, and differing on so few. The Whigs and the supporters of
Mr. Canning were united in principle. They were separated only by names,
by badges, and by recollections. Opposition, on such grounds as these,
would have been disgraceful to English statesmen. It would have been
as unreasonable and as profligate as the disputes of the blue and green
factions in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. {412}One man admires Mr.
Pitt, and another Mr. Fox. Are they therefore never to act together?
Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox were themselves willing to coalesce while they were
alive; and it would therefore be strange, if, after they have been lying
for twenty years in Westminster Abbey, their names should keep parties
asunder. One man approves of the revolutionary war. Another thinks it
unjust and impolitic. But the war is over. It is now merely a matter
of historical controversy. And the statesman who should require his
colleagues to adopt his confession of faith respecting it, would act
as madly as Don Quixote when he went to blows with Cardenio about the
chastity of Queen Madasima. On these points, and on many such points as
these, our new Ministers, no doubt, hold different opinions. They may
also, for aught we know, hold different opinions about the title of
Perkin Warbeck, and the genuineness of the [Greek] But we shall hardly,
on such grounds as these, pronounce their union a sacrifice of principle
to place.
It is, in short, of very little importance whether the parties which
have lately united entertain the same sentiments respecting things
which have been done and cannot be undone. It is of as little importance
whether they have adopted the same speculative notions on questions
which could not at present be brought forward with the slightest chance
of success, and which, in all probability, they will never be required
to discuss. The real questions are these: Do they differ as to the
policy which present circumstances require? Or is any great cause,
which they may have heretofore espoused, placed in a more unfavourable
situation by their junction?
That this is the ease, no person has even attempted to prove. Bold
assertions have indeed been made by a class of writers, who seem to
think that their readers are as completely destitute of memory as they
themselves are of shame. For the last two years they have been abusing
Mr. Canning for adopting the principles of the Whigs; and they now
claim that, in joining Mr. Canning, the Whigs have abandoned all their
principles! “The Whigs,” said one of their writers, but a few months
ago, “are exercising more real power by means of the present Ministers
than if they were themselves in office.”
“The Ministers,” said another, “are no longer Tories. What they call
conciliation is mere Whiggism.” {413}A third observed that the jest of
Mr. Canning about Dennis and his thunder had lost all its point, and
that it was a lamentable truth, that all the late measures of the
government seemed to have been dictated by the Whigs. Yet these very
authors have now the effrontery to assert that the Whigs could not
possibly support Mr. Canning without renouncing every opinion which they
had formerly professed.
We confidently affirm, on the other hand, that no principle whatever
has been sacrificed. With respect to our foreign relations and our
commercial policy, the two parties have for years been perfectly agreed.
On the Catholic question the views of the Whigs are the same with those
of a great majority of their new colleagues. It is true that, in an
illustrious assembly, which was formerly suspected of great dulness and
great decorum, and which has of late effectually redeemed itself from
one half of the reproach, the conduct of the Whigs towards the Catholics
has been represented in a very unfavourable light. The arguments
employed against them belong, we suppose, to a kind of logic which the
privileged orders alone are qualified to use, and which, with their
other constitutional distinctions, we earnestly pray that they may long
keep to themselves. An ingenious member of this assembly is said to have
observed, that the Protestant alarmists were bound to oppose the new
Ministers as friends to the Catholic cause, and that the Catholics ought
to oppose them as traitors to the same cause. He reminded the former of
the infinite danger of trusting power to a Cabinet composed principally
of persons favourable to emancipation: and, at the same time, pointed
the indignation of the latter against the perfidy of the pretended
friends who had not stipulated that emancipation should be made a
ministerial measure! We cannot sufficiently admire the exquisite
dexterity of an assailant who, in the same breath, blames the same
people for doing, and for _not_ doing the same thing. To ordinary
plebeian understandings we should think it undeniable that the Catholic
question must be now--either in the same situation in which it was
before the late change; or it must have lost; or it must have gained. If
it have gained, the Whigs are justified; if it have lost, the enemies
of the claims ought zealously to support the new government; if it be
exactly where it was before, no person who acted with Lord Liverpool
can, on this ground, consistently oppose Mr. Canning.
In {414}this view, indeed, the cause of the Whigs is the cause of the
ministers who have seceded from the Cabinet. Both parties have put in
the same plea; and both must be acquitted or condemned together. If it
be allowed that the elevation of Mr. Canning was not an event favourable
to the Catholic cause, the Whigs will certainly stand convicted of
inconsistency. But at the same time, the only argument by which the
ex-Ministers have attempted to vindicate their secession, must fall to
the ground; and it will be difficult to consider that proceeding in any
other light than as a factious expedient to which they have resorted, in
order to embarrass a colleague whom they envied. If, on the other hand,
the effect of the late change were such, that it became the duty of
those who objected to Catholic Emancipation, to decline all connexion
with the Ministry, it must surely have become, at the same time, the
duty of the friends of Emancipation to support the Ministry. Those who
take the one ground, when their object is to vindicate the seceders, and
the other, when their object is to blacken the Whigs, who, in the same
speech, do not scruple to represent the Catholic cause as triumphant and
as hopeless, may, we fear, draw down some ridicule on themselves, but
will hardly convince the country. But why did not the Whigs stipulate
that some proposition for the relief of the Catholics should be
immediately brought forward, and supported by the whole influence of
the Administration? We answer, simply because they could not obtain
such conditions, and because, by insisting upon them, they would have
irreparably injured those whom they meant to serve, and have thrown the
government into the hands of men who would have employed all its power
and patronage to support a system which, we do not scruple to say, is
the shame of England, and the curse of Ireland. By the course which they
have taken, they have insured to the sister kingdom every alleviation
which its calamities can receive from the lenient administration of an
oppressive system. Under their government, it will at least be no man’s
interest to espouse the side of bigotry. Truth will have a fair chance
against prejudice. And whenever the dislike with which the majority of
the English people regard the Catholic claims shall have been overcome
by discussion, no other obstacle will remain to be surmounted.
The friends of the Catholics have, indeed, too long kept out {415}of
sight the real difficulty which impedes the progress of all measures
for their relief. There has been a nervous reluctance--perhaps a
natural unwillingness, to approach this subject. Yet it is of the utmost
importance that it should at last be fully understood. The difficulty,
we believe, is neither with the King nor with the Cabinet,--neither with
the Commons nor with the Lords. It is with the People of England;
and not with the corrupt, not with the servile, not with the rude and
uneducated, not with the dissolute and turbulent, but with the great
body of the middling orders;--of those who live in comfort, and have
received some instruction. Of the higher classes, the decided majority
is, beyond all dispute, with the Catholics. The lower classes care
nothing at all about the question. It is among those whose influence is
generally exerted for the most salutary purposes,--among those from
whom liberal statesmen have, in general, received the strongest
support,--among those who feel the deepest detestation of oppression and
corruption, that erroneous opinions on this subject are most frequent.
A faction with which they have no other feeling in common, has, on
this question, repeatedly made them its tools, and has diverted their
attention more than once from its own folly and profligacy, by raising
the cry of No Popery. They have espoused their opinions, not from want
of honesty, not from want of sense, but simply from want of information
and reflection. They think as the most enlightened men in England
thought seventy or eighty years ago. Pulteney and Pelham would no
more have given political power to Papists than to ourang-outangs. A
proposition for mitigating the severity of the penal laws would, in
their time, have been received with suspicion. The full discussion which
the subject has since undergone, has produced a great change. Among
intelligent men in that rank of life from which our ministers and
the members of our legislature are selected, the feeling in favour
of concession is strong and general. But, unfortunately, sufficient
attention has not been paid to a lower, but most influential and
respectable class. The friends of the Catholic claims, content with
numbering in their ranks all the most distinguished statesmen of two
generations, proud of lists of minorities and majorities adorned
by every name which commands the respect of the country, have not
sufficiently excited themselves to {416}combat popular prejudices.
Pamphlets against Emancipation are circulated, and no answers appear.
Sermons are preached against it, and no pains are taken to obliterate
the impression. The rector carries a petition round to every
shop-keeper and every farmer in his parish, talks of Smithfield and
the inquisition, Bishop Bonner and Judge Jeffries. No person takes the
trouble to canvass on the other side. At an election, the candidate who
is favourable to the Catholic claims, is almost always content to stand
on the defensive, he shrinks from the odium of a bold avowal. While his
antagonist asserts and reviles, he palliates, evades, and distinguishes.
he is unwilling to give a pledge: he has not made up his mind: he hopes
that adequate securities for the Church may be obtained: he will wait
to see how the Catholic States of South America behave themselves! And
thus, as fast as he can, he gets away from the obnoxious subject, to
retrenchment, reform, or negro slavery. If such a man succeeds, his vote
does not benefit the Catholics half so much as his shuffling injures
them. How can the people understand the question, when those whose
business it is to enlighten them, will not state it to them plainly?
Is it strange that they should dislike a cause of which almost all its
advocates seem to be ashamed? If, at the late election, all our public
men who are favourable to Emancipation had dared to speak out, had
introduced the subject of their own accord, and discussed it day after
day, they might have lost a few votes; they might have been compelled
to face a few dead cats; but they would have put down the prejudice
effectually. Five or six friends of the claims might have been unseated,
but the claims would have been carried.
The popular aversion to them is an honest aversion; according to the
measure of knowledge which the people possess, it is a just aversion.
It has been reasoned down wherever the experiment has been fearlessly
tried. It may be reasoned down everywhere. The war should be carried
on in every quarter. No misrepresentation should be suffered to pass
unrefuted. When a silly letter from Philo-Melancthon, or Anti-Doyle,
about the Coronation Oath, or divided allegiance, makes its appearance
in the corner of a provincial newspaper, it will not do merely to
say, “What stuff!” We must remember that such statements constantly
reiterated, and seldom answered, will assuredly be believed.
Plain, {417}spirited, moderate treatises on the subject, should find
their way into every cottage;--not such rancorous nonsense as that for
which the Catholics formerly contracted with the fiercest and basest
libeller of the age, the apostate politician, the fraudulent debtor, the
ungrateful friend, whom England has twice spewed out to America; whom
America, though far from squeamish, has twice vomited back to England.
They will not, they may be assured, serve their cause by pouring forth
unmeasured abuse on men whose memory is justly dear to the hearts of
a great people;--men mighty even in their weaknesses, and wise even in
their fanaticism;--the goodly fellowship of our reformers,--the noble
army of our martyrs. Their scandal about Queen Elizabeth, and their
wood-cuts of the devil whispering in the ear of John Fox, will produce
nothing but disgust. They must conduct the controversy with good sense
and good temper, and there cannot be the slightest doubt of the issue.
But of this they may be fully assured, that, while the general feeling
of the Nation remains unchanged, a Ministry which should stake its
existence on the success of their claims, would ruin itself, without
benefiting them.
The conduct of the Catholics, on the present occasion, deserves the
highest praise. They have shown that experience has at last taught them
to know their enemies from their friends. Indeed there are few scenes in
this tragicomic world of ours more amusing than that which the leaders
of the Opposition are now performing. The very men who have so long
obstructed Emancipation,---who have stirred up the public feeling in
England against Emancipation,--who, in fine, have just resigned their
offices, because a supporter of Emancipation was placed at the head of
the government,--are now weeping over the disappointed hopes of the
poor Papists, and execrating the perfidious Whigs who have taken office
without stipulating for their relief! The Catholics are, in the mean
time, in the highest spirits, congratulating themselves on the success
of their old friends, and laughing at the condoling visages of their new
champions.
Something not very dissimilar is taking place with respect to
Parliamentary Reform. The reformers are delighted with the new Ministry.
Their opponents are trying to convince them that they ought to be
dissatisfied with it. The Whigs, we suppose, ought to have insisted that
Reform should {418}be made a Ministerial measure. We will not at present
inquire whether they have, as a body, ever declared any decided opinion
on the subject. A much shorter answer will suffice, be Reform good or
bad, it is at present evidently unattainable. No man can, by coming into
office, or by going out of office, either effect it or prevent it. As we
are arguing with people who are more influenced by one name than by ten
reasons, we will remind them of the conduct pursued by Mr. Pitt with
regard to this question. At the very time when he publicly pledged
himself to use his whole power “_as a man and as a minister, honestly
and boldly_” to carry a proposition of Parliamentary Reform, he was
sitting in the same Cabinet with persons decidedly hostile to every
measure of the kind. At the present juncture, we own that we should
think it as absurd in any man to decline office for the sake of this
object, as it would have been in Sir Thomas More to refuse the Great
Seal, because he could not introduce all the institutions of Utopia into
England. The world would be in a wretched state indeed, if no person
were to accept of power, under a form of government which he thinks
susceptible of improvement. The effect of such scrupulosity would be,
that the best and wisest men would always be out of place; that all
authority would be committed to those who might be too stupid or too
selfish to see abuses in any system by which they could profit, and who,
by their follies and vices, would aggravate all the evils springing from
defective institutions.
But were we to admit the truth of every charge which personal enemies
or professional slanderers have brought against the present ministers
of the Crown, were we to admit that they had abandoned their principles,
that they had betrayed the Catholics and the Reformers, it would still
remain to be considered, whether we might not change for the worse. We
trust in God that there is no danger. We think that this country
never will, never can, be subjected to the rule of a party so weak, so
violent, so ostentatiously selfish, as that which is now in Opposition.
Has the Cabinet been formed by a coalition? How, let us ask, has the
Opposition been formed? Is it not composed of men who have, all their
lives, been thwarting and abusing each other, Jacobins, Whigs, Tories,
friends of Catholic Emancipation, enemies of Catholic Emancipation,--men
united only by their common {419}love of high rents, by their common
envy of superior abilities, by their common wish to depress the people
and to dictate to the throne? Did Lord Lansdowne at any time differ so
widely from Mr. Canning as Lord Redesdale from Lord Lauderdale--sometime
needle-maker, and candidate for the shrievalty of London? Are the
Ministers charged with deserting their opinions? and can we find no
instances of miraculous conversion on the left of the woolsack? What
was the influence which transformed the _Friend of the People_ into an
aristocrat, “resolved to stand or fall with his order?” Whence was
the sudden illumination, which at once disclosed to all the discarded
Ministers the imperfections of the Corn Bill? Let us suppose that the
Whigs had, as a party, brought forward some great measure before the
late changes, that they had carried it through the Commons, that they
had sent it up, with the fairest prospect of success, to the Lords, and
that they had then, in order to gratify Mr. Canning, consented, in the
face of all their previous declarations, to defeat it, what a tempest of
execration and derision would have burst upon them! Yet the conduct of
the ex-Ministers, according to the best lights we can obtain upon it,
was even more culpable than this. Not content with doing a bad thing,
they did it in the worst way. The bill which had been prepared by the
leader for whom they professed boundless veneration, which had been
brought in under their own sanction, which, as they positively declared,
had received their fullest consideration, which one of themselves had
undertaken to conduct through the House of Lords, that very bill they
contrived to defeat:--and, in the act of defeating it, they attempted
to lay upon the colleagues whom they had deserted, the burden of public
resentment which they alone had incurred. We would speak with indulgence
of men who had done their country noble service before--and of many of
whom, individually, it must be impossible to think otherwise than
with respect. But the scene lately passed in that great assembly has
afflicted and disgusted the country at large; and it is not the least
of its evil consequences, that it has lessened in the public estimation,
not only a body which ought always to be looked up to with respect, but
many individuals of whose motives we cannot bring ourselves to judge
unfavourably, and from whose high qualities we trust the country may
yet receive {420}both benefit and honour. Mr. Peel fortunately did not
expose himself quite as effectually as his associates; though we regret
that the tone he adopted was so undecided and equivocal. It was not for
him to pronounce any judgment on the wisdom of their conduct. He was
fully convinced of the purity of their motives. And finally it was the
eighteenth of June!--a day on which, it seems, the Duke of Wellington is
privileged to commit all sorts of mischief with impunity to the end of
his life. The Duke of Wellington, however, though the part which he took
was unfortunately prominent, seems to have been comparatively innocent.
He might not, while in office, have paid much attention to the measure
in its original form. He might not have understood the real nature of
his own unlucky amendment. But what were the motives of Earl Bathurst?
Or where were they when he undertook the care of the bill in its former
shape? Nothing had been changed since, excepting his own situation.
And it would be the very madness of charity to believe, that, if he had
still been a colleague of Lord Liverpool, or had been able to come to
terms with Mr. Canning, he would have pursued such a line of conduct.
Culpably as all his coadjutors have acted in this transaction, his share
of it is the most indefensible.
And it is for these men,--for men who, before they have been two months
out of office, have retracted the declarations which they made on a
most important subject just before they quitted office,--that we are
to discard the present ministers as inconsistent and unprincipled! And
these men are the idols of those who entertain so virtuous a loathing
for unnatural coalitions, and base compromises. These men think
themselves entitled to boast of the purity of their public virtues,
and to repel, with indignant amazement, any imputation of interested or
factious motives.
We dwell long on this event; because it is one which enables the country
to estimate correctly the practical principles of those who, if the
present ministers should fall, will assuredly take their places. To call
their conduct merely factious, is to deal with it far too mildly. It has
been factious at the expense of consistency, and of all concern for
the wishes and interests of the people. Was there no other mode of
embarrassing the government? Could no other opportunity be found or made
for a division? Was there no other {421}pledge which could be violated,
if not with less awkwardness to themselves, at least with less injury to
the state? Was it necessary that they should make a handle of a question
on which the passions of the people were roused to the highest point,
and on which its daily bread might depend, that they should condemn the
country to another year of agitation, and expose it to dangers, which,
only a few months before, they had themselves thought it necessary to
avert, by advising an extraordinary exercise of the prerogative? There
is one explanation, and only one. They were out, and they longed to be
in. Decency, consistency, the prosperity and peace of the country, were
as dust in the balance. They knew this question had divided men who were
generally united, and united others who were usually opposed; and though
they themselves had already taken their part with their colleagues in
office and the more intelligent part of their habitual opponents, they
did not scruple, for the sake of embarrassing those they had deserted,
to purchase the appearance of a numerous following, by opposing a
measure which they had themselves concocted, and pledged themselves to
support. From the expedients to which they have resorted in Opposition,
we may judge of what we have to expect if they should ever return to
office.
They will return too, it must be remembered, not, as before, the
colleagues of men by whose superior talents they were overawed, and to
whose beneficial measures they were often compelled to yield a reluctant
consent. The late change has separated the greater part of them from all
such associates forever: it has divided the light from the darkness: it
has set all the wisdom, all the liberality, all the public spirit on
one side; the imbecility, the bigotry, and the rashness on the other. If
they rule again, they will rule alone.
They will return to situations which they will owe neither to their
talents nor to their virtues, neither to the choice of their King nor to
the love of their country; but solely to the support of an Oligarchical
Faction, richly endowed with every quality which ensures to its
possessors the hatred of a nation,--a faction arbitrary, bigoted, and
insolent,--a faction which makes parade of its contempt for the dearest
interests of mankind, which loves to make the people feel of how little
weight, in its deliberations, is the consideration of their happiness.
On {422}this party, and on this alone, must such ministers, returning
from such a secession, rely to uphold them against the public opinion,
against the wishes of a King who has wisely and nobly performed his
duty to the state, against the most beloved and respected portion of the
aristocracy, against a formidable union of all the great statesmen and
orators of the age. It was believed by those of whose wisdom Lord
Eldon and the Duke of Newcastle think with reverence, that, in the bond
between a sorcerer and his familiar demon, there was a stipulation that
the gifts bestowed by the Powers of Evil should never be employed but
for purposes of evil. Omnipotent for mischief, these obligors of the
fiend were powerless for good. Such will be the compact between the
Ex-Ministers, if ever they should return to power, and the only party
which can then support them. That they may be masters, they must be
slaves. They will be able to stand only by abject submission and by
boundless profusion--by giving up the People to be oppressed, first for
the profit of the Great, and then for their amusement,--by corn-laws,
and game-laws, and pensions for Lord Robert, and places for Lord John.
They will return pledged to oppose every reform, to maintain a constant
struggle against the spirit of the age, to defend abuses to which the
nation is every day becoming more quick-sighted. Even Mr. Peel, if,
unluckily, he should at last identity himself with their faction, must
restrain his propensity to innovation. Mutterings have already been
heard in high places against his tendencies to liberality; and all his
schemes for the reformation of our code or our courts must be abandoned.
Then will come all those desperate and cruel expedients of which none
but bad governments stand in need. The press is troublesome. There must
be fresh laws against the press. Secret societies are formed. The Habeas
Corpus act must be suspended. The people are distressed and tumultuous.
They must be kept down by force. The army must be increased; and the
taxes must be increased. Then the distress and tumult are increased: and
then the army must be increased again! The country will be governed as a
child is governed by an ill-tempered nurse,--first beaten till it cries,
and then beaten because it cries!
Our firm conviction is, that if the seceders return to office, they
will act thus; and that they will not have the power, even {423}if they
should have the inclination, to act otherwise. And what must the end of
these things be? We answer, without hesitation, that, if this course be
persisted in, if these counsels and these counsellors are maintained,
the end must be, a revolution, a bloody and unsparing revolution--a
revolution which will make the ears of those who hear of it tingle in
the remotest countries, and in the remotest times. The middling orders
in England are, we well know, attached to the institutions of their
country, but not with a blindly partial attachment. They see the merits
of the system; but they also see its faults; and they have a strong and
growing desire that these faults should be removed. If, while their wish
for improvement is becoming stronger and stronger, the government is to
become worse and worse, the consequences are obvious. Even now, it is
impossible to disguise, that there is arising in the bosom of that class
a Republican sect, as audacious, as paradoxical, as little inclined
to respect antiquity, as enthusiastically attached to its ends,
as unscrupulous in the choice of its means, as the French Jacobins
themselves,--but far superior to the French Jacobins in acuteness and
information--in caution, in patience, and in resolution. They are men
whose minds have been put into training for violent exertion. All that
is merely ornamental--all that gives the roundness, the smoothness,
and the bloom, has been exuded. Nothing is left but nerve, and muscle,
and bone. Their love of liberty is no boyish fancy. It is not nourished
by rhetoric, and it does not evaporate in rhetoric. They care nothing
for Leonidas, and Epaminondas, and Brutus, and Codes. They profess to
derive their opinions from demonstration alone; and are never so little
satisfied with them as when they see them exhibited in a romantic
form. Metaphysical and political science engage their whole attention.
Philosophical pride has done for them what spiritual pride did for the
Puritans in a former age; it has generated in them an aversion for the
fine arts, for elegant literature, and for the sentiments of chivalry.
It has made them arrogant, intolerant, and impatient of all superiority.
These qualities will, in spite of their real claims to respect, render
them unpopular, as long as the people are satisfied with their rulers.
But under an ignorant and tyrannical ministry, obstinately opposed to
the most moderate and judicious innovations, their principles would
spread as rapidly {424}as those of the Puritans formerly spread, in
spite of their offensive peculiarities. The public, disgusted with the
blind adherence of its rulers to ancient abuses, would be reconciled to
the most startling novelties. A strong democratic party would be formed
in the educated class. In the lowest, and the most numerous order of the
population, those who have any opinions at all are democrats already. In
our manufacturing towns, the feeling is even now formidably strong; and
it is not strange that it should be so: For it is on persons in this
station that the abuses of our system press most heavily; while its
advantages, on the other hand, are comparatively little felt by them.
An abundant supply of the necessaries of life is, with them, almost the
only consideration. The difference between an arbitrary and a limited
monarchy vanishes, when compared with the difference between one meal
a-day and three meals a-day. It is poor consolation to a man who has had
no breakfast, and expects no supper, that the King does not possess a
dispensing power, and that troops cannot be raised in time of peace,
without the consent of Parliament. With this class, our government, free
as it is, is even now as unpopular as if it were despotic,--nay, much
more so. In despotic states, the multitude is unaccustomed to general
speculations on politics. Even when men suffer most severely, they look
no further than the proximate cause. They demand the abolition of a
particular duty, or tear an obnoxious individual to pieces. But they
never think of attacking the whole system. If Constantinople were in the
state in which Manchester and Leeds have lately been, there would be a
cry against the Grand Vizier or the bakers. The head of the Vizier would
be thrown to the mob, over the wall of the Seraglio--a score of bakers
would be smothered in their own ovens; and every thing would go on as
before. Not a single rioter would think of curtailing the prerogatives
of the Sultan, or of demanding a representative divan. But people
familiar with political inquiries carry their scrutiny further; and,
justly or unjustly, attribute the grievances under which they labour, to
defects in the original constitution of the government. Thus it is with
a large portion of our spinners, our grinders, and our weavers. It is
not too much to say, that in a season of distress, they are ripe for any
revolution. This, indeed, is acknowledged by all the Tory writers of our
time. But all {425}this, they tell us, comes of education--it is all the
fault of the Liberals. We will not take up the time of our readers with
answering such observations. We will only remind our gentry and clergy,
that the question at present is not about the _cause_ of the evil, but
about its _cure_; and that, unless due precaution be used, let the fault
be whose it may, the punishment will inevitably be their own.
The history of our country, since the peace of 1815, is almost entirely
made up of the struggles of the lower orders against the government,
and of the efforts of the government to keep them down. In 1816, immense
assemblies were convened, secret societies were formed, and gross
outrages were committed. In 1817, the Habeas Corpus Act was twice
suspended. In 1819, the disturbances broke out afresh. Meetings were
held, so formidable, from their numbers and their spirit, that the
Ministry, and the Parliament, approved of the conduct of magistrates who
had dispersed one of them by the sword. Fresh laws were passed against
seditious writings and practices. Yet the following year commenced
with a desperate and extended conspiracy for the assassination of the
cabinet, and the subversion of the government. A few months after this
event, the Queen landed. On that occasion, the majority of the middling
orders joined with the mob. The effect of the union was irresistible.
The Ministers and the Parliament stood aghast; the bill of pains and
penalties was dropped; and a convulsion, which seemed inevitable, was
averted. But the events of that year ought to impress one lesson on
the mind of every public man,--that an alliance between the disaffected
multitude and a large portion of the middling orders, is one with
which no government can venture to cope, without imminent danger to the
constitution.
A government like that with which England would be cursed, if the
present Ministry should fall before the present Opposition, would render
such an alliance not only inevitable, but permanent. In less than ten
years, it would goad every Reformer in the country into a Revolutionist.
It would place at the head of the multitude, persons possessing all the
education, all the judgment, and all the habits of cooperation in which
the multitude itself is deficient. That great body is physically the
most powerful in the state. Like the Hebrew champion, it is yet held
in captivity by its blindness. {426}But if once the eyeless Giant shall
find a guide to put his hand on the props of the State--if once he shall
bow himself upon the pillars, woe to all those who have made him their
laughing-stock, or chained him to grind at their mill!
We do, therefore, firmly believe, that, even if no external cause were
to precipitate a fatal crisis, this country could not be governed for
a single generation by such men as Lord Westmoreland and Lord Eldon,
without extreme risk of revolution. But there are other symptoms in the
body politic, not less alarming than those which we have described. In
Ireland, there are several millions of Catholics, who do not love our
government; and who detest, with all their heart, with all their soul,
with all their mind, and with all their strength, the party now in
Opposition. The accession of that party to power, would be a death-blow
to their hopes of obtaining their demands by constitutional means: and
we may fairly expect, that all the events which followed the recall
of Lord Fitzwilliam, will take place again, on a greater and more
formidable scale. One thing, indeed, we have no right to expect, that
a second Hoche will be as unfortunate as the former. A civil war in
Ireland will lead almost necessarily to a war with France. Maritime
hostilities with France, and the clash of neutral and belligerent
pretensions, will then produce war with America. Then come expeditions
to Canada and expeditions to Java. The Cape of Good Hope must be
garrisoned. Lisbon must be defended. Let us suppose the best. That best
must be, a long conflict, a dear-bought victory, a great addition to a
debt already most burdensome, fresh taxes, and fresh discontents.
All these are events which may not improbably happen under any
government--events which the next month may bring forth--events, against
which no minister, however able and honest, can with perfect certainty
provide,--but which Ministers, whose policy should exasperate the people
of Ireland, would almost unavoidably bring upon us. A Cabinet formed by
the Ex-Ministers could scarcely exist for a year, without incensing the
lower classes of the English to frenzy, by giving them up to the selfish
tyranny of its aristocratical supporters, without driving Ireland into
rebellion, and without tempting France to war.
There is one hope, and one hope only for our country; and {427}that hope
is in a liberal Administration,--in Administration which will follow
with cautions, but with constantly advancing steps, the progress of the
public mind; which, by promptitude to redress practical grievances, will
enable itself to oppose with authority and effect, the propositions of
turbulent theorists; which by kindness and fairness in all its dealings
with the People, will entitle itself to their confidence and esteem.
The state of England at the present moment, bears a close resemblance
to that of France at the time when Turgot was called to the head
of affairs. Abuses were numerous; public burdens heavy; a spirit of
innovation was abroad among the people. The philosophical Minister
attempted to secure the ancient institutions, by amending them. The mild
reforms which he projected, had they been carried into execution, would
have conciliated the people, and saved from the most tremendous of all
commotions the Church, the Aristocracy, and the Throne. But a crowd of
narrow-minded nobles, ignorant of their own interest, though solicitous
for nothing else, the Newcastles and the Salisburys of France, began to
tremble for their oppressive franchises. Their clamours overpowered the
mild good sense of a King who wanted only firmness to be the best of
Sovereigns. The Minister was discarded for councillors more obsequious
to the privileged orders; and the aristocracy and clergy exulted in
their success.
Then came a new period of profusion and misrule. And then, swiftly, like
an armed man, came poverty and dismay. The acclamation of the nobles,
and the _Te Deums_ of the church, grew fainter and fainter. The very
courtiers muttered disapprobation. The Ministers stammered out feeble
and inconsistent counsels. But all other voices were soon drowned in
one, which every moment waxed louder and more terrible,--in the fierce
and tumultuous roar of a great people, conscious of irresistible
strength, maddened by intolerable wrongs, and sick of deferred hopes!
That cry, so long stifled, now rose from every corner of France, made
itself heard in the presence-chamber of her King, in the salons of her
nobles, and in the refectories of her luxurious priesthood. Then, at
length, concessions were made which the subjects of Louis the Fourteenth
would have thought it impious even to desire,--which the most factious
opponent of {428}Louis the Fifteenth had never ventured to ask,--which,
but a few years before, would have been received with ecstasies of
gratitude. But it was too late!
The imprisoned Genie of the Arabian Tales, during the early period of
his confinement, promised wealth, empire, and supernatural powers to the
man who should extricate him. But when he had waited long in vain, mad
with rage at the continuance of his captivity, he vowed to destroy his
deliverer without mercy! Such is the gratitude of nations exasperated
by misgovernment to rulers who are slow to concede. The first use which
they make of freedom is to avenge themselves on those who have been so
slow to grant it.
Never was this disposition more remarkably displayed than at the period
of which we speak. Abuses were swept away with unsparing severity. The
royal prerogatives, the feudal privileges, the provincial distinctions,
were sacrificed to the passions of the people. Every thing was given;
and every thing was given in vain. Distrust and hatred were not to be
thus eradicated from the minds of men who thought that they were not
receiving favours but extorting rights; and that, if they deserved
blame, it was not for their insensibility to tardy benefits, but for
their forgetfulness of past oppression.
What followed was the necessary consequence of such a state of feeling.
The recollection of old grievances made the people suspicious and
cruel. The fear of popular outrages produced emigrations, intrigues with
foreign courts; and, finally, a. general war. Then came the barbarity
of fear; the triple despotism of the clubs, the committees, and the
commune; the organized anarchy, the fanatical atheism, the scheming and
far-sighted madness, the butcheries of the Châtelet, and the accursed
marriages of the Loire. The whole property of the nation changed hands.
Its best and wisest citizens were banished or murdered. Dungeons were
emptied by assassins as fast as they were filled by spies. Provinces
were made desolate. Towns were unpeopled. Old things passed away. All
things became new.
The paroxysm terminated. A singular train of events restored the house
of Bourbon to the French throne. The exiles have returned. But they have
returned as the few survivors of the deluge returned to a world in which
they could {429}recognise nothing; in which the valleys had been raised,
and the mountains depressed, and the courses of the rivers changed,--in
which sand and sea-weed had covered the cultivated fields and the walls
of imperial cities. They have returned to seek in vain, amidst the
mouldering relics of a former system, and the fermenting elements of a
new creation, the traces of any remembered object. The old boundaries
are obliterated. The old laws are forgotten. The old titles have become
laughing-stocks. The gravity of the parliaments, and the pomp of the
hierarchy; the Doctors whose disputes agitated the Sorbonne, and the
embroidered multitude whose footsteps wore out the marble pavements of
Versailles,--all have disappeared. The proud and voluptuous prelates who
feasted on silver, and dozed amidst curtains of massy velvet, have been
replaced by curates who undergo every drudgery and every humiliation
for the wages of lackeys. To those gay and elegant nobles who studied
military science as a fashionable accomplishment, and expected military
rank as a part of their birthright, have succeeded men born in lofts and
cellars; educated in the halfnaked ranks of the revolutionary armies,
and raised by ferocious valour and self-taught skill, to dignities with
which the coarseness of their manners and language forms a grotesque
contrast. The government may amuse itself by playing at despotism, by
reviving the names and aping the style of the old court--as Helenus in
Epirus consoled himself for the lost magnificence of Troy, by calling
his brook Xanthus, and the entrance of his little capital the Seæan gate.
But the law of entail is gone, and cannot be restored. The liberty
of the press is established, and the feeble struggles of the Minister
cannot permanently put it down. The Bastille is fallen, and can
never more rise from its ruins. A few words, a few ceremonies, a few
rhetorical topics, make up all that remains of that system which was
founded so deeply by the policy of the house of Valois, and adorned so
splendidly by the pride of Louis the Great.
Is this a romance? Or is it a faithful picture of what has lately been
in a neighbouring land--of what may shortly be, within the borders of
our own? Has the warning been given in vain? Have our Mannerses and
Clintons so soon forgotten the fate of houses as wealthy and as noble as
their own: Have they forgotten how the tender and delicate woman,--the
{430}woman who would not set her foot on the earth for tenderness and
delicateness, the idol of gilded drawing-rooms, the pole-star of
crowded theatres, the standard of beauty, the arbitress of fashion,
the patroness of genius,--was compelled to exchange her luxurious and
dignified ease for labour and dependence, the sighs of Dukes and the
flattery of bowing Abbés for the insults of rude pupils and exacting
mothers;--perhaps, even to draw an infamous and miserable subsistence
from those charms which had been the glory of royal circles--to sell for
a morsel of bread her’ reluctant caresses and her haggard smiles--to be
turned over from a garret to a hospital, and from a hospital to a parish
vault? Have they forgotten how the gallant and luxurious nobleman,
sprung from illustrious ancestors, marked out from his cradle for the
highest honours of the State and of the army, impatient of all control,
exquisitely sensible of the slightest affront, with all his high spirit,
his polished manners, his voluptuous habits, was reduced to request,
with tears in his eyes, credit for half-a-crown,--to pass day after
day in hearing the auxiliary verbs mis-recited, or the first page
of Télémaque misconstrued, by petulant boys, who infested him with
nicknames and caricatures, who mimicked his foreign accent, and laughed
at his thread-bare coat? Have they forgotten all this? God grant
that they may never remember it with unavailing self-accusation, when
desolation shall have visited wealthier cities and fairer gardens;--when
Manchester shall be as Lyons, and Stowe as Chantilly;--when he who now,
in the pride of rank and opulence, sneers at what we have written in
the bitter sincerity of our hearts, shall be thankful for a porringer of
broth at the door of some Spanish convent, or shall implore some Italian
money-lender to advance another pistole on his George!