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MODERN LEADERS:
_BEING A SERIES OF_
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
BY JUSTIN McCARTHY,
_Author of "Lady Judith: A Tale of Two Continents," etc._
NEW YORK:
SHELDON & COMPANY,
677 BROADWAY and 214 and 216 MERCER STREET.
1872.
CONTENTS.
QUEEN VICTORIA AND HER SUBJECTS. 7
THE REAL LOUIS NAPOLEON. 18
EUGENIE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH. 25
THE PRINCE OF WALES. 35
THE KING OF PRUSSIA. 45
VICTOR EMANUEL, KING OF ITALY. 55
LOUIS ADOLPH THIERS. 66
PRINCE NAPOLEON. 77
THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. 85
BRIGHAM YOUNG. 96
THE LIBERAL TRIUMVIRATE OF ENGLAND. 106
ENGLISH POSITIVISTS. 116
ENGLISH TORYISM AND ITS LEADERS. 126
"GEORGE ELIOT" AND GEORGE LEWES. 136
GEORGE SAND. 145
EDWARD BULWER AND LORD LYTTON. 156
"PAR NOBILE FRATRUM--THE TWO NEWMANS." 167
ARCHBISHOP MANNING. 175
JOHN RUSKIN. 183
CHARLES READE. 192
EXILE-WORLD OF LONDON. 202
THE REVEREND CHARLES KINGSLEY. 211
MR. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 223
SCIENCE AND ORTHODOXY IN ENGLAND. 234
INTRODUCTION.
The sketches which make up this volume are neither purely critical nor
merely biographical. They endeavor to give the American reader a clear
and just idea of each individual in his intellect, his character, his
place in politics, letters, and society. In some instances I have
written of friends whom I know personally and well; in others of men
with whom I have but slight acquaintance; in others still of persons
whom I have only seen. But in every instance those whom I describe are
persons whom I have been able to study on the spot, whose character and
doings I have heard commonly discussed by those who actually knew them.
In no case whatever are the opinions I have given drawn merely from
books and newspapers. This value, therefore, these essays may have to an
American, that they are not such descriptions as any of us might be
enabled to put into print by the mere help of study and reading;
descriptions for example such as one might make of Henry VIII. or
Voltaire. They are in every instance, even when intimate and direct
personal acquaintance least assist them, the result of close observation
and that appreciation of the originals which comes from habitual
intercourse with those who know them and submit them to constant
criticism.
I have not made any alteration in the essays which were written some
years ago. Let them stand as portraits bearing that date. If 1872 has in
any instance changed the features and the fortunes of 1869 and 1870, it
cannot make untrue what then was true. What I wrote in 1869 of the
Prince of Wales, for example, will probably not wholly apply to the
Prince of Wales to-day. We all believe that he has lately changed for
the better. But what I wrote then I still believe was true then; and it
is a fair contribution to history, which does not consent to rub out
yesterday because of to-day. I wrote of a "Liberal Triumvirate" of
England when the phrase was an accurate expression. It would hardly be
accurate now. To-day Mr. Mill does not appear in political life and Mr.
Bright has been an exile, owing to his health, for nearly two years from
the scenes of parliamentary debate and triumph. But the portraits of the
men do not on that account need any change. Even where some reason has
been shown me for a modification of my own judgment I have still
preferred to leave the written letter as it is. A distinguished Italian
friend has impressed on me that King Victor Emanuel is personally a much
more ambitious man than I have painted him. My friend has had far better
opportunities of judging than I ever could have had; but I gave the best
opinion I could, and still holding to it prefer to let it stand, to be
taken for what it is worth.
I think I may fairly claim to have anticipated in some of the political
sketches, that of Louis Napoleon, for instance, the judgment of events
and history, and the real strength of certain characters and
institutions.
These sketches had a gratifying welcome from the American public as they
appeared in the "Galaxy." I hope they may be thought worth reading over
again and keeping in their collected form.
JUSTIN MCCARTHY.
48 GOWER STREET, BEDFORD SQUARE, LONDON, July 31, 1872.
QUEEN VICTORIA AND HER SUBJECTS.
"And when you hear historians tell of thrones, and those who sat upon
them, let it be as men now gaze upon the mammoth's bones, and wonder
what old world such things could see."
So sang Byron half a century ago, and great critics condemned his verse,
and called him a "surly Democrat" because he ventured to put such
sentiments and hopes into rhyme. The thrones of Europe have not
diminished in number since Byron's day, although they have changed and
rechanged their occupants; and the one only grand effort at the
establishment of a new Republic--that of France in 1848--went down into
dust and ashes. Naturally, therefore, the tendency in Europe is to
regard the monarchical principle as having received a new lease and
charter of life, and to talk of the republican principle as an exotic
forced for a moment into a premature and morbid blossom upon European
soil, but as completely unsuited to the climate and the people as the
banyan or the cocoa tree.
I do not, for myself, quite agree in this view of the aspect of affairs.
Of course, if one were inclined to discuss the question fairly, he must
begin by asking what people mean when they talk of the republican
principle. What is the republican principle? When you talk of a
Republic, do you mean an aggressive, conquering, domineering State,
ruled by faction and living on war, like the Commonwealth of Rome? or a
Republic like that planned by Washington, which should repudiate all
concern in foreign politics or foreign conquest? Do you mean a Federal
Republic, like that of the United States, or one with a centralized
power, like the French Republic of 1848? Do you mean a Republic like
that of Florence, in which the people were omnipotent, or a Republic
like that of Venice, in which the people had no power at all? Do you
mean a Republic like that of Switzerland, in which the President is next
to nobody, or a Republic like that of Poland, which was ornamented by a
King? In truth, the phrase "republican principle" has no set meaning. It
means just what the man who uses it wishes to express. If, however, we
understand it to mean, in this instance, the principle of popular
self-government, then it is obvious that Europe has made immense
progress in that direction since Byron raged against the crimes of
Kings. If it means the opposite to the principle of Divine Right or
Legitimacy, or even personal loyalty--loyalty of the old-time,
chivalric, enthusiastic fashion--then it must be owned that it shows all
over Europe the mark of equal progress. The ancient, romantic,
sentimental loyalty; the loyalty which reverenced the Sovereign and was
proud to abase itself before him; the loyalty of the Cavaliers; the
loyalty which went wild over "Oh, Richard! Oh, mon Roi!" is dead and
gone--its relics a thing to be stared at, and wondered over, and
preserved for a landmark in the progress of the world--just like the
mammoth's bones.
The model Monarchy of Europe is, beyond dispute, that of Great Britain.
In England there is an almost absolute self-government; the English
people can have anything whatever which they may want by insisting on it
and agitating a little for it. The Sovereign has long ceased to
interfere in the progress of national affairs. I can only recollect one
instance, during my observation, in which Queen Victoria put her veto on
a bill passed by Parliament, and that was on an occasion when it was
discovered, at the last moment, that the Lords and Commons had passed a
bill which had a dreadful technical blunder in it, and the only way out
of the difficulty was to beg of the Queen to refuse it her sanction,
which her Majesty did accordingly, and the blunder was set right in the
following session. If a Prime Minister were to announce to the House of
Commons, to-morrow, that the Queen had boxed his ears, it would not
create a whit more amazement than if he were to say, no matter in what
graceful and diplomatic periphrasis, that her Majesty was unwilling to
agree to some measure which her faithful Commons desired to see passed
into law.
Nothing did Mr. Disraeli more harm, nothing brought greater contempt on
him than his silly attempts last session to induce the Commons to
believe, by vague insinuations and covert allusions, that the Queen had
a personal leaning toward his policy and himself. So long ago as the
time of the free trade struggle, the Tories, for all their hereditary
loyalty, complained of and protested against the silent presence of
Prince Albert in the Peers' gallery of the House of Commons, on the
ground that it was an attempt to influence the Parliament improperly,
and to interfere with the freedom of debate. No one has anything to say
against the Queen which carries any weight or is worth listening to. She
is undoubtedly a woman of virtue and good sense. So good a woman, I
venture to think, never before reigned over any people, and that she is
not a great woman, an Elizabeth, a Catherine of Russia, or even an
Isabella of Castile, is surely rather to the advantage than otherwise of
the monarchical institution in its present stage of existence. Here,
then, one might think, if anywhere and ever, the principle of personal
loyalty has a fair chance and a full justification. A man might
vindicate his loyalty to Queen Victoria in the name of liberty itself;
nay, he might justify it by an appeal to the very principle of
democracy. Yet one must be blind, who, living in England and willing to
observe, does not see that the old, devoted spirit of personal loyalty
is dead and buried. It is gone! it is a memory! You may sing a poetic
lament for it if you will, as Schiller did for the gods of Hellas; you
may break into passionate rhetoric, if you can, over its extinction, as
Burke did for the death of the age of Chivalry. It is gone, and I firmly
believe it can never be revived or restored.
I do not mean to say that there are many persons in England who feel any
strong objection to the Monarchy, or warmly desire to see a Republic
substituted for it. I know in England several theoretical
republicans--they are to be met with in almost any company. I have never
met with any one Englishman living in England, who showed any anxious,
active interest in the abolition of the Monarchy. I do not know any one
who objects to drink the usual loyal toasts at a public dinner, or
betrays any conscientious reluctance to listen to the unmeaning eulogy
which it is the stereotyped fashion for the chairman of every such
banquet to heap on "Her Majesty and the rest of the Royal Family." But
this sort of thing, if it ever had any practical meaning, has now none.
It has reached that stage at which profession and practice are always
understood to be quite different things. Every one says at church that
he is a miserable sinner; no one is supposed really to believe anything
of the sort. Every one has some time or other likened women to angels,
but we are not therefore supposed seriously to ignore the fact that
women wear flannel petticoats, and have their faults, and are mortal. So
of loyal professions in England now. They are understood to be phrases,
like "Your obedient servant," at the bottom of a letter. They do not
suggest hypocrisy or pretence of any kind. There is apparently no more
inconsistency now in a man's loyally drinking the health of the Queen,
and proceeding immediately after (in private conversation) to abuse or
ridicule her and her family, than there would be in the same man
beginning with "Dear Sir," a missive to one whom he notoriously
dislikes. Every one who has been lately in London must have heard an
immense amount of scandal, or at all events of flippant joking at the
expense of the Queen herself; and of more serious complaint and distrust
as regards the Prince of Wales. Yet the virtues of the Queen, and the
noble qualities of the Prince of Wales are panegyrized and toasted, and
hurrah'd at every public dinner where Englishmen gather together.
The very virtues of Queen Victoria have contributed materially toward
the extinction of the old-fashioned sentiment of living, active loyalty.
The English people had from the time at least of Anne to our own day a
succession of bad princes. Only a race patient as Issachar could have
endured such a line of sovereigns as George II., George III., and George
IV. Then came William IV., who being a little less stupidly obstinate
than George III., and not so grossly corrupt as George IV., was hailed
for a while as the Patriot King by a people who were only too anxious
not to lose all their hereditary and traditional veneration. Do what
they would, however, the English nation could not get into any sincere
transports of admiration about the Patriot King; and they soon found
that any popular reform worth having was to be got rather in spite of
the Patriot King, than by virtue of any wisdom or patriotism in the
monarch. Great popular demonstrations and tumults, and threats of
marching on London; and O'Connell meetings at Charing Cross, with
significant allusion by the great demagogue to the King who lost his
head at Whitehall hard by; the hanging out of the black flag at
Manchester, and a general movement of brickbats everywhere--these seem
to have been justly regarded as the persuasive influences which
converted a Sovereign into the Patriot King and a Reformer. Loyalty did
not gain much by the reforms of that reign. Then followed the young
Victoria; and enthusiasm for a while wakened up fresh and genuine over
the ascension of the comely and simple-hearted girl, who was so frank
and winning; who ran down stairs in her night-dress, rather than keep
her venerable councillors waiting when they sought her out at midnight;
who openly acknowledged her true love for her cousin, and offered him
her hand; who was at once queenly and maidenly, innocent and fearless.
But this sort of thing did not last very long. Prince Albert was never
popular. He was cold; people said he was stingy; his very virtues, and
they were genuine, were not such as anybody, except his wife and family,
warmly admires in a man; he was indeed misunderstood, or at all events
misprized in England, up to the close of his life. Then the gates of the
convent, so to speak, closed over the Queen, and royalty ceased to be an
animating presence in England.
The young men and women of to-day--persons who have not passed the age
of twenty-one--can hardly remember to have ever seen the Sovereign. She
is to them what the Mikado is to his people. Seven years of absolute
seclusion on the part of a monarch must in any case be a sad trial to
personal loyalty, at least in the royal capital. A considerable and an
influential section of Queen Victoria's subjects in the metropolis have
long been very angry with their Sovereign. The tailors, the milliners,
the dressmakers, the jewellers, the perfumers, all the shopkeepers of
the West End who make profit out of court dinners and balls and
presentations, are furious at the royal seclusion which they believe has
injured their business. So, too, are the aristocratic residents of the
West End, who do not care much about a court which no longer contributes
to their season's gayety. So, too, are all the flunkey class generally.
Now, I am sure there are no three sections of the population of London
more influential in the spreading of scandal and the nursing of this
discontent than the shopkeepers, the aristocrats, and the flunkeys of
the West End. These are actively and demonstratively dissatisfied with
the Queen. These it is who spread dirty scandals about her, and laugh
over vile lampoons and caricatures of which she is the object.
Every one knows that there is a low, mean scandal afloat about the
Queen--and it is spread by the clubs, the drawing-rooms, the shops, and
the servants'-halls of the West End. I am convinced that not one of
those who spread the scandal really believes it; but they like to spread
it because they dislike the Queen. There can be no doubt, however, that
much dissatisfaction at the Queen's long seclusion is felt by persons
who are incapable of harboring any motives so mean or spreading any
calumnies so unworthy. Most of the London papers have always found fault
rather sharply and not over decently with the royal retirement. Mr.
Ayrton, representative of the Tower Hamlets--the largest constituency in
England--openly expressed this sentiment at a public meeting; and though
his remarks were at once replied to and condemned by Mr. Bright, they
met with a more or less cordial response from most of his audience.
There is or was in the House of Commons (the general election has got
happily rid of him), a foolish person named Reardon, a Piccadilly
auctioneer, who became, by what we call in England "a fluke," a member
of the House of Commons. This person moved last session a resolution, or
something of the kind, calling on the Queen to abdicate. The thing was
laughed down--poor Mr. Reardon's previous career had been so absurd that
anything coming from him would have been hooted; and the House of
Commons is fiercely intolerant of "bores" and men with crotchets. But I
have reason to believe that Mr. Reardon's luckless project was concocted
by a delegation of London tradesmen, and had the sympathy of the whole
class; and I know that many members of the House which hooted and
laughed him down had in private over and over again grumbled at the
Queen's retirement, and declared that she ought to abdicate.
"What on earth does it matter," I asked of a member of Parliament--one
of the most accomplished scholars and sharp logicians in the
House--"What on earth does it matter whether or not the Queen gives a
few balls to a few thousand West End people in the season? How can
rational people care, one way or the other?" "My dear fellow," was the
answer, "_I_ don't care; but all that sort of thing is her business, and
she is paid to do it, and she ought to do it. If she were a washerwoman
with a family, she would have to do her work, no matter what her grief."
Now this gentleman--who is utterly above any sympathy with scandal or
with the lackey-like grumblings of the West End--did, undoubtedly,
express fairly enough a growing mood of the public dissatisfaction.
Beyond all this, however, is the fact that people--the working-class
especially--are beginning to ask whether we really want a Sovereign at
all, seeing that we get on just as well during the eclipse of royalty as
in its brightest meridian splendor. This question is being very often
put; and it is probably more often thought over than put into words. Now
I think nothing worse could possibly happen to royalty in England than
that people should begin quietly to ask whether there really is any use
in it. If there is a bad King or Queen, people can get or look for, or
hope and pray for a good one; and the abuse of the throne will not be
accounted a sufficient argument against the use of it. But how will it
be when the subjects begin to find that during the reign of one of the
best sovereigns possible to have, they can get on perfectly well
although the monarch is in absolute seclusion?
George IV. was an argument against bad kings only--Queen Victoria may
come to be accepted as an illustration of the uselessness of the very
best kind of Sovereign. I think King Log was much better calculated to
do harm to the institution of royalty than King Stork, although the
frogs might have regretted the placid reign of the former when the
latter was gobbling up their best and fattest.
Decidedly the people of England are learning of the Queen how to do
without royalty. A small section of her subjects are angry with her and
bitter of heart against her; a much larger number find they can do
perfectly well without her; a larger number still have forgotten her. On
a memorable occasion Prince Albert declared that constitutional
government was on its trial in England. The phrase, like many that came
from the same well-meaning lips, was unlucky. Constitutional government
was not upon its trial then; but Monarchy is upon its trial now.
Do I mean to say that Great Britain is on the verge of a revolution;
that the dynasty is about to be overthrown; that a new Cromwell is to
make his appearance? By no means. It does not follow that even if the
English people were to be convinced to-morrow of the absolute
uselessness of a throne, and a sovereignty, they would therefore proceed
to establish a republic. No people under the sun are more strongly
governed by tradition and "the majesty of custom" than the English.
Cobden used to say that they had a Chinese objection to change of any
kind. The Lord Mayor's show, long threatened, and for a while partially
obscured, has come out again in full gingerbread. There is a functionary
who appears every night at the door of the House of Commons just at the
moment when the sitting is formally declared to be over, and bawls out
to the emptying benches the resonant question, "Who's for home?" I
believe the practice originated at a time when Westminster was
unpeopled, and midnight roads were dangerous, and members were glad to
make up parties to travel home together; and, so a functionary was
appointed to issue stentorian appeal to all who were thus willing to
combine their strength and journey safely in company. The need of such
an arrangement has, I need hardly say, passed away these many
generations; but the usage exists. It oppresses no one to have the
formal call thundered out; the thing has got to be a regular
performance; it is part of the whole business and system; nobody wants
it, but nobody heeds it or objects to it, and the functionary appears
every night of every session and shouts his invitation to companionship
as regularly as if the Mohocks were in possession of Charing Cross, and
Claude Duval were coming full trot along Piccadilly.
Now, this may be taken as a sort of illustration of the manner in which
the English people are naturally inclined to deal with any institutions
which are merely useless, and have the recommendation of old age and
long descent. The ordinary Englishman to-day would find it hard to bring
up before his mind's eye a picture of an England without a Sovereign. If
it were made fully plain to him, and thoroughly impressed upon his mind
that he could do just as well without a Sovereign as with, and even that
Monarchy never could possibly be of use to him any more, I think he
would endure it and pay its cost, and drink its health loyally for all
time, providing Monarchy did nothing outrageously wrong; or
provided--which is more to my present purpose--that no other changes of
a remarkable nature occurred in the meantime to remove ancient
landmarks, to disturb the basis of his old institutions and to prepare
him for a new order of things. This is indeed the point I wish to
discuss just now. I have explained what I believe to be the depth and
strength and meaning of the average Englishman's loyal feelings to his
Sovereign at the present moment. I should like to consider next how that
feeling will, in all probability, be affected by the changes in the
English political system, which seem inevitable, and by the accession,
or expected accession, of a new Sovereign to the throne.
England has, just now, something very nearly approaching to manhood
suffrage; and to manhood suffrage it will probably come before long. The
ballot will, doubtless, be introduced. The Irish Church is as good as
dead. I cannot doubt that the English State Church will, ultimately, and
before very long, succumb to the same fate. Not that this logically or
politically follows as a matter of necessity; and nothing could be more
unwise in the interest of their own cause than the persistency with
which the Tories keep insisting that the doom of the one is involved in
the doom of the other. The Irish Church is the foreign church of a
miserably small minority; the English Establishment is the Church of the
majority, and is an institution belonging to the soil. The very
principle which maintains the English Church ought of right to condemn
the Irish Church. But it is the fact that an agitation more influential
than it seemed to the careless spectator, has long been going on in
England for the abolition of the State Church system altogether; and
there can be no doubt that the fate of the Irish Establishment will lend
immense courage and force to that agitation. Revolutionary movements are
always contagious in their nature, and the movement against the Irish
Church is in the strictest sense revolutionary. The Dutch or the Scotch
would have carried such a movement to triumph across rivers of blood if
it were needful; and no man of spirit could say that the end would not
be worth the cost. I assume, then, that the overthrow of the Irish
Church will inflame to iconoclastic fervor the movement of the English
Dissenters against all Church establishments. I do not stop just now to
inquire whether the movement is likely to be successful or how long it
may take to accomplish the object. To me, it seems beyond doubt that it
must succeed; but I do not care to assume even that for the purpose of
my present argument. I only ask my readers to consider the condition of
things which will exist in England when a movement resting on a suffrage
which is almost universal, a movement which will have already overthrown
one State Church within Great Britain, proceeds openly and exultingly to
attack the English Church itself, within its own dominions. I ask
whether it is likely that the institution which is supposed to be bound
up inseparably with that Church, the Monarchy which is based upon, and
exists by virtue of religious ascendency, is likely to escape all
question during such a struggle, and after it? The State Church and the
Aristocracy, if they cannot always be called bulwarks of the throne, are
yet so completely associated with it in the public mind that it is hard
even to think of the one without the others, and yet harder to think of
the one as existing serene and uninjured after the decay or demolition
of the others.
Now, the Aristocracy have, as Mr. Bright put it so truly and so
effectively the other day, already capitulated. They have given up all
notion of any longer making the laws of the country in the interest of
their own class. One of the first things the Reformed Parliament will
do, when it has breathing-time to think about such matters, will be to
abolish the purchase system in the army, and throw open promotion to
merit, without reference to class. The diplomatic service, that other
great stronghold of the Aristocracy, will be thoroughly reorganized and
made a real, useful department, doing solid work, and open to talent of
whatever caste; or it will be abolished altogether. Something will have
to be done with the House of Lords. It, too, must be made a reality, or
dismissed into the land of shadows and the past. Efforts at reforming
it, while it stands on its present basis, are futile. Its existence is,
in its present form, the one great objection to it.
The good-natured, officious Lord Shaftesbury went to work, a few months
ago, to prepare a scheme of reform for the House of Lords, in order to
anticipate and conciliate the popular movement which he expected. He
could think of nothing better than a recommendation that the House
should meet an hour earlier every evening, in order, by throwing more
time on their hands, to induce the younger Peers to get up debates and
take part in them. This, however, is not precisely the kind of reform
the country will ask for when it has leisure to turn its attention to
the subject. It will ask for some reorganization which shall either
abolish or reduce to a comparative nothing the hereditary legislating
principle on which the House of Lords now rests. A set of law-makers or
law-marrers intrusted with power only because they are born to titles,
is an absurd anomaly, which never could exist in company with popular
suffrage. "Hereditary law-makers!" exclaimed Franklin. "You might as
well talk of hereditary mathematicians!" Franklin expressed exactly what
the feeling of the common sense of England is likely to be when the
question comes to be raised. I expect then, not that the House of Lords
will be abolished, but that the rule of the hereditary principle will be
brought to an end--that the Aristocracy there, too, will have to
capitulate.
Now, I doubt whether an American reader can have any accurate idea,
unless he has specially studied the matter and watched its practical
operation in England, of the manner in which the influence of the Peers
makes itself felt through the political life of Great Britain. Americans
often have some kind of notion that the Aristocracy govern the country
directly and despotically, with the high hand of imperious feudalism.
There is nothing of the kind in reality. The House of Lords is, as a
piece of political machinery, almost inoperative--as nearly as possible
harmless. No English Peer, Lord Derby alone excepted, has anything like
the political authority and direct influence of Mr. Gladstone, Mr.
Disraeli, or Mr. Bright. There are very few Peers, indeed, about whose
political utterances anybody in the country cares three straws. But, on
the other hand, the traditional _prestige_ of the Peers, the tacit,
time-honored, generally-conceded doctrine that a Peer has first right to
everything--the mediaeval superstition tolerated largely in our own time,
which allows a sort of divinity to hedge a Peer--all this has an
indirect, immense, pervading, almost universal influence in the
practical working of English politics. The Peers have, in fact, a
political _droit du seigneur_ in England. They have first taste of every
privilege, first choice of every appointment. Political office is their
pasture, where they are privileged to feed at will. There does not now
exist a man in England likely to receive high office, who would be bold
enough to suggest the forming of a Cabinet without Peers in it, even
though there were no Peers to be had who possessed the slightest
qualification for any ministerial position. The Peers must have a
certain number of places, because they are Peers. The House of Commons
swarms with the sons and nephews of Peers. The household appointments,
the ministerial offices, the good places in the army and the church are
theirs when they choose--and they generally do choose--to have them. The
son of a Peer, if in the House of Commons, may be raised at one step
from his place in the back benches to a seat in the Cabinet, simply
because of his rank. When Earl Russell, two or three years ago, raised
Mr. Goschen, one of the representatives of the city of London and a
partner in a great London banking-house, to a place in the Cabinet, the
whole country wondered: a very few, who were not frightened out of their
propriety, admired; some thought the world must be coming to an end. But
when the Marquis of Hartington was suddenly picked out of West End
dissipation and made War Secretary, nobody expressed the least wonder,
for he was the heir of the House of Devonshire. Indeed, it was perfectly
notorious that the young Marquis was presented to office, in the first
instance, because it was hoped by his friends that official duties might
wean him from the follies and frivolities of a more than ordinarily
heedless youth. Sir Robert Peel the present, the _magni nominis umbra_,
is not, of course, in the strict sense, an aristocrat; but he is mixed
up with aristocrats, and is the son of a Peer-maker, and may be regarded
as claiming and having the privileges of the class. Sir Robert Peel was
presented with the First Secretaryship as something to play with,
because his aristocratic friends, the ladies especially, thought he
would be more likely to sow his wild oats if he were beguiled by the
semblance of official business. A commoner must, in fact, be supposed to
have some qualification for office before he is invited to fill a
ministerial place. No qualification is believed necessary for the near
relative or connection of a Peer. Even in the most favorable examples of
Peers who are regular occupants of office, no special fitness is assumed
or pretended. No one supposes or says that Lord Clarendon, or Lord
Granville, or Lord Malmesbury has any particular qualification which
entitles him, above all other men, to this or that ministerial place.
Yet it must be a man of bold imagination indeed, who could now conceive
the possibility of a British Cabinet without one of these noblemen
having a place in it.
All this comes, as I have said, out of a lingering superstition--the
faith in the divine right of Peers. Now, a reform in the constitution of
the Upper House, which should purge it of the hereditary principle,
would be the first great blow to this superstition. Julius Caesar, in one
of his voyages of conquest, was much perplexed by the priests, who
insisted that he had better go back because the sacred chickens would
not eat. At last he thought the time had come to prove his independence
of the sacred chickens, "If they will not eat," he said, "then let them
drink"--and he flung the consecrated fowls into the sea; and the
expedition went on triumphantly, and the Roman soldiers learned that
they could do without the sacred chickens. I think a somewhat similar
sensation will come over all classes of the English people when they
find that the hereditary right to make laws is taken from the English
Peerage. I do not doubt that the whole fabric of superstition will
presently collapse, and that the privilege of the Peer will cease to be
anything more than that degree of superior influence which wealth and
social rank can generally command, even in the most democratic
communities. The law which gives impulse and support to the custom of
primogeniture is certain to go, and with it another prop of the mediaeval
superstition. The Peerage capitulates, in fact--no more expressive word
can be found to describe the situation.
Now, in all this, I have been foreshadowing no scheme of wild, vague,
far-distant reform. I appeal to any one, Liberal or Tory, who is
practically acquainted with English politics, to say whether these are
not changes he confidently or timidly looks to see accomplished before
long in England. I have not spoken of any reform which is not part of
the actual accepted programme of the Radical party. To the reform of
the House of Lords, of the military and diplomatic service; to abolition
of the law of primogeniture, the whole body of the Liberals stands
pledged; and Mr. Bright very recently renewed the pledges in a manner
and with an emphasis which showed that change of circumstances has made
no change in his opinions, brought no faltering in his resolution. The
abolition of the English Church is not, indeed, thus openly sought by so
powerful a party; but it is ostentatiously aimed at by that solid,
compact, pertinacious body of Dissenters who, after so long a struggle,
succeeded at last in getting rid of Church rates; and the movement will
go on with a rush after the fall of the Irish establishment. Here then
we have, in the not distant future, a prospect of an England without a
privileged Aristocracy, and with the State Church principle called into
final question. I return to my first consideration--the consideration
which is the subject of this paper--how will this affect the great
aristocratic, feudal and hierarchical institution of England, the Throne
of the Monarch?
The Throne then will stand naked and alone, stripped of its old-time and
traditional surroundings and associations. It cannot be like that of
France, the throne of a Caesar, a despotic institution claiming to
exercise its despotism over the people by virtue of the will and
delegated power of the people. The English Crown never can be an active
governing power. It will be the last idol in the invaded sanctuary. It
will stand alone, among the pedestals from which popular reform has
swept the embodied superstitions which were its long companions. It must
live, if at all, on the old affection or the toleration which springs
out of custom and habit. This affection, or at least this toleration,
may always be looked upon as a powerful influence in England. One can
hardly imagine, for instance, anything occurring in our day to dethrone
the Queen. However one class may grumble and another class may gibe, the
force of habit and old affection would, in this instance, prove
omnipotent. But, suppose the Prince of Wales should turn out an
unpopular and ill-conditioned ruler? Suppose he should prove to be a man
of low tastes, of vulgar and spendthrift habits, a maladroit and
intermeddling king? He is not very popular in England, even now, and he
is either one of the most unjustly entreated men living, or he has
defects which even the excuse of youth can scarcely gloss over.
An illustrated weekly paper in London forced itself lately into a sudden
notoriety by publishing a finely-drawn cartoon, in which the Prince of
Wales, dressed as Hamlet, was represented as breaking away from the
restraining arms of John Bull as Horatio, and public opinion as
Marcellus, and rushing after a ghost which bore the form and features of
George IV., while underneath were inscribed the words, "Lead on; I'll
follow thee!" This was a bold and bitter lampoon; I am far from saying
that it was not unjust, but I believe it can hardly be doubted that the
Prince of Wales has, as yet, shown little inclination to imitate the
example or cultivate the tastes of his pure-minded and intellectual
father. Now suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Prince of Wales
should turn out a George IV., or suppose, and which would be far worse
from a national point of view, he or his son should turn out a George
III. And suppose further that, about the same time any great crisis
should arise in England--suppose the country entangled in a great
foreign war, or disturbed by some momentous domestic agitation--can any
one doubt that the Crown, in its then isolated condition, would be
really in danger?
We must remember, when the strength of English institutions is boasted,
that they have not, since 1815, stood any strain which could fairly be
called critical. England has never had her national strength, her
political position, or even her _prestige_ seriously imperilled since
that time. Even the Indian war could not be called a great supreme
trial, such as other nations have lately had to bear. No one, even for a
moment, could have doubted how that struggle would end. It was bitter,
it was bloody; but the life of the nation was not staked upon it, even
had its issue been uncertain; and its issue never was uncertain. It
would be superfluous to say that England has passed through no ordeal
like that to which the United States were lately subjected. She has not
even had to confront anything like the crisis which Prussia voluntarily
invited, which Austria had to meet, in 1866. It will be time to consider
English feudal institutions, or what may remain of them, safe and
firmly-rooted, when they have stood the worst result of such a crisis as
that, and not been shaken down.
What I contend is that there is nothing in the present condition of the
English public mind, and nothing in the prospect of the immediate future
to warrant the almost universal assumption that the throne of England is
founded on a rock. The stupidity of loyalty, the devotion as of the
spaniel to his master, of the idolator to his god, is gone. I doubt if
there exists one man in England who feels the sentiment of loyalty as
his grandfather would have felt it. The mass of the people have learned
satisfactorily that a sovereign is not a part of the necessary machinery
of the government. The great problem which the Duke of Wellington used
to present for solution--"How is the Queen's Government to be carried
on?" has been solved in one and an unexpected sense. It can be carried
on without a queen. Here then we have the institution proving itself
superfluous, and falling into public indifference at the very same
moment that some other institutions which seemed always involved with it
as its natural and necessary companions, are about to be broken to
pieces and thrown away. He must, indeed, be full of a verily
transcendental faith in the destinies and divinity of royalty who does
not admit that at least there is a time of ordeal awaiting it in
England, such as it has not encountered before during this century.
To me it seems that the royal principle in England is threatened, not
with sudden and violent extinction, but with death by decay. I do not
expect any change of any kind to-morrow or the day after, or even the
week after next. I do not care to dogmatize, or predict, or make guesses
of any kind. I quite agree with my friend Professor Thorold Rogers, that
an uninspired prophet is a fool. But I contend that as the evident signs
of the times now show themselves, the monarchical principle in England
does seem to be decaying; that the national faith which bore it up is
sorely shaken and almost gone, and that some of the political props
which most nearly supported it are already being cut away. There may,
indeed, be some hidden virtue in the principle, which shall develop
itself unexpectedly in the hour of danger, and give to the institution
that seemed moribund a new and splendid vitality. Such a phenomenon has
been manifested in the case of more than one institution that seemed on
the verge of ruin--it may be the fortunate destiny of British royalty.
But unless in the sudden and timely development of some such occult and
unlooked-for virtue, I do not see what is to preserve the monarchical
principle in England through the trials of the future.
Let it be remembered, too, that the one great plea hitherto always made
in England for monarchy, is that it alone will work on a large scale.
"We admit," it was said, "that your republican theory looks better and
admits of more logical argument in its favor. But we are practical men,
and we find that our system, with all its theoretical disadvantages,
will work and stand a strain; and your republican theory, with all its
apparent advantages in logic, is not suited for this rough world. Our
machinery will stand the hardest trial; yours never did and never will.
Don't tell us about Switzerland. Switzerland is a little country. Kept
out of the stress and danger of European commotions, and protected by a
guarantee of the great powers, any constitution ought to work under such
advantages. But a great independent republic never did last; never did
stand a sudden strain, and never will." So people thought and argued in
England--even very intelligent people, until at last it became one of
the British Philistine's articles of faith, that the republican
principle never will work on a large scale. When Sir John Ramsden
declared in the House of Commons at the beginning of the American civil
war, that the republican bubble had burst, and all Philistinism in
Britain applauded the declaration, the plaudits were given not so much
because of any settled dislike Philistinism had to the United States, as
because Philistinism beheld what it believed to be a providential
testimony to its own wisdom and foresight. Since then Philistinism has
found that after all republicanism is able to bear a strain as great as
monarchy has ever yet borne, and can come out of the trial unharmed and
victorious.
The lesson has sunk deeply. The mind of something better than
Philistinism has learned that republics can be made to work on a large
scale. I believe Mr. Gladstone is one of the eminent Englishmen who now
openly admit that they have learned from the American war something
which they did not know before, of the cohesiveness and durability of
the republican system. Up to the time of that war in fact, most
Englishmen, when they talked of republican principles, thought only of
French republicanism, and honestly regarded such a system as a brilliant
empty bubble, doomed to soar a little, and float, and dazzle, and then
to burst.
That idea, it is quite safe to say, no longer exists in the English
mind. The fundamental, radical objection to republicanism--the objection
which, partly out of mere reaction and partly for more substantial
reasons, followed the brief and romantic enthusiasm of the days of
Fox--is gone. The practical Englishman admits that a republic is
practicable. Only those who know England can know what a change in
public opinion this is. It is, in fact, something like a revolution. I
think the most devoted monarchist will hardly deny that if some
extraordinary combination of chances (after all, even the British Throne
is but a human institution) were to disturb the succession of the house
of Brunswick, Englishmen would be more likely to try the republican
system than to hunt about for a new royal family, or endeavor to invent
a new scheme of monarchy. Here, then, I leave the subject. Take all this
into account, in considering the probabilities of the future, and then
say whether, even in the case of England, it is quite certain that
Byron's prediction is only the dream of a cynical poet, destined never
to be fulfilled among human realities.
THE REAL LOUIS NAPOLEON.
"How will it be with him," said Richard Cobden to a friend, one night,
as they spoke of a great and successful adventurer whom the friend was
striving to defend--"how will it be with him when life becomes all
retrospect?" The adventurer they spoke of was not Louis Napoleon; but
the inquiry might well apply just now to the Emperor of the French. Life
has reached that point with him when little more than retrospect can be
left. In the natural course of events, there can be no great triumphs
for Louis Napoleon still to achieve. Great blunders are possible, though
hardly probable; but the greatest of blunders would scarcely efface the
memory of the substantial triumphs. "Not heaven itself," exclaimed an
ambitious and profane statesman, "can undo the fact that I have been
three times Prime Minister." Well, the Fates--let them do their
best--can hardly undo the fact that the despised outcast of Constance,
and Augsburg, and London, and New York, whom Lord Palmerston excused
himself to Guizot for tolerating, on the ground that really nobody
minded the dull, harmless poor fellow; the Fates cannot undo the fact
that this man has elected himself Emperor of the French, has defeated
the Russians and the Austrians, and made a friend and ally of England.