SYBIL, OR THE TWO NATIONS
By Benjamin Disraeli
I would inscribe these volumes to one whose noble spirit and gentle
nature ever prompt her to sympathise with the suffering; to one whose
sweet voice has often encouraged, and whose taste and judgment have ever
guided, their pages; the most severe of critics, but--a perfect Wife!
Advertisement
The general reader whose attention has not been specially drawn to the
subject which these volumes aim to illustrate, the Condition of
the People, might suspect that the Writer had been tempted to some
exaggeration in the scenes which he has drawn and the impressions which
he has wished to convey. He thinks it therefore due to himself to state
that he believes there is not a trait in this work for which he has not
the authority of his own observation, or the authentic evidence which
has been received by Royal Commissions and Parliamentary Committees. But
while he hopes he has alleged nothing which is not true, he has found
the absolute necessity of suppressing much that is genuine. For so
little do we know of the state of our own country that the air of
improbability that the whole truth would inevitably throw over these
pages, might deter many from their perusal.
Grosvenor-Gate, May Day, 1845.
BOOK I
Book 1 Chapter 1
“I’ll take the odds against Caravan.”
“In poneys?”
“Done.”
And Lord Milford, a young noble, entered in his book the bet which he
had just made with Mr Latour, a grey headed member of the Jockey Club.
It was the eve of the Derby of 1837. In a vast and golden saloon, that
in its decorations would have become, and in its splendour would not
have disgraced, Versailles in the days of the grand monarch, were
assembled many whose hearts beat at the thought of the morrow, and whose
brains still laboured to control its fortunes to their advantage.
“They say that Caravan looks puffy,” lisped in a low voice a young
man, lounging on the edge of a buhl table that had once belonged to a
Mortemart, and dangling a rich cane with affected indifference in order
to conceal his anxiety from all, except the person whom he addressed.
“They are taking seven to two against him freely over the way,” was the
reply. “I believe it’s all right.”
“Do you know I dreamed last night something about Mango,” continued the
gentleman with the cane, and with a look of uneasy superstition.
His companion shook his head.
“Well,” continued the gentleman with the cane, “I have no opinion of
him. I gave Charles Egremont the odds against Mango this morning; he
goes with us, you know. By the bye, who is our fourth?”
“I thought of Milford,” was the reply in an under tone. “What say you?”
“Milford is going with St James and Punch Hughes.”
“Well, let us come into supper, and we shall see some fellow we like.”
So saying, the companions, taking their course through more than one
chamber, entered an apartment of less dimensions than the principal
saloon, but not less sumptuous in its general appearance. The gleaming
lustres poured a flood of soft yet brilliant light over a plateau
glittering with gold plate, and fragrant with exotics embedded in vases
of rare porcelain. The seats on each side of the table were occupied by
persons consuming, with a heedless air, delicacies for which they had no
appetite; while the conversation in general consisted of flying phrases
referring to the impending event of the great day that had already
dawned.
“Come from Lady St Julian’s, Fitz?” said a youth of very tender years,
and whose fair visage was as downy and as blooming as the peach from
which with a languid air he withdrew his lips to make this inquiry of
the gentleman with the cane.
“Yes; why were not you there?”
“I never go anywhere,” replied the melancholy Cupid, “everything bores
me so.”
“Well, will you go to Epsom with us to-morrow, Alfred?” said Lord
Fitzheron. “I take Berners and Charles Egremont, and with you our party
will be perfect.”
“I feel so cursed blasé!” exclaimed the boy in a tone of elegant
anguish.
“It will give you a fillip, Alfred,” said Mr Berners; “do you all the
good in the world.”
“Nothing can do me good,” said Alfred, throwing away his almost untasted
peach, “I should be quite content if anything could do me harm. Waiter,
bring me a tumbler of Badminton.”
“And bring me one too,” sighed out Lord Eugene De Vere, who was a
year older than Alfred Mountchesney, his companion and brother in
listlessness. Both had exhausted life in their teens, and all that
remained for them was to mourn, amid the ruins of their reminiscences,
over the extinction of excitement.
“Well, Eugene, suppose you come with us.” said Lord Fitzheron.
“I think I shall go down to Hampton Court and play tennis,” said Lord
Eugene. “As it is the Derby, nobody will be there.”
“And I will go with you, Eugene,” said Alfred Mountchesney, “and we will
dine together afterwards at the Toy. Anything is better than dining in
this infernal London.”
“Well, for my part,” said Mr Berners. “I do not like your suburban
dinners. You always get something you can’t eat, and cursed bad wine.”
“I rather like bad wine,” said Mr Mountchesney; “one gets so bored with
good wine.”
“Do you want the odds against Hybiscus, Berners?” said a guardsman
looking up from his book, which he had been very intently studying.
“All I want is some supper, and as you are not using your place--”
“You shall have it. Oh! here’s Milford, he will give them me.”
And at this moment entered the room the young nobleman whom we have
before mentioned, accompanied by an individual who was approaching
perhaps the termination of his fifth lustre but whose general air
rather betokened even a less experienced time of life. Tall, with
a well-proportioned figure and a graceful carriage, his countenance
touched with a sensibility that at once engages the affections. Charles
Egremont was not only admired by that sex, whose approval generally
secures men enemies among their fellows, but was at the same time the
favourite of his own.
“Ah, Egremont! come and sit here,” exclaimed more than one banqueter.
“I saw you waltzing with the little Bertie, old fellow,” said Lord
Fitzheron, “and therefore did not stay to speak to you, as I thought we
should meet here. I am to call for you, mind.”
“How shall we all feel this time to-morrow?” said Egremont, smiling.
“The happiest fellow at this moment must be Cockie Graves,” said Lord
Milford. “He can have no suspense. I have been looking over his book, and
I defy him, whatever happens, not to lose.”
“Poor Cockie.” said Mr Berners; “he has asked me to dine with him at the
Clarendon on Saturday.”
“Cockie is a very good Cockie,” said Lord Milford, “and Caravan is a
very good horse; and if any gentleman sportsman present wishes to give
seven to two, I will take him to any amount.”
“My book is made up,” said Egremont; “and I stand or fall by Caravan.”
“And I.”
“And I.”
“And I.”
“Well, mark my words,” said a fourth, rather solemnly, “Rat-trap wins.”
“There is not a horse except Caravan,” said Lord Milford, “fit for a
borough stake.”
“You used to be all for Phosphorus, Egremont,” said Lord Eugene de Vere.
“Yes; but fortunately I have got out of that scrape. I owe Phip Dormer a
good turn for that. I was the third man who knew he had gone lame.”
“And what are the odds against him now.”
“Oh! nominal; forty to one,--what you please.”
“He won’t run,” said Mr Berners, “John Day told me he had refused to
ride him.”
“I believe Cockie Graves might win something if Phosphorus came in
first,” said Lord Milford, laughing.
“How close it is to-night!” said Egremont. “Waiter, give me some Seltzer
water; and open another window; open them all.”
At this moment an influx of guests intimated that the assembly at Lady
St Julian’s was broken up. Many at the table rose and yielded their
places, clustering round the chimney-piece, or forming in various
groups, and discussing the great question. Several of those who had
recently entered were votaries of Rat-trap, the favourite, and quite
prepared, from all the information that had reached them, to back
their opinions valiantly. The conversation had now become general and
animated, or rather there was a medley of voices in which little was
distinguished except the names of horses and the amount of odds. In
the midst of all this, waiters glided about handing incomprehensible
mixtures bearing aristocratic names; mystical combinations of French
wines and German waters, flavoured with slices of Portugal fruits, and
cooled with lumps of American ice, compositions which immortalized the
creative genius of some high patrician name.
“By Jove! that’s a flash,” exclaimed Lord Milford, as a blaze of
lightning seemed to suffuse the chamber, and the beaming lustres turned
white and ghastly in the glare.
The thunder rolled over the building. There was a dead silence. Was
it going to rain? Was it going to pour? Was the storm confined to the
metropolis? Would it reach Epsom? A deluge, and the course would be a
quagmire, and strength might baffle speed.
Another flash, another explosion, the hissing noise of rain. Lord
Milford moved aside, and jealous of the eye of another, read a letter
from Chifney, and in a few minutes afterwards offered to take the odds
against Pocket Hercules. Mr Latour walked to the window, surveyed the
heavens, sighed that there was not time to send his tiger from the door
to Epsom, and get information whether the storm had reached the Surrey
hills, for to-night’s operations. It was too late. So he took a rusk and
a glass of lemonade, and retired to rest with a cool head and a cooler
heart.
The storm raged, the incessant flash played as it were round the
burnished cornice of the chamber, and threw a lurid hue on the scenes
of Watteau and Boucher that sparkled in the medallions over the lofty
doors. The thunderbolts seemed to descend in clattering confusion upon
the roof. Sometimes there was a moment of dead silence, broken only by
the pattering of the rain in the street without, or the pattering of the
dice in a chamber at hand. Then horses were backed, bets made, and there
were loud and frequent calls for brimming goblets from hurrying waiters,
distracted by the lightning and deafened by the peal. It seemed a scene
and a supper where the marble guest of Juan might have been expected,
and had he arrived, he would have found probably hearts as bold and
spirits as reckless as he encountered in Andalusia.
Book 1 Chapter 2
“Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?” sang out a gentleman in the
ring at Epsom. It was full of eager groups; round the betting post a
swarming cluster, while the magic circle itself was surrounded by a
host of horsemen shouting from their saddles the odds they were ready to
receive or give, and the names of the horses they were prepared to back
or to oppose.
“Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?”
“I’ll give you five to one,” said a tall, stiff Saxon peer, in a white
great coat.
“No; I’ll take six.”
The tall, stiff peer in the white great coat mused for a moment with his
pencil at his lip, and then said, “Well, I’ll give you six. What do you
say about Mango?”
“Eleven to two against Mango,” called out a little humpbacked man in a
shrill voice, but with the air of one who was master of his work.
“I should like to do a little business with you, Mr Chippendale,” said
Lord Milford in a coaxing tone, “but I must have six to one.”
“Eleven to two, and no mistake,” said this keeper of a second-rate
gaming-house, who, known by the flattering appellation of Hump
Chippendale, now turned with malignant abruptness from the heir apparent
of an English earldom.
“You shall have six to one, my Lord,” said Captain Spruce, a debonair
personage with a well-turned silk hat arranged a little aside, his
coloured cravat tied with precision, his whiskers trimmed like a
quickset hedge. Spruce, who had earned his title of Captain on the
plains of Newmarket, which had witnessed for many a year his successful
exploits, had a weakness for the aristocracy, who knowing his graceful
infirmity patronized him with condescending dexterity, acknowledged his
existence in Pall Mall as well as at Tattersalls, and thus occasionally
got a point more than the betting out of him. Hump Chippendale had none
of these gentle failings; he was a democratic leg, who loved to fleece a
noble, and thought all men were born equal--a consoling creed that was a
hedge for his hump.
“Seven to four against the favourite; seven to two against Caravan;
eleven to two against Mango. What about Benedict? Will any one do
anything about Pocket Hercules? Thirty to one against Dardanelles.”
“Done.”
“Five and thirty ponies to one against Phosphorus,” shouted a little man
vociferously and repeatedly.
“I will give forty,” said Lord Milford. No answer,--nothing done.
“Forty to one!” murmured Egremont who stood against Phosphorus. A little
nervous, he said to the peer in the white great coat, “Don’t you think
that Phosphorus may after all have some chance?”
“I should be cursed sorry to be deep against him,” said the peer.
Egremont with a quivering lip walked away. He consulted his book; he
meditated anxiously. Should he hedge? It was scarcely worth while to mar
the symmetry of his winnings; he stood “so well” by all the favourites;
and for a horse at forty to one. No; he would trust his star, he would
not hedge.
“Mr Chippendale,” whispered the peer in the white great coat, “go and
press Mr Egremont about Phosphorus. I should not be surprised if you got
a good thing.”
At this moment, a huge, broad-faced, rosy-gilled fellow, with one of
those good-humoured yet cunning countenances that we meet occasionally
on the northern side of the Trent, rode up to the ring on a square cob
and dismounting entered the circle. He was a carcase butcher, famous in
Carnaby market, and the prime councillor of a distinguished nobleman for
whom privately he betted on commission. His secret service to-day was to
bet against his noble employer’s own horse, and so he at once sung out,
“Twenty to one against Man-trap.”
A young gentleman just launched into the world, and who, proud of his
ancient and spreading acres, was now making his first book, seeing
Man-trap marked eighteen to one on the cards, jumped eagerly at this
bargain, while Lord Fitzheron and Mr Berners who were at hand and who in
their days had found their names in the book of the carcase butcher, and
grown wise by it, interchanged a smile.
“Mr Egremont will not take,” said Hump Chippendale to the peer in the
white great coat.
“You must have been too eager,” said his noble friend.
The ring is up; the last odds declared; all gallop away to the Warren.
A few minutes, only a few minutes, and the event that for twelve months
has been the pivot of so much calculation, of such subtile combinations,
of such deep conspiracies, round which the thought and passion of the
sporting world have hung like eagles, will be recorded in the fleeting
tablets of the past. But what minutes! Count them by sensation and not
by calendars, and each moment is a day and the race a life. Hogarth in
a coarse and yet animated sketch has painted “Before” and “After.” A
creative spirit of a higher vein might develop the simplicity of the
idea with sublimer accessories. Pompeius before Pharsalia, Harold before
Hastings, Napoleon before Waterloo, might afford some striking contrasts
to the immediate catastrophe of their fortunes. Finer still the inspired
mariner who has just discovered a new world; the sage who has revealed
a new planet; and yet the “Before” and “After” of a first-rate English
race, in the degree of its excitement, and sometimes in the tragic
emotions of its close, may vie even with these.
They are saddling the horses; Caravan looks in great condition; and a
scornful smile seems to play upon the handsome features of Pavis, as in
the becoming colours of his employer, he gracefully gallops his horse
before his admiring supporters. Egremont in the delight of an
English patrician scarcely saw Mango, and never even thought of
Phosphorus--Phosphorus, who, by the bye, was the first horse that
showed, with both his forelegs bandaged.
They are off!
As soon as they are well away, Chifney makes the running with Pocket
Hercules. Up to the Rubbing House he is leading; this is the only point
the eye can select. Higher up the hill, Caravan, Hybiscus, Benedict,
Mahometan, Phosphorus, Michel Fell, and Rat-trap are with the grey,
forming a front rank, and at the new ground the pace has told its tale,
for half a dozen are already out of the race.
The summit is gained; the tactics alter: here Pavis brings up Caravan,
with extraordinary severity,--the pace round Tattenham corner terrific;
Caravan leading, then Phosphorus a little above him, Mahometan next,
Hybiscus fourth. Rat-trap looking badly, Wisdom, Benedict and another
handy. By this time Pocket Hercules has enough, and at the road the
tailing grows at every stride. Here the favourite himself is hors de
combat, as well as Dardanelles, and a crowd of lesser celebrities.
There are now but four left in the race, and of these, two, Hybiscus
and Mahometan, are some lengths behind. Now it is neck and neck between
Caravan and Phosphorus. At the stand Caravan has decidedly the best,
but just at the post, Edwards, on Phosphorus, lifts the gallant little
horse, and with an extraordinary effort contrives to shove him in by
half a length.
“You look a little low, Charley,” said Lord Fitzheron, as taking their
lunch in their drag he poured the champagne into the glass of Egremont.
“By Jove!” said Lord Milford, “Only think of Cockie Graves having gone
and done it!”
Book 1 Chapter 3
Egremont was the younger brother of an English earl, whose nobility
being of nearly three centuries’ date, ranked him among our high and
ancient peers, although its origin was more memorable than illustrious.
The founder of the family had been a confidential domestic of one of the
favourites of Henry the Eighth, and had contrived to be appointed one
of the commissioners for “visiting and taking the surrenders of divers
religious houses.” It came to pass that divers of these religious houses
surrendered themselves eventually to the use and benefit of honest
Baldwin Greymount. The king was touched with the activity and zeal
of his commissioner. Not one of them whose reports were so ample and
satisfactory, who could baffle a wily prior with more dexterity, or
control a proud abbot with more firmness. Nor were they well-digested
reports alone that were transmitted to the sovereign: they came
accompanied with many rare and curious articles, grateful to the taste
of one who was not only a religious reformer but a dilettante; golden
candlesticks and costly chalices; sometimes a jewelled pix; fantastic
spoons and patens, rings for the fingers and the ear; occasionally a
fair-written and blazoned manuscript--suitable offering to the royal
scholar. Greymount was noticed; sent for; promoted in the household;
knighted; might doubtless have been sworn of the council, and in due
time have become a minister; but his was a discreet ambition--of an
accumulative rather than an aspiring character. He served the king
faithfully in all domestic matters that required an unimpassioned,
unscrupulous agent; fashioned his creed and conscience according to the
royal model in all its freaks; seized the right moment to get sundry
grants of abbey lands, and contrived in that dangerous age to save both
his head and his estate.
The Greymount family having planted themselves in the land, faithful to
the policy of the founder, avoided the public gaze during the troubled
period that followed the reformation; and even during the more orderly
reign of Elizabeth, rather sought their increase in alliances than in
court favour. But at the commencement of the seventeenth century, their
abbey lands infinitely advanced in value, and their rental swollen by
the prudent accumulation of more than seventy years, a Greymount, who
was then a county member, was elevated to the peerage as Baron Marney.
The heralds furnished his pedigree, and assured the world that although
the exalted rank and extensive possessions enjoyed at present by
the Greymounts, had their origin immediately in great territorial
revolutions of a recent reign, it was not for a moment to be supposed,
that the remote ancestors of the Ecclesiastical Commissioner of 1530
were by any means obscure. On the contrary, it appeared that they were
both Norman and baronial, their real name Egremont, which, in their
patent of peerage the family now resumed.
In the civil wars, the Egremonts pricked by their Norman blood, were
cavaliers and fought pretty well. But in 1688, alarmed at the prevalent
impression that King James intended to insist on the restitution of the
church estates to their original purposes, to wit, the education of the
people and the maintenance of the poor, the Lord of Marney Abbey became
a warm adherent of “civil and religious liberty,”--the cause for which
Hampden had died in the field, and Russell on the scaffold,--and joined
the other whig lords, and great lay impropriators, in calling over the
Prince of Orange and a Dutch army, to vindicate those popular principles
which, somehow or other, the people would never support. Profiting by
this last pregnant circumstance, the lay Abbot of Marney also in this
instance like the other whig lords, was careful to maintain, while he
vindicated the cause of civil and religious liberty, a very loyal and
dutiful though secret correspondence with the court of St Germains.
The great deliverer King William the Third, to whom Lord Marney was
a systematic traitor, made the descendant of the Ecclesiastical
Commissioner of Henry the Eighth an English earl; and from that time
until the period of our history, though the Marney family had never
produced one individual eminent for civil or military abilities, though
the country was not indebted to them for a single statesman, orator,
successful warrior, great lawyer, learned divine, eminent author,
illustrious man of science, they had contrived, if not to engross any
great share of public admiration and love, at least to monopolise no
contemptible portion of public money and public dignities. During the
seventy years of almost unbroken whig rule, from the accession of the
House of Hanover to the fall of Mr Fox, Marney Abbey had furnished
a never-failing crop of lord privy seals, lord presidents, and
lord lieutenants. The family had had their due quota of garters and
governments and bishoprics; admirals without fleets, and generals who
fought only in America. They had glittered in great embassies with
clever secretaries at their elbow, and had once governed Ireland when
to govern Ireland was only to apportion the public plunder to a corrupt
senate.
Notwithstanding however this prolonged enjoyment of undeserved
prosperity, the lay abbots of Marney were not content. Not that it was
satiety that induced dissatisfaction. The Egremonts could feed on.
They wanted something more. Not to be prime ministers or secretaries of
state, for they were a shrewd race who knew the length of their tether,
and notwithstanding the encouraging example of his grace of Newcastle,
they could not resist the persuasion that some knowledge of the
interests and resources of nations, some power of expressing opinions
with propriety, some degree of respect for the public and for himself,
were not altogether indispensable qualifications, even under a Venetian
constitution, in an individual who aspired to a post so eminent and
responsible. Satisfied with the stars and mitres and official seals,
which were periodically apportioned to them, the Marney family did not
aspire to the somewhat graceless office of being their distributor. What
they aimed at was promotion in their order; and promotion to the highest
class. They observed that more than one of the other great “civil and
religious liberty” families,--the families who in one century plundered
the church to gain the property of the people, and in another century
changed the dynasty to gain the power of the crown,--had their brows
circled with the strawberry leaf. And why should not this distinction be
the high lot also of the descendants of the old gentleman usher of one
of King Henry’s plundering vicar-generals? Why not? True it is, that
a grateful sovereign in our days has deemed such distinction the only
reward for half a hundred victories. True it is, that Nelson, after
conquering the Mediterranean, died only a Viscount! But the house of
Marney had risen to high rank; counted themselves ancient nobility; and
turned up their noses at the Pratts and the Smiths, the Jenkinsons and
the Robinsons of our degenerate days; and never had done anything
for the nation or for their honours. And why should they now? It was
unreasonable to expect it. Civil and religious liberty, that had
given them a broad estate and a glittering coronet, to say nothing
of half-a-dozen close seats in parliament, ought clearly to make them
dukes.
But the other great whig families who had obtained this honour, and who
had done something more for it than spoliate their church and betray
their king, set up their backs against this claim of the Egremonts.
The Egremonts had done none of the work of the last hundred years
of political mystification, during which a people without power or
education, had been induced to believe themselves the freest and most
enlightened nation in the world, and had submitted to lavish their blood
and treasure, to see their industry crippled and their labour mortgaged,
in order to maintain an oligarchy, that had neither ancient memories to
soften nor present services to justify their unprecedented usurpation.
How had the Egremonts contributed to this prodigious result? Their
family had furnished none of those artful orators whose bewildering
phrase had fascinated the public intelligence; none of those toilsome
patricians whose assiduity in affairs had convinced their unprivileged
fellow-subjects that government was a science, and administration an
art, which demanded the devotion of a peculiar class in the state for
their fulfilment and pursuit. The Egremonts had never said anything that
was remembered, or done anything that could be recalled. It was decided
by the Great Revolution families, that they should not be dukes.
Infinite was the indignation of the lay Abbot of Marney. He counted his
boroughs, consulted his cousins, and muttered revenge. The opportunity
soon offered for the gratification of his passion.
The situation of the Venetian party in the wane of the eighteenth
century had become extremely critical. A young king was making often
fruitless, but always energetic, struggles to emancipate his national
royalty from the trammels of the factious dogeship. More than sixty
years of a government of singular corruption had alienated all hearts
from the oligarchy; never indeed much affected by the great body of the
people. It could no longer be concealed, that by virtue of a plausible
phrase power had been transferred from the crown to a parliament, the
members of which were appointed by an extremely limited and exclusive
class, who owned no responsibility to the country, who debated and
voted in secret, and who were regularly paid by the small knot of great
families that by this machinery had secured the permanent possession
of the king’s treasury. Whiggism was putrescent in the nostrils of
the nation; we were probably on the eve of a bloodless yet important
revolution; when Rockingham, a virtuous magnifico, alarmed and
disgusted, resolved to revive something of the pristine purity and
high-toned energy of the old whig connection; appealed to his “new
generation” from a degenerate age, arrayed under his banner the generous
youth of the whig families, and was fortunate to enlist in the service
the supreme genius of Edmund Burke.
Burke effected for the whigs what Bolingbroke in a preceding age had
done for the tories: he restored the moral existence of the party. He
taught them to recur to the ancient principles of their connection,
and suffused those principles with all the delusive splendour of his
imagination. He raised the tone of their public discourse; he breathed
a high spirit into their public acts. It was in his power to do more for
the whigs than St John could do for his party. The oligarchy, who had
found it convenient to attaint Bolingbroke for being the avowed
minister of the English Prince with whom they were always in secret
communication, when opinion forced them to consent to his
restitution, had tacked to the amnesty a clause as cowardly as it was
unconstitutional, and declared his incompetence to sit in the parliament
of his country. Burke on the contrary fought the whig fight with
a two-edged weapon: he was a great writer; as an orator he was
transcendent. In a dearth of that public talent for the possession of
which the whigs have generally been distinguished, Burke came forward
and established them alike in the parliament and the country. And what
was his reward? No sooner had a young and dissolute noble, who with
some of the aspirations of a Caesar oftener realised the conduct of
a Catiline, appeared on the stage, and after some inglorious
tergiversation adopted their colours, than they transferred to him
the command which had been won by wisdom and genius, vindicated by
unrivalled knowledge, and adorned by accomplished eloquence. When the
hour arrived for the triumph which he had prepared, he was not even
admitted into the Cabinet, virtually presided over by his graceless
pupil, and who, in the profuse suggestions of his teeming converse,
had found the principles and the information which were among the chief
claims to public confidence of Mr Fox.
Hard necessity made Mr Burke submit to the yoke, but the humiliation
could never be forgotten. Nemesis favours genius: the inevitable hour
at length arrived. A voice like the Apocalypse sounded over England and
even echoed in all the courts of Europe. Burke poured forth the vials
of his hoarded vengeance into the agitated heart of Christendom; he
stimulated the panic of a world by the wild pictures of his inspired
imagination; he dashed to the ground the rival who had robbed him of
his hard-earned greatness; rended in twain the proud oligarchy that
had dared to use and to insult him; and followed with servility by
the haughtiest and the most timid of its members, amid the frantic
exultation of his country, he placed his heel upon the neck of the
ancient serpent.
Among the whig followers of Mr Burke in this memorable defection, among
the Devonshires and the Portlands, the Spencers and the Fitzwilliams,
was the Earl of Marney, whom the whigs would not make a duke.
What was his chance of success from Mr Pitt?
If the history of England be ever written by one who has the knowledge
and the courage, and both qualities are equally requisite for the
undertaking, the world would be more astonished than when reading the
Roman annals by Niebuhr. Generally speaking, all the great events have
been distorted, most of the important causes concealed, some of
the principal characters never appear, and all who figure are so
misunderstood and misrepresented, that the result is a complete
mystification, and the perusal of the narrative about as profitable to
an Englishman as reading the Republic of Plato or the Utopia of More,
the pages of Gaudentio di Lucca or the adventures of Peter Wilkins.
The influence of races in our early ages, of the church in our middle,
and of parties in our modern history, are three great moving and
modifying powers, that must be pursued and analyzed with an untiring,
profound, and unimpassioned spirit, before a guiding ray can be secured.
A remarkable feature of our written history is the absence in its pages
of some of the most influential personages. Not one man in a thousand
for instance has ever heard of Major Wildman: yet he was the soul of
English politics in the most eventful period of this kingdom, and one
most interesting to this age, from 1640 to 1688; and seemed more than
once to hold the balance which was to decide the permanent form of
our government. But he was the leader of an unsuccessful party. Even,
comparatively speaking, in our own times, the same mysterious oblivion
is sometimes encouraged to creep over personages of great social
distinction as well as political importance.
The name of the second Pitt remains, fresh after forty years of great
events, a parliamentary beacon. He was the Chatterton of politics; the
“marvellous boy.” Some have a vague impression that he was mysteriously
moulded by his great father: that he inherited the genius, the
eloquence, the state craft of Chatham. His genius was of a different
bent, his eloquence of a different class, his state craft of a different
school. To understand Mr Pitt, one must understand one of the suppressed
characters of English history, and that is Lord Shelburne.
When the fine genius of the injured Bolingbroke, the only peer of his
century who was educated, and proscribed by the oligarchy because they
were afraid of his eloquence, “the glory of his order and the shame,”
shut out from Parliament, found vent in those writings which recalled
to the English people the inherent blessings of their old free monarchy,
and painted in immortal hues his picture of a patriot king, the spirit
that he raised at length touched the heart of Carteret, born a whig, yet
sceptical of the advantages of that patrician constitution which made
the Duke of Newcastle, the most incompetent of men, but the chosen leader
of the Venetian party, virtually sovereign of England. Lord Carteret had
many brilliant qualities: he was undaunted, enterprising, eloquent; had
considerable knowledge of continental politics, was a great linguist,
a master of public law; and though he failed in his premature effort to
terminate the dogeship of George the Second, he succeeded in maintaining
a considerable though secondary position in public life. The young
Shelburne married his daughter. Of him it is singular we know less than
of his father-in-law, yet from the scattered traits some idea may be
formed of the ablest and most accomplished minister of the eighteenth
century. Lord Shelburne, influenced probably by the example and the
traditionary precepts of his eminent father-in-law, appears early to
have held himself aloof from the patrician connection, and entered
public life as the follower of Bute in the first great effort of George
the Third to rescue the sovereignty from what Lord Chatham called “the
Great Revolution families.” He became in time a member of Lord Chatham’s
last administration: one of the strangest and most unsuccessful efforts
to aid the grandson of George the Second in his struggle for political
emancipation. Lord Shelburne adopted from the first the Bolingbroke
system: a real royalty, in lieu of the chief magistracy; a permanent
alliance with France, instead of the whig scheme of viewing in that
power the natural enemy of England: and, above all, a plan of
commercial freedom, the germ of which may be found in the long-maligned
negotiations of Utrecht, but which in the instance of Lord Shelburne
were soon in time matured by all the economical science of Europe,
in which he was a proficient. Lord Shelburne seems to have been of
a reserved and somewhat astute disposition: deep and adroit, he was
however brave and firm. His knowledge was extensive and even profound.
He was a great linguist; he pursued both literary and scientific
investigations; his house was frequented by men of letters, especially
those distinguished by their political abilities or economical
attainments. He maintained the most extensive private correspondence of
any public man of his time. The earliest and most authentic information
reached him from all courts and quarters of Europe: and it was a common
phrase, that the minister of the day sent to him often for the important
information which the cabinet could not itself command. Lord Shelburne
was the first great minister who comprehended the rising importance
of the middle class; and foresaw in its future power a bulwark for the
throne against “the Great Revolution families.” Of his qualities
in council we have no record; there is reason to believe that his
administrative ability was conspicuous: his speeches prove that, if not
supreme, he was eminent, in the art of parliamentary disputation, while
they show on all the questions discussed a richness and variety of
information with which the speeches of no statesman of that age except
Mr Burke can compare.
Such was the man selected by George the Third as his champion against
the Venetian party after the termination of the American war. The
prosecution of that war they had violently opposed, though it had
originated in their own policy. First minister in the House of Lords,
Shelburne entrusted the lead in the House of Commons to his Chancellor
of the Exchequer, the youthful Pitt. The administration was brief, but
it was not inglorious. It obtained peace, and for the first time since
the Revolution introduced into modern debate the legitimate principles
on which commerce should be conducted. It fell before the famous
Coalition with which “the Great Revolution families” commenced their
fiercest and their last contention for the patrician government of royal
England.
In the heat of that great strife, the king in the second hazardous
exercise of his prerogative entrusted the perilous command to Pitt.
Why Lord Shelburne on that occasion was set aside, will perhaps always
remain a mysterious passage of our political history, nor have we space
on the present occasion to attempt to penetrate its motives. Perhaps
the monarch, with a sense of the rising sympathies of his people, was
prescient of the magic power of youth in touching the heart of a nation.
Yet it would not be an unprofitable speculation if for a moment we
paused to consider what might have been the consequences to our country
if Mr Pitt had been content for a season again to lead the Commons under
Lord Shelburne, and have secured for England the unrivalled knowledge
and dexterity of that statesman in the conduct of our affairs during the
confounding fortunes of the French revolution. Lord Shelburne was the
only English minister competent to the task; he was the only public man
who had the previous knowledge requisite to form accurate conclusions
on such a conjuncture: his remaining speeches on the subject attest the
amplitude of his knowledge and the accuracy of his views: and in the
rout of Jena, or the agony of Austerlitz, one cannot refrain from
picturing the shade of Shelburne haunting the cabinet of Pitt, as the
ghost of Canning is said occasionally to linger about the speaker’s
chair, and smile sarcastically on the conscientious mediocrities who
pilfered his hard-earned honours.
But during the happier years of Mr Pitt, the influence of the mind of
Shelburne may be traced throughout his policy. It was Lansdowne House
that made Pitt acquainted with Dr Price, a dissenting minister, whom
Lord Shelburne when at the head of affairs courageously offered to
make his private secretary, and who furnished Mr Pitt, among many other
important suggestions, with his original plan of the sinking fund. The
commercial treaties of ‘87 were struck in the same mint, and are notable
as the first effort made by the English government to emancipate the
country from the restrictive policy which had been introduced by the
“glorious revolution;” memorable epoch, that presented England at the
same time with a corn law and a public debt. But on no subject was the
magnetic influence of the descendant of Sir William Petty more decided,
than in the resolution of his pupil to curb the power of the patrician
party by an infusion from the middle classes into the government of
the country. Hence the origin of Mr Pitt’s famous and long-misconceived
plans of parliamentary reform. Was he sincere, is often asked by those
who neither seek to discover the causes nor are capable of calculating
the effects of public transactions. Sincere! Why, he was struggling
for his existence! And when baffled, first by the Venetian party, and
afterwards by the panic of Jacobinism, he was forced to forego his
direct purpose, he still endeavoured partially to effect it by a
circuitous process. He created a plebeian aristocracy and blended it
with the patrician oligarchy. He made peers of second-rate squires
and fat graziers. He caught them in the alleys of Lombard Street, and
clutched them from the counting-houses of Cornhill. When Mr Pitt in an
age of bank restriction declared that every man with an estate of ten
thousand a-year had a right to be a peer, he sounded the knell of
“the cause for which Hampden had died on the field, and Sydney on the
scaffold.”
In ordinary times the pupil of Shelburne would have raised this country
to a state of great material prosperity, and removed or avoided many
of those anomalies which now perplex us; but he was not destined for
ordinary times; and though his capacity was vast and his spirit lofty,
he had not that passionate and creative genius required by an age of
revolution. The French outbreak was his evil daemon: he had not the
means of calculating its effects upon Europe. He had but a meagre
knowledge himself of continental politics: he was assisted by a very
inefficient diplomacy. His mind was lost in a convulsion of which he
neither could comprehend the causes nor calculate the consequences; and
forced to act, he acted not only violently, but in exact opposition to
the very system he was called into political existence to combat; he
appealed to the fears, the prejudices, and the passions of a privileged
class, revived the old policy of the oligarchy he had extinguished, and
plunged into all the ruinous excesses of French war and Dutch finance.
If it be a salutary principle in the investigation of historical
transactions to be careful in discriminating the cause from the
pretext, there is scarcely any instance in which the application of this
principle is more fertile in results, than in that of the Dutch invasion
of 1688. The real cause of this invasion was financial. The Prince of
Orange had found that the resources of Holland, however considerable,
were inadequate to sustain him in his internecine rivalry with the great
sovereign of France. In an authentic conversation which has descended to
us, held by William at the Hague with one of the prime abettors of the
invasion, the prince did not disguise his motives; he said, “nothing but
such a constitution as you have in England can have the credit that is
necessary to raise such sums as a great war requires.” The prince came,
and used our constitution for his purpose: he introduced into England
the system of Dutch finance. The principle of that system was to
mortgage industry in order to protect property: abstractedly, nothing
can be conceived more unjust; its practice in England has been equally
injurious. In Holland, with a small population engaged in the same
pursuits, in fact a nation of bankers, the system was adapted to the
circumstances which had created it. All shared in the present spoil, and
therefore could endure the future burthen. And so to this day Holland
is sustained, almost solely sustained, by the vast capital thus created
which still lingers amongst its dykes. But applied to a country in
which the circumstances were entirely different; to a considerable and
rapidly-increasing population; where there was a numerous peasantry,
a trading middle class struggling into existence; the system of Dutch
finance, pursued more or less for nearly a century and a half, has ended
in the degradation of a fettered and burthened multitude. Nor have the
demoralizing consequences of the funding system on the more favoured
classes been less decided. It has made debt a national habit; it has
made credit the ruling power, not the exceptional auxiliary, of all
transactions; it has introduced a loose, inexact, haphazard, and
dishonest spirit in the conduct of both public and private life; a
spirit dazzling and yet dastardly: reckless of consequences and yet
shrinking from responsibility. And in the end, it has so overstimulated
the energies of the population to maintain the material engagements
of the state, and of society at large, that the moral condition of the
people has been entirely lost sight of.
A mortgaged aristocracy, a gambling foreign commerce, a home trade
founded on a morbid competition, and a degraded people; these are great
evils, but ought perhaps cheerfully to be encountered for the greater
blessings of civil and religious liberty. Yet the first would seem in
some degree to depend upon our Saxon mode of trial by our peers, upon
the stipulations of the great Norman charters, upon the practice and
the statute of Habeas Corpus,--a principle native to our common law,
but established by the Stuarts; nor in a careful perusal of the Bill
of Rights, or in an impartial scrutiny of the subsequent legislation of
those times, though some diminution of our political franchises must be
confessed, is it easy to discover any increase of our civil privileges.
To those indeed who believe that the English nation,--at all times
a religious and Catholic people, but who even in the days of the
Plantagenets were anti-papal,--were in any danger of again falling under
the yoke of the Pope of Rome in the reign of James the Second, religious
liberty was perhaps acceptable, though it took the shape of a discipline
which at once anathematized a great portion of the nation, and virtually
establishing Puritanism in Ireland, laid the foundation of those
mischiefs which are now endangering the empire.
That the last of the Stuarts had any other object in his impolitic
manoeuvres, than an impracticable scheme to blend the two churches,
there is now authority to disbelieve. He certainly was guilty of
the offence of sending an envoy openly to Rome, who, by the bye, was
received by the Pope with great discourtesy; and her Majesty Queen
Victoria, whose Protestantism cannot be doubted, for it is one of her
chief titles to our homage, has at this time a secret envoy at the same
court: and that is the difference between them: both ministers doubtless
working however fruitlessly for the same object: the termination of
those terrible misconceptions, political and religious, that have
occasioned so many martyrdoms, and so many crimes alike to sovereigns
and to subjects.
If James the Second had really attempted to re-establish Popery in this
country, the English people, who had no hand in his overthrow, would
doubtless soon have stirred and secured their “Catholic and Apostolic
church,” independent of any foreign dictation; the church to which they
still regularly profess their adherence; and being a practical people,
it is possible that they might have achieved their object and yet
retained their native princes; under which circumstances we might
have been saved from the triple blessings of Venetian politics, Dutch
finance, and French wars: against which, in their happiest days, and
with their happiest powers, struggled the three greatest of English
statesmen,--Bolingbroke, Shelburne, and lastly the son of Chatham.
We have endeavoured in another work, not we hope without something of
the impartiality of the future, to sketch the character and career of
his successors. From his death to 1825, the political history of England
is a history of great events and little men. The rise of Mr Canning,
long kept down by the plebeian aristocracy of Mr Pitt as an adventurer,
had shaken parties to their centre. His rapid disappearance from the
scene left both whigs and tories in a state of disorganization. The
distinctive principles of these connexions were now difficult to trace.
That period of public languor which intervenes between the breaking up
of parties and the formation of factions now transpired in England. An
exhausted sensualist on the throne, who only demanded from his ministers
repose, a voluptuous aristocracy, and a listless people, were content,
in the absence of all public conviction and national passion, to consign
the government of the country to a great man, whose decision relieved
the sovereign, whose prejudices pleased the nobles, and whose
achievements dazzled the multitude.
The DUKE OF WELLINGTON brought to the post of first minister immortal
fame; a quality of success which would almost seem to include all
others. His public knowledge was such as might be expected from one
whose conduct already formed an important portion of the history of his
country. He had a personal and intimate acquaintance with the sovereigns
and chief statesmen of Europe, a kind of information in which English
ministers have generally been deficient, but without which the
management of our external affairs must at the best be haphazard. He
possessed administrative talents of the highest order.
The tone of the age, the temper of the country, the great qualities
and the high character of the minister, indicated a long and prosperous
administration. The only individual in his cabinet who, from a
combination of circumstances rather than from any intellectual supremacy
over his colleagues, was competent to be his rival, was content to be
his successor. In his most aspiring moments, Mr Peel in all probability
aimed at no higher reach; and with youth and the leadership of the House
of Commons, one has no reason to be surprised at his moderation.
The conviction that the duke’s government would only cease with the
termination of his public career was so general, that the moment he was
installed in office, the whigs smiled on him; political conciliation
became the slang of the day, and the fusion of parties the babble of
clubs and the tattle of boudoirs.
How comes it then that so great a man, in so great a position, should
have so signally failed? Should have broken up his government, wrecked
his party, and so completely annihilated his political position, that,
even with his historical reputation to sustain him, he can since only
re-appear in the councils of his sovereign in a subordinate, not to say
equivocal, character?
With all those great qualities which will secure him a place in our
history not perhaps inferior even to Marlborough, the Duke of Wellington
has one deficiency which has been the stumbling-block of his civil
career. Bishop Burnet, in speculating on the extraordinary influence of
Lord Shaftesbury, and accounting how a statesman, so inconsistent in
his conduct and so false to his confederates, should have so powerfully
controlled his country, observes, “HIS STRENGTH LAY IN HIS KNOWLEDGE OF
ENGLAND.”
Now that is exactly the kind of knowledge which the Duke of Wellington
never possessed.
When the king, finding that in Lord Goderich he had a minister who,
instead of deciding, asked his royal master for advice, sent for the
Duke of Wellington to undertake the government, a change in the carriage
of his grace was perceived by some who had the opportunity to form an
opinion on such a subject. If one might venture to use such a word
in reference to such a man, we might remark, that the duke had been
somewhat daunted by the selection of Mr Canning. It disappointed great
hopes, it baffled great plans, and dispelled for a season the conviction
that, it is believed, had been long maturing in his grace’s mind; that
he was the man of the age, that his military career had been only a
preparation for a civil course not less illustrious; and that it was
reserved for him to control for the rest of his life undisputed the
destinies of a country, which was indebted to him in no slight degree
for its European pre-eminence. The death of Mr Canning revived, the rout
of Lord Goderich restored, these views.
Napoleon, at St Helena, speculating in conversation on the future career
of his conqueror, asked, “What will Wellington do? After all he has
done, he will not be content to be quiet. He will change the dynasty.”
Had the great exile been better acquainted with the real character of
our Venetian constitution, he would have known that to govern England
in 1820, it was not necessary to change its dynasty. But the Emperor,
though wrong in the main, was right by the bye. It was clear that the
energies that had twice entered Paris as a conqueror, and had made kings
and mediatised princes at Vienna, would not be content to subside into
ermined insignificance. The duke commenced his political tactics early.
The cabinet of Lord Liverpool, especially during its latter term, was
the hot-bed of many intrigues; but the obstacles were numerous, though
the appointing fate, in which his grace believed, removed them. The
disappearance of Lord Castlereagh and Mr Canning from the scene was
alike unexpected. The Duke of Wellington was at length prime minister,
and no individual ever occupied that post more conscious of its power,
and more determined to exercise it.
This is not the occasion on which we shall attempt to do justice to a
theme so instructive as the administration of his grace. Treated with
impartiality and sufficient information, it would be an invaluable
contribution to the stores of our political knowledge and national
experience. Throughout its brief but eccentric and tumultuous annals we
see continual proof, how important is that knowledge “in which lay Lord
Shaftesbury’s strength.” In twenty-four months we find an aristocracy
estranged, without a people being conciliated; while on two several
occasions, first, the prejudices, and then the pretensions of the middle
class, were alike treated with contumely. The public was astonished
at hearing of statesmen of long parliamentary fame, men round whom the
intelligence of the nation had gathered for years with confidence, or
at least with interest, being expelled from the cabinet in a manner not
unworthy of Colonel Joyce, while their places were filled by second-rate
soldiers, whose very names were unknown to the great body of the people,
and who under no circumstances should have aspired beyond the government
of a colony. This administration which commenced in arrogance ended
in panic. There was an interval of perplexity; when occurred the most
ludicrous instance extant of an attempt at coalition; subordinates were
promoted, while negotiations were still pending with their chiefs; and
these negotiations, undertaken so crudely, were terminated in pique; in
a manner which added to political disappointment personal offence. When
even his parasites began to look gloomy, the duke had a specific that
was to restore all, and having allowed every element of power to escape
his grasp, he believed he could balance everything by a beer bill. The
growl of reform was heard but it was not very fierce. There was yet time
to save himself. His grace precipitated a revolution which might have
been delayed for half a century, and never need have occurred in
so aggravated a form. He rather fled than retired. He commenced his
ministry like Brennus, and finished it like the tall Gaul sent to murder
the rival of Sylla, but who dropped his weapon before the undaunted gaze
of his intended victim.
Lord Marney was spared the pang of the catastrophe. Promoted to a high
office in the household, and still hoping that, by the aid of his party,
it was yet destined for him to achieve the hereditary purpose of his
family, he died in the full faith of dukism; worshipping the duke and
believing that ultimately he should himself become a duke. It was under
all the circumstances an euthanasia; he expired leaning as it were on
his white wand and babbling of strawberry leaves.
Book 1 Chapter 4
“My dear Charles,” said Lady Marney to Egremont the morning after the
Derby, as breakfasting with her in her boudoir he detailed some of the
circumstances of the race, “we must forget your naughty horse. I
sent you a little note this morning, because I wished to see you most
particularly before you went out. Affairs,” continued Lady Marney, first
looking round the chamber to see whether there were any fairy listening
to her state secrets, “affairs are critical.”
“No doubt of that,” thought Egremont, the horrid phantom of settling-day
seeming to obtrude itself between his mother and himself; but not
knowing precisely at what she was driving, he merely sipped his tea, and
innocently replied, “Why?”
“There will be a dissolution,” said Lady Marney.
“What are we coming in?”
Lady Marney shook her head.
“The present men will not better their majority,” said Egremont.
“I hope not,” said Lady Marney.
“Why you always said, that with another general election we must come
in, whoever dissolved.”
“But that was with the court in our favour,” rejoined Lady Marney
mournfully.
“What, has the king changed?” said Egremont. “I thought it was all
right.”
“All was right,” said Lady Marney. “These men would have been turned out
again, had he only lived three months more.”
“Lived!” exclaimed Egremont.
“Yes,” said Lady Marney; “the king is dying.”
Slowly delivering himself of an ejaculation, Egremont leant back in his
chair.
“He may live a month,” said Lady Marney; “he cannot live two. It is the
greatest of secrets; known at this moment only to four individuals, and
I communicate it to you, my dear Charles, in that absolute confidence
which I hope will always subsist between us, because it is an event that
may greatly affect your career.”
“How so, my dear mother?”
“Marbury! I have settled with Mr Tadpole that you shall stand for the
old borough. With the government in our hands, as I had anticipated
at the general election, success I think was certain: under the
circumstances which we must encounter, the struggle will be more severe,
but I think we shall do it: and it will be a happy day for me to have
our own again, and to see you in Parliament, my dear child.”
“Well, my dear mother, I should like very much to be in Parliament, and
particularly to sit for the old borough; but I fear the contest will be
very expensive,” said Egremont inquiringly.
“Oh! I have no doubt,” said Lady Marney, “that we shall have
some monster of the middle class, some tinker or tailor, or
candlestick-maker, with his long purse, preaching reform and practising
corruption: exactly as the liberals did under Walpole: bribery was
unknown in the time of the Stuarts; but we have a capital registration,
Mr Tadpole tells me. And a young candidate with the old name will tell,”
said Lady Marney, with a smile: “and I shall go down and canvass, and we
must do what we can.”
“I have great faith in your canvassing,” said Egremont; “but still, at
the same time, the powder and shot--”
“Are essential,” said Lady Marney, “I know it, in these corrupt days:
but Marney will of course supply those. It is the least he can do:
regaining the family influence, and letting us hold up our heads again.
I shall write to him the moment I am justified,” said Lady Marney,
“perhaps you will do so yourself, Charles.”
“Why, considering I have not seen my brother for two years, and we did
not part on the best possible terms--”
“But that is all forgotten.”
“By your good offices, dear mother, who are always doing good: and yet,”
continued Egremont, after a moment’s pause, “I am not disposed to write
to Marney, especially to ask a favour.”
“Well, I will write,” said Lady Marney; “though I cannot admit it is
any favour. Perhaps it would be better that you should see him first. I
cannot understand why he keeps so at the Abbey. I am sure I found it
a melancholy place enough in my time. I wish you had gone down there,
Charles, if it had been only for a few days.”
“Well I did not, my dear mother, and I cannot go now. I shall trust to
you. But are you quite sure that the king is going to die?”
“I repeat to you, it is certain,” replied Lady Marney, in a lowered
voice, but a decided tone; “certain, certain, certain. My authority
cannot be mistaken: but no consideration in the world must throw you off
your guard at this moment; breathe not the shadow of what you know.”
At this moment a servant entered and delivered a note to Lady Marney,
who read it with an ironical smile. It was from Lady St Julians, and ran
thus:--
“Most confidential.
“My dearest Lady Marney,
“It is a false report: he is ill, but not dangerously; the hay
fever; he always has it; nothing more: I will tell my authority
when we meet; I dare not write it. It will satisfy you. I am
going on with my quadrille.
“Most affectionately yours,
“A. St J.”
“Poor woman! she is always wrong,” said Lady Marney throwing
the note to Egremont. “Her quadrille will never take place,
which is a pity, as it is to consist only of beauties and
eldest sons. I suppose I must send her a line,” and she wrote:
“My dearest Lady St Julians,
“How good of you to write to me, and send me such cheering
news! I have no doubt you are right: you always are: I know he
had the hay fever last year. How fortunate for your quadrille,
and how charming it will be! Let me know if you hear anything
further from your unmentionable quarter.
“Ever your affectionate
“C.M.”
Book 1 Chapter 5
Lord Marney left several children; his heir was five years older than
the next son Charles who at the period of his father’s death was
at Christchurch and had just entered the last year of his minority.
Attaining that age, he received the sum of fifteen thousand pounds,
his portion, a third of which amount his expenditure had then already
anticipated. Egremont had been brought up in the enjoyment of every
comfort and every luxury that refinement could devise and wealth
furnish. He was a favourite child. His parents emulated each other in
pampering and indulging him. Every freak was pardoned, every whim was
gratified. He might ride what horses he liked, and if he broke their
knees, what in another would have been deemed a flagrant sin, was in
him held only a proof of reckless spirit. If he were not a thoroughly
selfish and altogether wilful person, but very much the reverse, it was
not the fault of his parents, but rather the operation of a benignant
nature that had bestowed on him a generous spirit and a tender heart,
though accompanied with a dangerous susceptibility that made him the
child and creature of impulse, and seemed to set at defiance even the
course of time to engraft on his nature any quality of prudence. The
tone of Eton during the days of Charles Egremont was not of the high
character which at present distinguishes that community. It was the
unforeseen eve of the great change, that, whatever was its purpose or
have been its immediate results, at least gave the first shock to the
pseudo-aristocracy of this country. Then all was blooming; sunshine and
odour; not a breeze disturbing the meridian splendour. Then the world
was not only made for a few, but a very few. One could almost tell upon
one’s fingers the happy families who could do anything, and might have
everything. A school-boy’s ideas of the Church then were fat-livings,
and of the State, rotten-boroughs. To do nothing and get something,
formed a boy’s ideal of a manly career. There was nothing in the lot,
little in the temperament, of Charles Egremont, to make him an exception
to the multitude. Gaily and securely he floated on the brilliant stream.
Popular at school, idolized at home, the present had no cares, and the
future secured him a family seat in Parliament the moment he entered
life, and the inheritance of a glittering post at court in due time,
as its legitimate consequence. Enjoyment, not ambition, seemed the
principle of his existence. The contingency of a mitre, the certainty of
rich preferment, would not reconcile him to the self-sacrifice which,
to a certain degree, was required from a priest, even in those days of
rampant Erastianism. He left the colonies as the spoil of his younger
brothers; his own ideas of a profession being limited to a barrack in a
London park, varied by visits to Windsor. But there was time enough to
think of these things. He had to enjoy Oxford as he had enjoyed Eton.
Here his allowance from his father was extravagant, though greatly
increased by tithes from his mother’s pin-money. While he was pursuing
his studies, hunting and boating, driving tandems, riding matches,
tempering his energies in the crapulence of boyish banquets, and
anticipating life, at the risk of expulsion, in a miserable mimicry
of metropolitan dissipation, Dukism, that was supposed to be eternal,
suddenly crashed.
The Reform Act has not placed the administration of our affairs in abler
hands than conducted them previously to the passing of the measure, for
the most efficient members of the present cabinet with some very few
exceptions, and those attended by peculiar circumstances, were ministers
before the Reform Act was contemplated. Nor has that memorable statute
created a Parliament of a higher reputation for public qualities, such
as politic ability, and popular eloquence, and national consideration,
than was furnished by the old scheme. On the contrary; one house of
Parliament has been irremediably degraded into the decaying position of
a mere court of registry, possessing great privileges, on condition
that it never exercises them; while the other chamber that, at the first
blush, and to the superficial, exhibits symptoms of almost unnatural
vitality, engrossing in its orbit all the business of the country,
assumes on a more studious inspection somewhat of the character of a
select vestry, fulfilling municipal rather than imperial offices, and
beleaguered by critical and clamorous millions, who cannot comprehend
why a privileged and exclusive senate is required to perform functions
which immediately concern all, which most personally comprehend, and
which many in their civic spheres believe they could accomplish in a
manner not less satisfactory, though certainly less ostentatious.
But if it have not furnished us with abler administrators or a more
illustrious senate, the Reform Act may have exercised on the country at
large a beneficial influence. Has it? Has it elevated the tone of the
public mind? Has it cultured the popular sensibilities to noble and
ennobling ends? Has it proposed to the people of England a higher test
of national respect and confidence than the debasing qualification
universally prevalent in this country since the fatal introduction
of the system of Dutch finance? Who will pretend it? If a spirit of
rapacious coveteousness, desecrating all the humanities of life, has
been the besetting sin of England for the last century and a half, since
the passing of the Reform Act the altar of Mammon has blazed with triple
worship. To acquire, to accumulate, to plunder each other by virtue of
philosophic phrases, to propose an Utopia to consist only of WEALTH and
TOIL, this has been the breathless business of enfranchised England for
the last twelve years, until we are startled from our voracious strife
by the wail of intolerable serfage.
Are we then to conclude, that the only effect of the Reform Act has been
to create in this country another of those class interests, which we now
so loudly accuse as the obstacles to general amelioration? Not
exactly that. The indirect influence of the Reform Act has been not
inconsiderable, and may eventually lead to vast consequences. It set men
a-thinking; it enlarged the horizon of political experience; it led
the public mind to ponder somewhat on the circumstances of our national
history; to pry into the beginnings of some social anomalies which they
found were not so ancient as they had been led to believe, and which had
their origin in causes very different to what they had been educated to
credit; and insensibly it created and prepared a popular intelligence to
which one can appeal, no longer hopelessly, in an attempt to dispel the
mysteries with which for nearly three centuries it has been the
labour of party writers to involve a national history, and without
the dispersion of which no political position can be understood and no
social evil remedied.
The events of 1830 did not produce any change in the modes of thought
and life of Charles Egremont. He took his political cue from his mother,
who was his constant correspondent. Lady Marney was a distinguished
“stateswoman,” as they called Lady Carlisle in Charles the First’s
time, a great friend of Lady St Julians, and one of the most eminent and
impassioned votaries of Dukism. Her first impression on the overthrow
of her hero was, astonishment at the impertinence of his adversaries,
mingled with some lofty pity for their silly ambition and short-lived
career. She existed for a week in the delightful expectation of his
grace being sent for again, and informed every one in confidence, that
“these people could not form a cabinet.” When the tocsin of peace,
reform, and retrenchment sounded, she smiled bitterly; was sorry for
poor Lord Grey of whom she had thought better, and gave them a year,
adding with consoling malice, “that it would be another Canning affair.”
At length came the Reform Bill itself, and no one laughed more
heartily than Lady Marney; not even the House of Commons to whom it was
presented.
The bill was thrown out, and Lady Marney gave a grand ball to celebrate
the event, and to compensate the London shopkeepers for the loss of
their projected franchise. Lady Marney was preparing to resume her
duties at court when to her great surprise the firing of cannon
announced the dissolution of Parliament. She turned pale; she was
too much in the secrets of Tadpole and Taper to be deceived as to the
consequences; she sank into her chair, and denounced Lord Grey as a
traitor to his order.
Lady Marney who for six months had been writing to her son at Oxford
the most charming letters, full of fun, quizzing the whole Cabinet,
now announced to Egremont that a revolution was inevitable, that all
property would be instantly confiscated, the poor deluded king led to
the block or sent over to Hanover at the best, and the whole of the
nobility and principal gentry, and indeed every one who possessed
anything, guillotined without remorse.
Whether his friends were immediately to resume power, or whether their
estates ultimately were to be confiscated, the practical conclusion
to Charles Egremont appeared to be the same. Carpe diem. He therefore
pursued his career at Oxford unchanged, and entered life in the year
1833, a younger son with extravagant tastes and expensive habits, with a
reputation for lively talents though uncultivated,--for his acquisitions
at Eton had been quite puerile, and subsequently he had not become a
student,--with many manly accomplishments, and with a mien and visage
that at once took the fancy and enlisted the affections. Indeed a
physiologist would hardly have inferred from the countenance and
structure of Egremont the career he had pursued, or the character which
attached to him. The general cast and expression of his features when in
repose was pensive: an air of refinement distinguished his well-moulded
brow; his mouth breathed sympathy, and his rich brown eye gleamed with
tenderness. The sweetness of his voice in speaking was in harmony with
this organization.
Two years passed in the most refined circles of our society exercised a
beneficial influence on the general tone of Egremont, and may be said
to have finished his education. He had the good sense and the good taste
not to permit his predilection for sports to degenerate into slang; he
yielded himself to the delicate and profitable authority of woman, and,
as ever happens, it softened his manners and brightened his wit. He was
fortunate in having a clever mother, and he appreciated this inestimable
possession. Lady Marney had great knowledge of society, and some
acquaintance with human nature, which she fancied she had fathomed to
its centre; she piqued herself upon her tact, and indeed she was very
quick, but she was so energetic that her art did not always conceal
itself; very worldly, she was nevertheless not devoid of impulse; she
was animated and would have been extremely agreeable, if she had not
restlessly aspired to wit; and would certainly have exercised much
more influence in society, if she had not been so anxious to show it.
Nevertheless, still with many personal charms, a frank and yet, if need
be, a finished manner, a quick brain, a lively tongue, a buoyant spirit,
and a great social position. Lady Marney was universally and extremely
popular; and adored by her children, for indeed she was a mother most
affectionate and true.
When Egremont was four-and-twenty, he fell in love--a real passion. He
had fluttered like others from flower to flower, and like others had
often fancied the last perfume the sweetest, and then had flown away.
But now he was entirely captivated. The divinity was a new beauty; the
whole world raving of her. Egremont also advanced. The Lady Arabella
was not only beautiful: she was clever, fascinating. Her presence was
inspiration; at least for Egremont. She condescended to be pleased
by him: she signalized him by her notice; their names were mentioned
together. Egremont indulged in flattering dreams. He regretted he had
not pursued a profession: he regretted he had impaired his slender
patrimony; thought of love in a cottage, and renting a manor; thought
of living a good deal with his mother, and a little with his brother;
thought of the law and the church; thought once of New Zealand. The
favourite of nature and of fashion, this was the first time in the life
of Egremont, that he had been made conscious that there was something in
his position which, with all its superficial brilliancy, might prepare
for him, when youth had fled and the blaze of society grown dim, a drear
and bitter lot.
He was roused from his reveries by a painful change in the demeanour of
his adored. The mother of the Lady Arabella was alarmed. She liked
her daughter to be admired even by younger sons when they were
distinguished, but only at a distance. Mr Egremont’s name had been
mentioned too often. It had appeared coupled with her daughters, even in
a Sunday paper. The most decisive measures were requisite, and they were
taken. Still smiling when they met, still kind when they conversed, it
seemed, by some magic dexterity which even baffled Egremont, that their
meetings every day grew rarer, and their opportunities for conversation
less frequent. At the end of the season, the Lady Arabella selected from
a crowd of admirers equally qualified, a young peer of great estate, and
of the “old nobility,” a circumstance which, as her grandfather had only
been an East India director, was very gratifying to the bride.
This unfortunate passion of Charles Egremont, and its mortifying
circumstances and consequences, was just that earliest shock in one’s
life which occurs to all of us; which first makes us think. We have all
experienced that disheartening catastrophe, when the illusions first
vanish; and our balked imagination, or our mortified vanity, first
intimates to us that we are neither infallible nor irresistible. Happily
‘tis the season of youth for which the first lessons of experience are
destined; and bitter and intolerable as is the first blight of our fresh
feelings, the sanguine impulse of early life bears us along. Our first
scrape generally leads to our first travel. Disappointment requires
change of air; desperation change of scene. Egremont quitted his
country, never to return to it again; and returned to it after a year
and a-half’s absence, a much wiser man. Having left England in a serious
mood, and having already tasted with tolerable freedom of the pleasures
and frivolities of life, he was not in an inapt humour to observe, to
enquire, and to reflect. The new objects that surrounded him excited his
intelligence; he met, which indeed is the principal advantage of travel,
remarkable men, whose conversation opened his mind. His mind was worth
opening. Energies began to stir of which he had not been conscious;
awakened curiosity led him to investigate and to read; he discovered
that, when he imagined his education was completed, it had in fact
not commenced; and that, although he had been at a public school and
a university, he in fact knew nothing. To be conscious that you are
ignorant is a great step to knowledge. Before an emancipated intellect
and an expanding intelligence, the great system of exclusive manners
and exclusive feelings in which he had been born and nurtured, began to
tremble; the native generosity of his heart recoiled at a recurrence
to that arrogant and frigid life, alike devoid of sympathy and real
grandeur.
In the early spring of 1837, Egremont re-entered the world, where he had
once sparkled, and which he had once conceived to comprise within its
circle all that could interest or occupy man. His mother, delighted
at finding him again under her roof, had removed some long-standing
coolness between him and his elder brother; his former acquaintance
greeted him with cordiality, and introduced him to the new heroes who
had sprung up during the season of his absence. Apparently Egremont was
not disinclined to pursue, though without eagerness, the same career
that had originally engaged him. He frequented assemblies, and lingered
in clubs; rode in the park, and lounged at the opera. But there was this
difference in his existence, before and since his travels: he was now
conscious he wanted an object; and was ever musing over action, though
as yet ignorant how to act. Perhaps it was this want of being roused,
that led him, it may be for distraction, again to the turf. It was a
pursuit that seemed to him more real than the life of saloons, full of
affectation, perverted ideas, and factitious passions. Whatever might
be the impulse Egremont however was certainly not slightly interested in
the Derby; and though by no means uninstructed in the mysteries of the
turf, had felt such confidence in his information that, with his usual
ardour, he had backed to a considerable amount the horse that ought to
have won, but which nevertheless only ran a second.
Book 1 Chapter 6
Notwithstanding the confidence of Lady St Julians, and her unrivalled
information, the health of the king did not improve: but still it was
the hay fever, only the hay fever. An admission had been allowed to
creep into the Court Circular, that “his majesty has been slightly
indisposed within the last few days;” but then it was soon followed by
a very positive assurance, that his majesty’s favourite and long-matured
resolution to give a state banquet to the knights of the four orders,
was immediately to be carried into effect. Lady St Julians had the first
information of this important circumstance; it confirmed her original
conviction: she determined to go on with her quadrille. Egremont,
with something interesting at stake himself, was staggered by this
announcement, and by Lady St Julians’ unshaken faith. He consulted his
mother: Lady Marney shook her head. “Poor woman!” said Lady Marney, “she
is always wrong. I know,” continued her ladyship, placing her finger
to her lip, “that Prince Esterhazy has been pressing his long-postponed
investiture as a Grand Cross, in order that he may dine at this very
banquet; and it has been announced to him that it is impossible,
the king’s health will not admit of it. When a simple investiture is
impossible, a state banquet to the four orders is very probable. No,”
said Lady Marney with a sigh; “it is a great blow for all of us, but it
is no use shutting our eyes to the fact. The poor dear king will never
show again.”
And about a week after this there appeared the first bulletin. From that
instant, though the gullish multitude studied the daily reports with
grave interest; their hopes and speculations and arrangements changing
with each phrase; for the initiated there was no suspense. All knew that
it was over; and Lady St Julians, giving up her quadrille, began to look
about for seats in parliament for her sons.
“What a happiness it is to have a clever mother,” exclaimed Egremont,
as he pondered over the returns of his election agent. Lady Marney, duly
warned of the impending catastrophe, was experiencing all the advantages
of prior information. It delighted her to meet Lady St Julians driving
distractedly about town, calling at clubs, closeted with red tapers,
making ingenious combinations that would not work, by means of which
some one of her sons was to stand in coalition with some rich parvenu;
to pay none of the expenses and yet to come in first. And all this time,
Lady Marney, serene and smiling, had the daily pleasure of assuring Lady
St Julians what a relief it was to her that Charles had fixed on his
place. It had been arranged indeed these weeks past; “but then,
you know,” concluded Lady Marney in the sweetest voice and with a
blandishing glance, “I never did believe in that hay fever.”
In the meantime the impending event changed the whole aspect of the
political world. The king dying before the new registration was the
greatest blow to pseudo-toryism since his majesty, calling for a hackney
coach, went down and dissolved parliament in 1831. It was calculated
by the Tadpoles and Tapers that a dissolution by Sir Robert, after the
registration of 1837, would give him a clear majority, not too great a
one, but large enough: a manageable majority; some five-and-twenty or
thirty men, who with a probable peerage or two dangling in the distance,
half-a-dozen positive baronetcies, the Customs for their constituents,
and Court balls for their wives, might be induced to save the state.
0! England, glorious and ancient realm, the fortunes of thy polity are
indeed strange! The wisdom of the Saxons, Norman valour, the state-craft
of the Tudors, the national sympathies of the Stuarts, the spirit of the
latter Guelphs struggling against their enslaved sovereignty,--these are
the high qualities, that for a thousand years have secured thy national
developement. And now all thy memorial dynasties end in the huckstering
rule of some thirty unknown and anonymous jobbers! The Thirty at Athens
were at least tyrants. They were marked men. But the obscure majority,
who under our present constitution are destined to govern England, are
as secret as a Venetian conclave. Yet on their dark voices all depends.
Would you promote or prevent some great measure that may affect
the destinies of unborn millions, and the future character of the
people,--take, for example, a system of national education,--the
minister must apportion the plunder to the illiterate clan; the scum
that floats on the surface of a party; or hold out the prospect of
honours, which are only honourable when in their transmission they
impart and receive lustre; when they are the meed of public virtue
and public services, and the distinction of worth and of genius. It is
impossible that the system of the thirty can long endure in an age of
inquiry and agitated spirit like the present. Such a system may suit
the balanced interests and the periodical and alternate command of rival
oligarchical connections: but it can subsist only by the subordination
of the sovereign and the degradation of the multitude; and cannot accord
with an age, whose genius will soon confess that Power and the People
are both divine.
“He can’t last ten days,” said a whig secretary of the treasury with a
triumphant glance at Mr Taper as they met in Pall Mall; “You’re out for
our lives.”
“Don’t you make too sure for yourselves,” rejoined in despair the
dismayed Taper. “It does not follow that because we are out, that you
are in.”
“How do you mean?”
“There is such a person as Lord Durham in the world,” said Mr Taper very
solemnly.
“Pish,” said the secretary.
“You may pish,” said Mr Taper, “but if we have a radical government, as
I believe and hope, they will not be able to get up the steam as they
did in --31; and what with church and corn together, and the Queen
Dowager, we may go to the country with as good a cry as some other
persons.”
“I will back Melbourne against the field, now,” said the secretary.
“Lord Durham dined at Kensington on Thursday,” said Taper, “and not a
whig present.”
“Ay; Durham talks very fine at dinner,” said the secretary, “but he has
no real go in him. When there is a Prince of Wales, Lord Melbourne means
to make Durham governor to the heir apparent, and that will keep him
quiet.”
“What do you hear?” said Mr Tadpole, joining them; “I am told he has
quite rallied.”
“Don’t you flatter yourself,” said the secretary.
“Well, we shall hear what they say on the hustings,” said Tadpole
looking boldly.
“Who’s afraid!” said the secretary. “No, no, my dear fellow, you are
dead beat; the stake is worth playing for, and don’t suppose we are
such flats as to lose the race for want of jockeying. Your humbugging
registration will never do against a new reign. Our great men mean
to shell out, I tell you; we have got Croucher; we will denounce the
Carlton and corruption all over the kingdom; and if that won’t do, we
will swear till we are black in the face, that the King of Hanover
is engaged in a plot to dethrone our young Queen:” and the triumphant
secretary wished the worthy pair good morning.
“They certainly have a very good cry,” said Taper mournfully.
“After all, the registration might be better,” said Tadpole, “but still
it is a very good one.”
The daily bulletins became more significant; the crisis was evidently
at hand. A dissolution of parliament at any time must occasion great
excitement; combined with a new reign, it inflames the passions of every
class of the community. Even the poor begin to hope; the old, wholesome
superstition still lingers, that the sovereign can exercise power; and
the suffering multitude are fain to believe that its remedial character
may be about to be revealed in their instance. As for the aristocracy
in a new reign, they are all in a flutter. A bewildering vision of
coronets, stars, and ribbons; smiles, and places at court; haunts their
noontide speculations and their midnight dreams. Then we must not forget
the numberless instances in which the coming event is deemed to supply
the long-sought opportunity of distinction, or the long-dreaded cause
of utter discomfiture; the hundreds, the thousands, who mean to get into
parliament, the units who dread getting out. What a crashing change from
lounging in St James’s street to sauntering on Boulogne pier; or,
after dining at Brookes and supping at Crockford’s, to be saved from
destruction by the friendly interposition that sends you in an official
capacity to the marsupial sympathies of Sydney or Swan River!
Now is the time for the men to come forward who have claims; claims for
spending their money, which nobody asked them to do, but which of course
they only did for the sake of the party. They never wrote for their
party, or spoke for their party, or gave their party any other vote than
their own; but they urge their claims,--to something; a commissionership
of anything, or a consulship anywhere; if no place to be had, they
are ready to take it out in dignities. They once looked to the privy
council, but would now be content with an hereditary honour; if they can
have neither, they will take a clerkship in the Treasury for a younger
son. Perhaps they may get that in time; at present they go away growling
with a gaugership; or, having with desperate dexterity at length
contrived to transform a tidewaiter into a landwaiter. But there is
nothing like asking--except refusing.
Hark! it tolls! All is over. The great bell of the metropolitan
cathedral announces the death of the last son of George the Third who
probably will ever reign in England. He was a good man: with feelings
and sympathies; deficient in culture rather than ability; with a sense
of duty; and with something of the conception of what should be the
character of an English monarch. Peace to his manes! We are summoned to
a different scene.
In a palace in a garden--not in a haughty keep, proud with the fame,
but dark with the violence of ages; not in a regal pile, bright with the
splendour, but soiled with the intrigues, of courts and factions--in
a palace in a garden, meet scene for youth, and innocence, and
beauty--came the voice that told the maiden she must ascend her throne!
The council of England is summoned for the first time within her bowers.
There are assembled the prelates and captains and chief men of her
realm; the priests of the religion that consoles, the heroes of the
sword that has conquered, the votaries of the craft that has decided the
fate of empires; men grey with thought, and fame, and age; who are the
stewards of divine mysteries, who have encountered in battle the hosts
of Europe, who have toiled in secret cabinets, who have struggled in the
less merciful strife of aspiring senates; men too, some of them, lords
of a thousand vassals and chief proprietors of provinces, yet not one of
them whose heart does not at this moment tremble as he awaits the first
presence of the maiden who must now ascend her throne.
A hum of half-suppressed conversation which would attempt to conceal the
excitement, which some of the greatest of them have since acknowledged,
fills that brilliant assemblage; that sea of plumes, and glittering
stars, and gorgeous dresses. Hush! the portals open; She comes! The
silence is as deep as that of a noontide forest. Attended for a moment
by her royal mother and the ladies of her court, who bow and then
retire, VICTORIA ascends her throne; a girl, alone, and for the first
time, amid an assemblage of men.
In a sweet and thrilling voice, and with a composed mien which indicates
rather the absorbing sense of august duty than an absence of emotion,
THE QUEEN announces her accession to the throne of her ancestors, and
her humble hope that divine providence will guard over the fulfilment of
her lofty trust.
The prelates and captains and chief men of her realm then advance to the
throne, and kneeling before her, pledge their troth, and take the sacred
oaths of allegiance and supremacy.
Allegiance to one who rules over the land that the great Macedonian
could not conquer; and over a continent of which even Columbus never
dreamed: to the Queen of every sea, and of nations in every zone.
It is not of these that I would speak; but of a nation nearer her
foot-stool, and which at this moment looks to her with anxiety, with
affection, perhaps with hope. Fair and serene, she has the blood and
beauty of the Saxon. Will it be her proud destiny at length to bear
relief to suffering millions, and with that soft hand which might
inspire troubadours and guerdon knights, break the last links in the
chain of Saxon thraldom?
END OF THE FIRST BOOK