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 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 WALTER BAGEHOT 
 
 M. A. AND F E L I. O W OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 RICHAED HOLT BUTTON 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
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 College! 
 Library 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE INTEREST with which Mr. Bagehot's ' Literary 
 
 Studies ' appear to have been received by the public, 
 
 encourages me to collect and republish his Studies in 
 
 Political Biography, most of them from the ' National 
 
 Review,' and two that on Adam Smith and that on 
 
 Lord Althorp from the c Fortnightly Review,' which I 
 
 do with the permission of the proprietors. These essays 
 
 are, I think, valuable, not only as acute criticisms on 
 
 the statesmen reviewed, but also, in no small degree, 
 
 as expressing in some detail and with a good deal of 
 
 vivacity the political mind of one of the shrewdest 
 
 and most separate of the politicians of this generation. 
 
 It will be seen, I think, that the late Sir George Corne- 
 
 wall Lewis comes very near to being, in Mr. Bagehot's 
 
 mind the ideal English statesman indeed, that Sir 
 
 George Lewis, with a little political ozone infused into 
 
 him, would have been quite that ideal. I have, of 
 
 course, altered and omitted nothing, even where the 
 
 particular opinion expressed has not been verified but 
 
 rather discredited by the course of subsequent events 
 
 for example, in relation to the general adhesion given 
 
 by Mr. Bagehot (p. 333) to Sir George Lewis's scornful 
 
 2066994
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 estimate of that ' village lawyer ' Lincoln's Unionist 
 policy. If there ever were overhaste or a touch of 
 passion in either Sir George Lewis or his critic, it 
 was apt to be shown in their condemnation of political 
 measures recommended by deep popular emotions and 
 convictions. But the reader of these pages will find, 
 I think, a great deal more to surprise him in the 
 shrewdness of the forecasts than in their occasional 
 miscarriage. 
 
 I have added to the longer studies some pages con- 
 sisting of a few shorter papers of the same kind taken 
 from the ' Economist ' newspaper, which may be found, 
 I hope, not the least interesting in this volume. 
 
 E. H. H. 
 
 EXCLEFIELD GREEN, Dec. 20, 1880.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ESSAY PAGE 
 
 I. THE CHARACTER OF SIR ROBERT PEEL . . . 1 
 
 II. LORD BROUGHAM ....... 40 
 
 III. MR. GLADSTONE .... ... 84 
 
 IV. WILLIAM PITT 116 
 
 V. BOLINGBROKE AS A STATESMAN . . . . . 157 
 
 VI. SIR GEORGE CORNEVVALL LEWIS . . . . 206 
 VII. ADAM SMITH AS A PERSON . . . . ' . . 247 
 
 VIII. LORD ALTHORP AND THE HEFORM ACT OF 1832 . . 282 
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 I. THE PRINCE CONSORT . . . . . . 321 
 
 II. WHAT LORD LYNDHURST REALLY WAS . . . 324 
 
 III. THE TRIBUTE AT HEREFORD TO SIR G. C. LEWIS . 330 
 
 IV. MR. COBDEN . . . . . . . . 334 
 
 V. LORD PALMERSTON ....... 340 
 
 I 
 
 VI. THE EARL OF CLARENDON ...... 345 
 
 VII. MR. LOWE AS CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER . . 350 
 VIII. MONSIEUR GUIZOT 355 
 
 IX. PROFESSOR CAIRNES ....... 360 
 
 X. MR. DISRAELI AS A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 364
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SIR ROBERT PEEL* 
 (1856.) 
 
 MOST people have looked over old letters. They have been 
 struck with the change of life, with the doubt on things now 
 certain, the belief in things now incredible, the oblivion of what 
 now seems most important, the strained attention to departed 
 detail, which characterise the mouldering leaves. Something 
 like this is the feeling with which we read Sir Eobert Peel's 
 Memoirs. Who now doubts on the Catholic Question ? It is 
 no longer a ( question.' A younger generation has come into 
 vigorous, perhaps into insolent life, who regard the doubts that 
 were formerly entertained as absurd, pernicious, delusive. To 
 revive the controversy was an error. The accusations which 
 are brought against a public man in his own age are rarely 
 those echoed in after times. Posterity sees less or sees more. 
 A few points stand forth in distinct rigidity ; there is no idea of 
 the countless accumulation, the collision of action, the web of 
 human feeling, with which, in the day of their life, they were 
 encompassed. Time changes much. The points of controversy 
 seem clear ; the assumed premises uncertain. The difficulty is 
 to comprehend ' the difficulty.' Sir Kobert Peel will have to 
 answer to posterity, not for having passed Catholic emancipation 
 when he did, but for having opposed it before ; not for having 
 
 1 Memoirs, by the Right Hon. Sir Eobert Peel, Bart., M.P., &c. Published 
 by the Trustees of his Papers, Lord Mahon (now Lord Stanhope) and the 
 Right Hon. Edward Card well, M.P. Part. I. 'The Roman Catholic Question,' 
 1323-9. 
 
 B
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 been precipitate, but for having been slow; not for having 
 taken ' insufficient securities ' for the Irish Protestant Church, 
 but for having endeavoured to take security for an institution 
 too unjust to be secured by laws or lawgivers. 
 
 This memoir has, however, a deeper aim. Its end is rather 
 personal than national. It is designed to show, not that Sir 
 Kobert did what was externally expedient this was probably too 
 plain but that he himself really believed what he did to be 
 right. The scene is laid not in Ireland, not in the county of 
 Clare, not amid the gross triumphs of O'Connell, or the out- 
 rageous bogs of Tipperary, but in the Home Office, among files 
 of papers, among the most correctly-docketed memoranda, be- 
 side the minute which shows that Justice A. should be dismissed, 
 that Malefactor 0. ought not to be reprieved. It is labelled 
 ' My Conscience,' and is designed to show that * my conscience ' 
 was sincere. 
 
 Seriously, and apart from jesting, this is no light matter. 
 Isot only does the great space which Sir Eobert Peel occupied 
 during many years in the history of the country entitle his 
 character to the anxious attention of historical critics, but the 
 very nature of that character itself, its traits, its deficiencies, 
 its merits, are so congenial to the tendencies of our time and 
 government, that to be unjust to him is to be unjust to all 
 probable statesmen. We design to show concisely how this is. 
 A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common 
 opinions and uncommon abilities. The reason is obvious. 
 When we speak of a free government, we mean a government 
 in which the sovereign power is divided, in which a single deci- 
 sion is not absolute, where argument has an office. The essence 
 of the gouvernement des avocats, as the Emperor Xicholas 
 called it, is that you must persuade so many persons. The 
 appeal is not to the solitary decision of a single statesman ; not 
 to Richelieu or Nesselrode alone in his closet ; but to the 
 jangled mass of men, with a thousand pursuits, a thousand 
 interests, a thousand various habits. Public opinion, as it is
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 said, rules ; and public opinion is the opinion of the average 
 man. Fox used to say of Burke : ' Burke is a wise man ; but 
 he is wise too soon.' The average man will not bear this. He 
 is a cool, common person, with a considerate air, with figures 
 in his mind, with his own business to attend to, with a set of 
 ordinary opinions arising from and suited to ordinary life. He 
 cin't bear novelty or originalities. He says : ' Sir, I never 
 heard such a thing before in my life ; ' and he thinks this is a 
 reductio ad absurdum. You may see his taste by the readme 1 
 of which he approves. Is there a more splendid monument of 
 talent and industry than ' The Times ' ? No wonder that the 
 average man that any one believes in it. As Carlyle ob- 
 serves : ' Let the highest intellect able to write epics try to 
 write such a leader for the morning newspapers, it cannot do 
 it ; the highest intellect will fail.' But did you ever see any- 
 thing there you had never seen before ? Out of the million 
 articles that everybody has read, can any one person trace a 
 single marked idea to a single article ? Where are the deep 
 theories, and the wise axioms, and the everlasting sentiments 
 which the writers of the most influential publication in the 
 world have been the first to communicate to an ignorant 
 species ? Such writers are far too shrewd. The two million, 
 or whatever number of copies it may be, they publish, are not 
 purchased because the buyers wish to know new truth. The 
 purchaser desires an article which he can appreciate at sight ; 
 which he can lay down and say, l An excellent article, very 
 excellent ; exactly rny own sentiments.' Original theories 
 give trouble ; besides, a grave man on the Coal Exchange does 
 not desire to be an apostle of novelties among the contempor- 
 aneous dealers in fuel ; he wants to be provided with remarks 
 he can make on the topics of the day which will not be known 
 not to be his ; that are not too profound ; which he can fancy 
 the paper only reminded him of. And just in the same way, 
 precisely as the most popular political paper is not that which 
 is abstractedly the best or most instructive, but that which 
 
 B 2
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 most exactly takes up the minds of man where it finds them, 
 catches the floating sentiment of society, puts it in such a form 
 as society can fancy would convince another society which did 
 not believe so the most influential of constitutional states- 
 men is the one who most felicitously expresses the creed of the 
 moment, who administers it, who embodies it in laws and 
 institutions, who gives it the highest life it is capable of, who 
 induces the average man to think, ' I could not have done it 
 any better if I had had time myself.' 
 
 It might be said, that this is only one of the results of that 
 tyranny of commonplace which seems to accompany civilisation. 
 You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius ; but the real 
 tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbour. What 
 law is so cruel as the law of doing what he does ? What yoke 
 is so galling as the necessity of being like him ? What espion- 
 nage of despotism comes to your door so effectually as the eye of 
 the man who lives at your door? Public opinion is a permea- 
 ting influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us 
 to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to 
 follow other men's habits. Of course, if we do not, no formal 
 ban issues, no corporeal pain, no coarse penalty of a barbarous 
 society is inflicted on the offender ; but we are called ' eccen- 
 tric;' there is a gentle murmur of 'most unfortunate ideas,' 
 * singular young man,' 'well-intentioned, I dare say; but un- 
 safe, sir, quite unsafe.' The prudent, of course, conform. The 
 place of nearly everybody depends on the opinion of everyone 
 else. There is nothing like Swift's precept to attain the repute 
 of a sensible man, ' Be of the opinion of the person with whom, 
 at the time, you are conversing.' This world is given to those 
 whom this world can trust. Our very conversation is infected. 
 Where is now the bold humour, the explicit statement, the 
 grasping dogmatism of former days ? They have departed, and 
 you read in the orthodox works dreary regrets that the art of 
 conversation has passed away. It would b2 as reasonable to 
 expect the art of walking to pass away. People talk well
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 enough when they know to whom they are speaking. We 
 might even say that the art of conversation was improved by 
 an application to new circumstances. ' Secrete your intellect, 
 use common words, say what you are expected to say,' and you 
 shall be at peace. The secret of prosperity in common life is 
 to be commonplace on principle. 
 
 Whatever truth there may be in these splenetic observa- 
 tions, might be expected to show itself more particularly in the 
 world of politics. People dread to be thought unsafe in propor- 
 tion as they get their living by being thought to be safe. 'Literary 
 men,' it has been said, ' are outcasts ; ' and they are eminent in 
 a certain way notwithstanding. 'They can say strong things 
 of their age ; for no one expects they will go out and act on 
 them.' They are a kind of ticket-of-leave lunatics, from whom 
 no harm is for the moment expected ; who seem quiet, but on 
 whose vagaries a practical public must have its eye. For states- 
 men it is different they must be thought men of judgment. 
 The most morbidly agricultural counties were aggrieved when 
 Mr. Disraeli was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. They could 
 not believe he was a man of solidity ; and they could not compre- 
 hend taxes by the author of ' Coningsby,' or sums by an adherent 
 of the Caucasus. ' There is,' said Sir Walter Scott, ' a certain 
 hypocrisy of action, which, however it is despised by persons in- 
 trinsically excellent, will nevertheless be cultivated by those who 
 desire the good repute of men.' Politicians, as has been said, 
 live in the repute of the commonalty. They may appeal to pos- 
 terity ; but of what use is posterity ? Years before that tribunal 
 comes into life, your life will be extinct. It is like a moth going 
 into Chancery. Those who desire a public career, must look to 
 the views of the living public; an immediate exterior influence 
 is essential to the exertion of their faculties. The confidence 
 of others is your/w^cntm. You cannot, many people wish you 
 could, go into parliament to represent yourself. You must 
 conform to the opinions of the electors ; and they, depend on 
 it, will not be original. In a word, as has been most wisely
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 observed, * under free institutions it is necessary occasionally to 
 defer to the opinions of other people ; and as other people are 
 obviously in the \vrong, this is a great hindrance to the improve- 
 ment of our political system and the progress of our species.' 
 
 Seriously, it is a calamity that this is so. Occasions arise in 
 which a different sort of statesman is required. A year or two 
 ago we had one of these. If any politician had come forward in 
 this country, on the topic of the war, with prepared intelligence, 
 distinct views, strong will, commanding mastery, it would have 
 brought support to anxious intellects, and comfort to a thousand 
 homes. None such came. Our people would have statesmen 
 who thought as they thought, believed as they believed, acted as 
 they would have acted. They had desired to see their own will 
 executed. There came a time when they had no clear will, no 
 definite opinion. They reaped as they had sown. A? they had 
 selected an administrative tool, of course it did not turn out an 
 heroic leader. 
 
 If we wanted to choose an illustration of these remarks out 
 of all the world, it would be Sir Robert Peel. No man has 
 come so near our definition of a constitutional statesman the 
 powers of a first-rate man and the creed of a second-rate man. 
 From a certain peculiarity of intellect and fortune, he was never 
 in advance of his time. Of almost all the great measures with 
 which his name is associated, he attained great eminence as an 
 opponent before he attained even greater eminence as their ad- 
 vocate. On the corn-laws, on the currency, on the amelioration 
 of the criminal code, on Catholic emancipation the subject of 
 the memoir before us he was not one of the earliest labourers 
 or quickest converts. He did not bear the burden and heat of 
 the day ; other men laboured, and he entered into their labours. 
 As long as these questions remained the property of first-class 
 intellects, as long as they were confined to philanthropists or 
 speculators, as long as they were only advocated by austere, in- 
 tangible Whigs, Sir Robert Peel was against them. So soon as 
 these same measure's, by the progress of time, the striving of
 
 77/6' Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 understanding, the conversion of receptive minds, became the 
 property of second-class intellects, Sir Robert Peel became 
 possessed of them also. He was converted at the conversion of 
 the average man. His creed was, as it had ever been, ordinary ; 
 but his extraordinary abilities never showed themselves so much. 
 He forthwith wrote his name on each of those questions, so 
 that it will be remembered as long as they are remembered. 
 
 Xor is it merely on these few measures that Sir Robert Peel's 
 mind must undoubtedly have undergone a change. The lifetime 
 of few Englishmen has been more exactly commensurate with a 
 change of public opinion a total revolution of political thought. 
 Hardly any fact in history is so incredible as that forty and a few 
 years ago England was ruled by Mr. Perceval. It seems almost 
 the same as being ruled by the ' Record ' newspaper. He had the 
 same poorness of thought, the same petty Conservatism, the same 
 dark and narrow superstition. His quibbling mode of oratory 
 seems to have been scarcely agreeable to his friends ; his im- 
 potence in political speculation moves the wrath destroys the 
 patience of the quietest reader now. Other ministers have had 
 great connections, or great estates, to compensate for the con- 
 tractedness of their minds. Mr. Perceval was only a poorish nisi 
 prius lawyer, and there is no kind of human being so disagree- 
 able, so teasing, to the gross Tory nature. He is not entitled 
 to any glory for our warlike successes : on the contrary, he did 
 his best to obtain failure by starving the Duke of Wellington, 
 and plaguing him with petty vexations. His views in religion 
 inclined to that Sabbatarian superstition which is of all creeds 
 the most alien to the firm and genial English nature. The mere 
 fact of such a premier being endured shows how deeply the whole 
 national spirit and interest was absorbed in the contest with Na- 
 poleon, how little we understood the sort of man who should re- 
 gulate its conduct * in the crisis of Europe,' as Sydney Smith 
 said, ' he safely brought the Curates' Salaries Improvement Bill 
 to a hearing ' and it still more shows the horror of all innovation 
 which the recent events of French history had impressed on our
 
 The Character oj Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 wealthy and comfortable classes. They were afraid of catching 
 revolution, as old women of catching cold. Sir Archibald 
 Alison to this day holds that revolution is an infectious disease, 
 beginning no one knows how, and going no one knows where. 
 There is but one rule of escape, explains the great historian, 
 ' Stay still, don't move ; do what you have been accustomed to 
 do, and consult your grandmother on everything.' In 1812 
 the English people were all persuaded of this theory. Mr. 
 Perceval was the most narrow-minded and unaltering man they 
 could find : he therefore represented their spirit, and they put 
 him at the head of the state. 
 
 Such was the state of political questions. How little of 
 real thoughtful ness was then applied to what we now call social 
 questions cannot be better illustrated than by the proceedings 
 on the occasion of Mr. Perceval's death. Bellingham, who 
 killed him, was, whether punishable or not, as clearly insane as 
 a lunatic can be who offends against the laws of his country. 
 He had no idea of killing Mr. Perceval particularly. His only 
 idea was, that he had lost some property in Russia ; that the 
 English government would never repay him his loss in Eussia ; 
 and he endeavoured to find some cabinet minister to shoot as 
 u compensation. Lord Eldon lived under the belief that he 
 had nearly been the victim himself, and told some story of a 
 borrowed hat and an assistant's greatcoat to which he ascribed 
 his preservation. The whole affair was a monomaniac's delusion. 
 Bellingham had no ground for expecting any repayment. There 
 was no reason for ascribing his pecuniary ruin to the govern- 
 ment of that day, any more than to the government of this 
 day. Indeed, if he had been alive now, it would have been 
 agreed that he was a particulary estimable man. Medical 
 gentlemen would have been examined for days on the doctrine 
 of ' irresistible impulse,' ' moral insanity,' ' instinctive pistol- 
 discharges,' and every respectful sympathy would have been 
 shown to so curious an offender. Whether he was punish- 
 able or not may be a question ; but all will now agree, that it
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 was not a case for the punishment of death. In that day 
 there was no more doubt that he ought to be hanged, than there 
 would now be that he ought on no account to be hanged. The 
 serious reasons, of which the scientific theories above alluded 
 to are but the exaggerated resemblance, which indicate the 
 horrible cruelty of inflicting on those who do not know what 
 they do the extreme penalty of suffering meant for those who 
 perpetrate the worst they can conceive, are in these years so 
 familiar that we can hardly conceive their being unknown. Yet 
 the Tory historian has to regret ' that the motion, so earnestly 
 insisted on by his counsel, to have the trial postponed for some 
 days, to obtain evidence to establish his insanity, was not 
 acceded to ; that a judicial proceeding, requiring beyond all 
 others the most calm and deliberate consideration, should have 
 been hurried over with a precipitation which, if not illegal, was at 
 least unusual ; ' and a noble lord ' improved ' the moment of the 
 assassination by exclaiming to the peers in opposition, ' You 
 see, my lords, the consequence of your agitating the question 
 of Catholic emancipation.' To those who now know England, 
 it seems scarcely possible that this could have occurred here only 
 forty-four years since. It was in such a world that Sir Kobert 
 Peel commenced his career. He was Under-Secretary of State 
 for the Colonies at the time of Mr. Perceval's assassination. 
 
 It is not, however, to be imagined that, even if Mr. Perceval 
 had lived, his power would have very long endured. It passed 
 to milder and quieter men. It passed to such men as Lord 
 Liverpool and Mr. Peel. The ruling power at that time in 
 England, as for many years before, as even in some measure, 
 though far less, now, was the class of aristocratic gentry ; by 
 which we do not mean to denote only the aristocracy, and 
 do not mean to exclude the aristocracy, but to indicate the 
 great class of hereditary landed proprietors, who are in sym- 
 pathy with the House of Lords on cardinal points, yet breathe 
 a somewhat freer air, are more readily acted on by the opinion of 
 the community, more contradictable by the lower herd, and less
 
 io The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 removed from their prejudices by a refined and regulated educa* 
 tion. From the time of the Revolution, more or less, this has 
 been the ruling class in the community ; the close-borough sys- 
 tem and the county system giving them mainly the control of 
 the House of Commons, and their feeling being in general, as it 
 were, a mean term between those of the higher nobility and 
 the trading public of what were then the few large towns. The 
 rule of the House of Lords was rather mediate than direct. By 
 those various means of influence and social patronage and op- 
 pression which are familiar to a wealthy and high-bred 
 aristocracy, the highest members of it, of course, did exercise 
 over all below them a sure and continual influence ; it worked 
 silently and commonly on ordinary questions and in quiet 
 times ; yet it was liable to be overborne by a harsher and ruder 
 power when stormy passions arose, in the days of wars and 
 tumults. So far as the actual selection of visible rulers goes, 
 the largest amount of administrative power has rarely been in 
 the hands of the highest aristocracy, and in a great measure 
 for a peculiar reason : that aristocracy rarely will do the work, 
 and rarely can do the work. The enormous pressure of daily- 
 growing business, which besets the governors of a busy and 
 complicated community, is too much for the refined habits, 
 delicate discrimination, anxious judgment, which the course of 
 their life develops in the highest classes, and with which it 
 nourishes the indolence natural to those who have this world 
 to enjoy. The real strain of the necessary labour has generally 
 been borne by men of a somewhat lower grade, trained by an 
 early ambition, a native aptitude, a hardy competition, to 
 perform its copious tasks. Such men are partakers of two 
 benefits. They are rough and ready enough to accomplish the 
 coarse, enormous daily work; they have lived with men of 
 higher rank enough to know and feel what such persons think 
 and want. Sir Robert Walpole is the type of this class. He 
 was a Norfolk squire, and not a nobleman ; he was bred a gentle- 
 man, and yet was quite coarse enough for any business : his
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 1 1 
 
 career was what you would expect. For very many years he 
 administered the government much as the aristocracy wished 
 and desired. They were, so to speak, the directors of the 
 company which is called the English nation; they met a little 
 and talked a little ; but Sir Robert was the manager, who 
 knew all the facts, came every day, saw everybody, and was 
 everything. 
 
 Passing over the time of Lord Liverpool, of whom this is 
 not now the place to speak, some such destiny as this would, in 
 his first political life, have appeared likely to be that of Sir 
 Robert Peel. If an acute master of the betting art had been 
 asked the ' favourite ' statesman who was likely to rule in that 
 generation, he would undoubtedly have selected Sir Robert. 
 He was rich, decorous, laborious, and had devoted himself 
 regularly to the task. There was no other such man. It was 
 likely, at least to superficial observers, that his name would 
 descend to prosterity as the * Sir Robert ' of a new time ; a 
 time changed, indeed, from that of Walpole, but resembling it 
 in its desire to be ruled by a great administrator, skilful in 
 all kinds of business transactions, yet associated with the 
 aristocracy ; by one unremarkable in his opinions, but remark- 
 able in his powers. The fates, however, designed Peel for a 
 very different destiny ; and to a really close observer there 
 were signs in his horoscope which should have clearly revealed it. 
 Sir Robert's father and grandfather were two of the men who 
 created Lancashire. No sooner did the requisite machinery issue 
 from the brain of the inventor, than its capabilities were seized 
 on by strong, ready, bold men of business, who erected it, 
 used it, devised a factory system, combined a factory popula- 
 tion created, in a word, that black industrial region, of whose 
 augmenting wealth and horrid labour tales are daily borne to 
 the genial and lazy south. Of course, it cannot be said that 
 mill-makers invented the middle classes. The history of 
 England perhaps shows, that it has not for centuries been with- 
 out an unusual number of persons with comfortable and mode-
 
 1 2 The Character oj Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 rate means. But though this class has ever been found among 
 us, and has ever been more active than in any other similar 
 country, yet to a great extent it was scattered, headless, motion- 
 less. Small rural out-of-the-way towns, country factories few 
 and far between, concealed and divided this great and mixed 
 mass of petty means and steady intelligence. The huge heaps 
 of manufacturing wealth were not to be concealed. They at 
 once placed on a level with the highest in the land in matters 
 of expenditure, and in those countless social relations which 
 depend upon expenditure men sprung from the body of the 
 people, unmistakably speaking its language, inevitably thinking 
 its thoughts. It is true that the first manufacturers were not 
 democratic. Sir Robert Peel, the statesman's father a type 
 of the class was a firm, honest, domineering Conservative; 
 but, however, on such topics they may so think, however on 
 other topics they may try to catch the language of the class to 
 which they rise, the grain of the middle class will surely show 
 itself in those who have risen from the middle class. If Mr. 
 Cobden were to go over to the enemy, if he were to offer to serve 
 Lord Derby vice Disraeli disconcerted, it would not be possible 
 for him to speak as the hereditary landowner speaks. It is not 
 that the hereditary landowner knows more ; indeed, either in 
 book-learning or in matters of observation, in acquaintance with 
 what has been, or is going to be, or what, now is, the owners of 
 rent are not superior to the receivers of profits ; yet their 
 dialect is different the one speaks the language of years of 
 toil, and the other of years of indolence. A harsh laborious- 
 ness characterises the one, a pleasant geniality the other. The 
 habit of industry is ingrained in those who have risen by it ; it 
 modifies every word and qualifies every notion. They are the 
 jBdvava-oi of work. Vainly, therefore, did the first manufacturers 
 struggle to be Conservatives, to be baronets, to be peers. 
 The titles they might obtain, their outward existence they 
 might change, themselves in a manner they might alter ; but a 
 surer force was dragging them and those who resembled them
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 into another region, filling them with other thoughts, making 
 them express what people of the middle classes had always 
 obscurely felt, pushing forward this new industrial order by the 
 side, or even in front, of the old aristocratic order. The new 
 class have not, indeed, shown themselves republican. They have 
 not especially cared to influence the machinery of government. 
 Their peculiarity has been, that they wished to see the govern- 
 ment administered according to the notions familiar to them in 
 their business life. They have no belief in mystery or magic ; 
 probably they have never appreciated the political influence 
 of the imagination; they wish to see plain sense applied to 
 the most prominent part of practical life. In his Liter career, 
 the second Sir Eobert Peel was the statesman who most com- 
 pletely and thoroughly expressed the sentiments of this new 
 dynasty ; instead of being the nominee of a nobility, he became 
 the representative of a transacting and trading multitude. 
 
 Both of these two classes were, however, equally possessed 
 by the vice or tendency we commented on at the outset. They 
 each of them desired to see the government carried on exactly 
 according to their own views. The idea on which seems to rest 
 onr only chance of again seeing great statesmen, of placing deep 
 deferential trust in those who have given real proofs of com- 
 prehensive sagacity, had scarcely dawned on either. The average 
 man had, so to say, varied ; he was no longer of the one order, 
 but of an inferior ; but he was not at all less exacting or tyranni- 
 cal. Perhaps he was even more so ; for the indolent gentleman 
 is less absolute and domineering than the active man of business. 
 However that may be, it was the fate of Sir Robert Peel, in the 
 two phases of his career, to take a leading share in carrying out 
 the views, in administering the creed, first of one and then of 
 the other. 
 
 Perhaps, in our habitual estimate of Peel we hardly enough 
 bear this in mind. We remember him as the guiding chief of 
 the most intelligent Conservative government that this country 
 iias ever seen. We remember the great legislative acts which
 
 14 The Character of Sir Robert, Peel. 
 
 we owe to his trained capacity, every detail of which bears the 
 impress of his practised hand ; we know that his name is pro- 
 nounced with applause in the great marts of trade and seats of 
 industry ; that even yet it is muttered with reproach in the 
 obscure abodes of squires and rectors. We forget that his name 
 was once the power of the Protestant interest, the shibboleth by 
 which squires and rectors distinguished those whom they loved 
 from those whom they hated ; we forget that he defended the 
 Manchester Massacre, the Six Acts, the Imposition of Tests, 
 the rule of Orangemen. We remember Peel as the proper head 
 of a moderate, intelligent, half-commercial community; we 
 forget that he once was the chosen representative of a gentry 
 untrained to great affairs, absorbed in a great war, only just re- 
 covering from the horror of a great revolution. 
 
 In truth, the character of Sir Eobert Peel happily fitted 
 him both to be the chosen head of a popular community, 
 imperiously bent on its own ideas, and to be the head of that 
 community in shifting and changing times. Sir Robert was at 
 Harrow with Lord Byron, who has left the characteristic 
 reminiscence : ' I was always in scrapes, Peel never.' And 
 opposed as they were in their fortunes as boys and men, they 
 were at least equally contrasted in the habit and kind of action 
 of their minds. Lord Byron's mind gained everything it was 
 to gain by one intense, striking effort. By a blow of the 
 imagination he elicited a single bright spark of light on 
 every subject, and that was all. And this he never lost. 
 The intensity of the thinking seemed to burn it on the 
 memory, there to remain alone. But he made no second 
 effort ; he gained no more. He always avowed his incapability 
 of continuous application : he could not, he said, learn the 
 grammar of any language. In later life he showed considerable 
 talent for action ; but those who had to act with him observed 
 that, versatile as were his talents, and mutable as his convic- 
 tions had always seemed to be, in reality he was the most 
 stubborn of men. He heard what you had to say ; assented to
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 1 5 
 
 all you had to say ; and the next morning returned to his ori- 
 ginal opinion. No amount of ordinary argumentative resistance 
 was so hopeless as that facile acquiescence and instantaneous 
 recurrence. The truth was, that he was and some others are 
 similarly constituted unable to retain anything which he did 
 not at any rate seem to gain by the unaided single rush of his 
 own mind. The ideas of such minds are often not new, very 
 often they are hardly in the strictest sense original ; they really 
 were very much suggested from without, and preserved in some 
 obscure corner of memory, out of the way and unknown ; but it 
 remains their characteristic, that they seem to the mind of the 
 thinker to be born from its own depths, to be the product of 
 its latent forces. There is a kind of eruption of ideas from a 
 subter conscious world. The whole mental action is volcanic ; 
 the lava flood glows in ' Child e Harold;' all the thoughts are 
 intense, flung forth vivid. The day after the eruption the 
 mind is calm ; it seems as if it could not again do the like ; the 
 product only remains, distinct, peculiar, indestructible. The 
 mind of Peel was the exact opposite of this. His opinions far 
 more resembled the daily accumulating insensible deposits of 
 a rich alluvial soil. The great stream of time flows on with 
 all things on its surface ; and slowly, grain by grain, a mould 
 of wise experience is unconsciously left on the still, extended 
 intellect. You scarcely think of such a mind as acting; it 
 seems always acted upon. There is no trace of gushing, over- 
 powering, spontaneous impulse ; everything seems acquired. 
 The thoughts are calm. In Lord Byron, the very style 
 dashing, free, incisive shows the bold impulse from which it 
 came. The stealthy accumulating words of Peel seem like 
 the quiet leavings of an outward tendency, which brought 
 these, but might as well have brought others. There is no 
 peculiar stamp either in the ideas. They might have been 
 anyone's ideas. They belong to the general diffused stock of 
 observations which are to be found in the civilised world. They 
 are not native to the particular mind, nor ' to the manner
 
 1 6 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 born.' Like a science, they are credible or incredible by all 
 men equally. This secondary order, as we may call it, of 
 intellect, is evidently most useful to a statesman of the con- 
 stitutional class, such as we have described him. He in- 
 sensibly and inevitably takes in and imbibes, by means of it, 
 the ideas of those around him. If he were left in a vacuum, he 
 would have no ideas. The primary class of mind that strikes 
 out its own belief would here be utterly at fault. It would 
 want something which other men had ; it would discover some- 
 thing which other meii would not understand. Sir Robert 
 Peel was a statesman for forty years ; under our constitution, 
 Lord Byron, eminent as was his insight into men, and remark- 
 able as was his power, at least for short periods of dealing 
 with them, would not have been a statesman for forty days. 
 
 It is very likely that many people may not think Sir Robert 
 Peel's mind so interesting as Lord Byron's. They may prefer 
 the self-originating intellect, which invents and retains its own 
 ideas, to the calm receptive intellect which acquires its belief 
 from without. The answer lies in what has been said a con- 
 stitutional statesman must sympathise in the ideas of the 
 many. As the many change, it will be his good fortune if he 
 can contrive to change with them. It is to be remembered, 
 that statesmen do not live under hermetical seals. Like other 
 men, they are influenced by the opinions of other men. How 
 potent is this influence, those best know who have tried to 
 hold ideas different from the ideas of those around. 
 
 In another point of view also Sir Robert Peel's character 
 was exactly fitted to the position we have delineated. He w;;s 
 a great administrator. Civilisation requires this. In a simple 
 age work may be difficult, but it is scarce. There are fewer 
 people, and everybody wants fewer things. The mere tools of 
 civilisation seem in some sort to augment work. In early 
 times, when a despot wishes to govern a distant province, he 
 sends down a satrap on a grand horse, with other people on 
 little horses ; and very little is heard of the satrap again unless
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 1 7 
 
 he send back some of the little people to tell what he has been 
 doing. No great labour of superintendence is possible. Com- 
 mon rumour and casual complaints are the sources of intelligence. 
 If it seems certain that the province is in a bad state, satrap 
 No. 1 is recalled, and satrap No. 2 is sent out in his stead. In 
 civilised countries the whole thing is different. You erect a 
 bureau in the province you want to govern ; you make it write 
 letters and copy letters ; it sends home eight reports per diem 
 the head bureau in St. Petersburg. Nobody does a sum in 
 the province without somebody doing the same sum in the 
 capital, to * check him,' and see that he does it correctly. The 
 consequence of this is, to throw on the heads of departments 
 an amount of reading and labour which can only be accom- 
 plished by the greatest natural aptitude, the most efficient 
 training, the most firm and regular industry. Under a free 
 government it is by no means better, perhaps in some respects 
 it is worse. It is true that many questions which, under the 
 French despotism, are referred to Paris, are settled in England 
 on the very spot where they are to be done, without reference 
 to London at all. But as a set-off, a constitutional adminis- 
 trator has to be always consulting others, finding out what 
 this man or that man chooses to think; learning which form 
 of error Is believed by Lord B., which by Lord C. ; adding up 
 the errors of the alphabet, and seeing what portion of what he 
 thinks he ought to do, they will all of them together allow him 
 to do. Likewise, though the personal freedom and individual 
 discretion which free governments allow to their subjects 
 seem at first likely to diminish the work which those govern- 
 ments have to do, it may be doubted whether it does so really 
 and in the end. Individual discretion strikes out so many 
 more pursuits, and some supervision must be maintained over 
 each of those pursuits. No despotic government would con- 
 sider the police force of London enough to keep down, watch, 
 and superintend such a population ; but then no despotic 
 government would have such a city as London to keep down.
 
 1 8 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 The freedom of growth allows the possibility of growth ; and 
 though liberal governments take so much less in proportion upon 
 them, yet the scale of operations is so much enlarged by the con- 
 tinual exercise of civil liberty, that the real work is ultimately 
 perhaps as immense. While a despotic government is regula- 
 ting ten per cent, of ten men's actions, a free government has 
 to regulate one per cent, of a hundred men's actions. The 
 difficulty, too, increases. Anybody can understand a rough 
 despotic community ; a small buying class of nobles, a small 
 selling class of traders, a large producing class of serfs, are much 
 the same in all quarters of the globe ; but a free, intellectual 
 community is a complicated network of ramified relations, in- 
 terlacing and passing hither and thither, old and new some 
 of fine city weaving, others of gross agricultural construction. 
 You are never sure what effect any force or any change may 
 produce on a framework so exquisite and so involved. Govern 
 it as you may, it will be a work of great difficulty, labour, and 
 responsibility ; and no man who is thus occupied ought ever to 
 go to bed without reflecting, that from the difficulty of his em- 
 ployment he may, probably enough, have that day done more 
 evil than good. What view Sir Robert Peel took of these 
 duties he has himself informed us. 
 
 ' Take the case of the Prime Minister. You must presume 
 that he reads every important despatch from every foreign court. 
 He cannot consult with the Secretary of State for Foreign 
 Affairs, and exercise the influence which he ought to have witii 
 respect to the conduct of foreign affairs, unless he be master of 
 everything of real importance passing in that department. It 
 is the same with respect to other departments ; India for 
 instance : How can the Prime Minister be able to judge of the 
 course of policy with regard to India, unless he be cognisant of 
 all the current important correspondence ? In the case of Ire- 
 land and the Home Department it is the same. Then the 
 Prime Minister has the patronage of the Crown to exercise, 
 which you say, and justly say, is of so much importance and of
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 1 9 
 
 so much value ; he has to make inquiries into the qualifications 
 of the persons who are candidates ; he has to conduct the whole 
 of the communications with the Sovereign, he has to write, 
 probably with his own hand, the letters in reply to all persons 
 of station who address themselves to him ; he has to receive 
 deputations on public business ; during the sitting of Parlia- 
 ment he is expected to attend six or seven hours a day, while 
 Parliament is sitting, for four or five days in the week; at least 
 he is blamed if he is absent.' 
 
 The necessary effect of all this labour is, that those subject 
 to it have no opinions. It requires a great deal of time to have 
 opinions. Belief is a slow process. That leisure which the 
 poets say is necessary to be good, or to be wise, is needful for 
 the humbler task of allowing respectable maxims to take root 
 respectably. The ' wise passiveness ' of Mr. Wordsworth is 
 necessary in very ordinary matters. If you chain a man's head 
 to a ledger, and keep him constantly adding up, and take a 
 pound off his salary whenever he stops, you can't expect him to 
 have a sound conviction on Catholic emancipation or tithes, and 
 original ideas on the Transcaucasian provinces. Our system, 
 indeed, seems expressly provided to make it unlikely. The 
 most benumbing thing to the intellect is routine ; the most 
 bewildering is distraction : our system is a distracting routine. 
 You see this in the description just given, which is not exhaus- 
 tive. Sir Eobert Peel once requested to have a number of ques- 
 tions carefully written down which they asked him one day in 
 succession in the House of Commons. They seemed a list of 
 everything that could occur in the British Empire, or to the 
 brain of a member of parliament. A premier's whole life is a 
 series of such transitions. It is wonderful that our public men 
 have any minds left, rather than that a certain unfixity of 
 opinion seems growing upon them. 
 
 We may go further on this subject. A great administrator 
 is not a man likely to desira to have fixed opinions. His natural 
 bent and tendency is to immediate action. The existing and 
 
 c 2
 
 2O TJie diameter of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 pressing circumstances of the case fill up bis mind. Theletters 
 to be answered, the documents to be filed, the memoranda to 
 lie made, engross his attention. He is angry if you distract 
 him. A bold person who suggests a matter of principle, or 
 a difficulty of thought, or an abstract result that seems im- 
 probable in the case 'before the board,' will be set down as a> 
 speculator, a theorist, a troubler of practical life. To expect to 
 hear from such men profound views of future policy, digested 
 plans of distant action, is to mistake their genius entirely. It 
 is like asking the broker of the Stock Exchange what will be 
 the price of the funds this day six months ! His whole soul is 
 absorbed in thinking what that price will be in ten minutes. 
 A momentary change of an eighth is more important to him 
 than a distant change of a hundred eighths. So the brain of a 
 great admistrator is naturally occupied with the details of the 
 day, the passing dust, the granules of that day's life ; and his 
 unforeseeing temperament turns away uninterested from reach- 
 ing speculations, from vague thought, and from extensive and 
 far-off plans. Of course, it is not meant that a great adminis- 
 trator has absolutely no general views ; some indeed he mast 
 have. A man cannot conduct the detail of affairs without 
 having some plan which regulates that detail. He cannot help 
 having some idea, vague or accurate, indistinct or distinct, of 
 the direction in which he is going, and the purpose for which 
 he is travelling. But the difference is, that this plan is seldom 
 his own, the offspring of his own brain, the result of his own 
 mental contention ; it is the plan of someone else. Providence 
 generally bestows on the working adaptive man a quiet adoptive 
 nature. He receives insensibly the suggestions of others ; he 
 hears them with willing ears ; he accepts them with placid belief. 
 An acquiescent credulity is a quality of such men's nature ; 
 they cannot help being sure that what every one says must be 
 true ; the vox populi is a part of their natural religion. It ha- 
 been made a matter of wonder that Peel should have belonged 
 to the creed of Mr. Perceval and Lord Sidmouth. Perhaps, in-
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 2 1 
 
 deed, our existing psychology will hardly explain the process by 
 which a decorous young man acquires the creed of his era. He 
 assumes its belief as he assumes its costume. He imitates the 
 respectable classes. He avoids an original opinion, like an 
 outre coat ; a new idea, like an unknown tie. Especially he 
 does so on matters of real concern to him, on those on which he 
 knows he must act. He acquiesces in the creed of the orthodox 
 iigents. He scarcely considers for himself; he acknowledges 
 I he apparent authority of dignified experience. He is, he 
 remembers, but the junior partner in the firm ; it does not 
 occur to him to doubt that those were right who were occupied 
 in its management years before him. In this way he acquires 
 an experience which more independent and original minds are 
 apt to want. There was a great cry when the Wigs came into 
 office, at the time of the Reform Bill, that they were not men 
 of business. Of course, after a very long "absence from office, 
 they could not possess a technical 'acquaintance with official 
 forms, a trained facility in official action. This Sir Robert Peel 
 acquired from his apprenticeship to Mr. Perceval. His early 
 connection with the narrow Conservative party has been con- 
 sidered a disadvantage to him ; but it may well be doubted 
 whether his peculiar mind was not more improved by the 
 administrative training than impaired by the contact with pre- 
 judiced thoughts. He never could have been a great thinker ; 
 be became what nature designed, a great agent. 
 
 In a third respect also Sir Robert Peel conformed to the 
 type of a constitutional statesman ; and that third respect also 
 seems naturally to lead to a want of defined principle, and to 
 apparent fluctuation of opinion. He was a great debater ; and 
 of all pursuits ever invented by man for separating the faculty 
 of argument from the capacity of belief, the art of debating is 
 probably the most effectual. Mr. Macaulay tells us that, in his 
 opinion, this is ' the most serious of the evils which are to 
 be set off against the many blessings of popular government. 
 The keenest and most vigorous minds of every generation.
 
 22 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 minds often admirably fitted for the investigation of truth, are 
 habitually employed in producing arguments such as no man 
 of sense would ever put into a treatise intended for publica- 
 tion arguments which are just good enough to be used once, 
 when aided by fluent delivery and pointed language. The habit 
 of discussing questions in this way necessarily reacts on the 
 intellects of our ablest men, particularly of those who are intro- 
 duced into parliament at a very early age, before their minds 
 have expanded to full maturity. The talent for debate is 
 developed in such men to a degree which, to the multitude, 
 seems as marvellous as the performances of an Italian impro- 
 visators. But they are fortunate indeed if they retain unim- 
 paired the faculties which are required for close reasoning, or 
 for enlarged speculation. Indeed, we should sooner expect a 
 great original work on political science such a work, for 
 example, as the " Wealth of Nations " from an apothecary in 
 a country town, or from a minister in the Hebrides, than from 
 a statesman who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a 
 distinguished debater in the House of Commons.' But it may 
 well be doubted whether there is not in the same pursuit a deeper 
 evil, hard to eradicate, and tending to corrupt and destroy the 
 minds of those who are beneath its influence. Constitutional 
 statesmen are obliged, not only to employ arguments which 
 they do not think conclusive, but likewise to defend opinions 
 which they do not believe to be true. Whether we approve it 
 or lament it, there is no question that our existing political 
 life is deeply marked by the habit of advocacy. Perhaps fifteen 
 measures may annually, on an average, be brought in by a 
 cabinet government of fifteen persons. It is impossible to 
 believe that all members of that cabinet agree in all those 
 measures. No two people agree in fifteen things ; fifteen clever 
 men never yet agreed in anything ; yet they all defend them, 
 argue for them, are responsible for them. It is always quite 
 possible that the minister who is strenuously defending a bill in 
 the House of Commons may have used in the cabinet the very
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 arguments which the Opposition are using in the House ; he 
 may have been overruled without being convinced ; he may 
 still think the conclusions he opposes better than those which he 
 inculcates. It is idle to say that he ought to go out ; at least 
 it. amounts to saying that government by means of a cabinet is 
 impossible. The object of a committee of that kind is to agree 
 on certain conclusions ; if every member after the meeting 
 were to start off according to the individual bent and bias of 
 his mind, according to his own individual discretion or indis- 
 cretion, the previous concurrence would have become childish. 
 Of course, the actual measure proposed by the collective voice 
 of several persons is very different from what any one of these 
 persons would of himself wish ; it is the result of a compromise 
 between them. Each, perhaps, has obtained some concession ; 
 each has given up something. Everyone sees in the actual 
 proposal something of which he strongly disapproves ; every- 
 one regrets the absence of something which he much desires. 
 Yet, on the whole, perhaps, he thinks the measure better than 
 no measure ; or at least he thinks that if he went out, it would 
 break up the government ; and imagines it to be of more con- 
 sequence that the government should be maintained than that 
 the particular measure should be rejected. He concedes his 
 individual judgment. No one has laid this down with more 
 distinctness than Sir Robert Peel. ' Supposing a person at 
 a dinner-table to express his private opinion of a measure 
 originating with a party with whom he is united in public life, 
 is he, in the event of giving up that private opinion out of 
 deference to his party, to be exposed to a charge almost 
 amounting to dishonesty ? The idea is absurd. What is the 
 every-day conduct of government itself? Is there anyone in 
 this House so ignorant as to suppose that on all questions cabinet 
 ministers, who yield to the decision of their colleagues, speak 
 and act in parliament in strict conformity with the opinions 
 they have expressed in the cabinet ? If ministers are to be 
 taunted on every occasion that they hold opinions in the
 
 24 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 cabinet different from what they do in this House, and if 
 parliament is to be made the scene of these taunts, I believe I 
 should not be going too far in saying the House would have 
 time for little else. It is the uniform practice with all 
 governments, and I should be sorry to think the practice 
 carries any stain with it, for a member of the administration 
 who chances to entertain opinions differing from those of the 
 majority of ins colleagues, rather than separate himself from 
 them, to submit to be overruled, and even though he do not 
 full}' concur in their policy, to give his support to the measures 
 which, as an administration, they promulgate. I will give the 
 House an instance of this fact. It was very generally reported 
 on a late occasion, that upon the question of sending troops 
 to Portugal a strong difference of opinion took place in the 
 cabinet. Now would it, I ask, be either just or fair to call on 
 those who, in the discussion of the cabinet, had spoken in 
 favour of sending out troops to aid the cause of Donna Maria, 
 to come down, and in parliament advocate that measure in 
 opposition to the decision of their colleagues ? Xo one would 
 think of doing so.' It may not carry a stain ; but it is a 
 painful idea. 
 
 It is evident, too, that this necessarily leads to great 
 apparent, changes of opinion to the professed belief of a 
 statesman at one moment being utterly different from what 
 it seems to be at another moment. When a government is 
 founded, questions A, B, C, D, E, F, are the great questions of 
 the day the matters which are obvious, pressing which the 
 public mind comprehends. X, Y, Z, are in the background, 
 little thought of, obscure. According to the received morality, 
 no statesman would hesitate to sacrifice the last to the first. 
 He might have a very strong personal opinion on X, but he 
 would surrender it to a colleague as the price of his co-operation 
 on A or B. A few years afterwards times change. Question A 
 is carried, B settles itself, E and F are forgotten, X becomes 
 the most important topic of the day. The statesman who con-
 
 The Character of Sir Robert PeeL 
 
 ceded X before, now feels that he no longer can concede it ; 
 there is no equivalent. He has never in reality changed his 
 opinion, yet he has to argue in favour of the very measures 
 which he endeavoured before to argue against. Everybody 
 thinks he has changed, and without going into details, the 
 secrecy of which is esteemed essential to confidential co-opera- 
 tion, it is impossible that he can evince his consistency. It is 
 impossible to doubt that this is a very serious evil, and it is 
 plainly one consequent on, or much exaggerated by, a popular 
 and argumentative government. It is very possible for a con- 
 scientious man, under a bureaucratic government, to co-operate 
 with the rest of a council in the elaboration and execution of 
 measures, many of which he thinks inexpedient, Xobody asks 
 him his opinion ; he has not to argue, or defend, or persuade. 
 But a free government boasts that it is carried on in the face 
 of day. Its principle is discussion ; its habit is debate. The 
 consequence is, that those who conduct it have to defend 
 measures they disapprove, to object to measures they approve, 
 to appear to have an accurate opinion on points on which they 
 really have no opinion. The calling of a constitutional states- 
 man is very much that of a political advocate ; he receive a new 
 brief with the changing circumstances of each successive day. 
 It is easy to conceive a cold, sardonic intellect, moved with con- 
 tempt at such a life, casting aside the half-and-half pretences 
 with which others partly deceive themselves, stating anything, 
 preserving an intellectual preference for truth, but regarding 
 any effort at its special advocacy as the weak aim of foolish men, 
 striving for what they cannot attain. Lord Lyndhurst has shown 
 us that it is possible to lead the life of Lord Lyndhurst. One 
 can conceive, too, a cold and somewhat narrow intellect, capable 
 of forming, in any untroubled scene, an accurate plain conviction, 
 but without much power of entering into the varying views of 
 others ; little skilled in diversified argument ; understanding its 
 own opinion, and not understanding the opinions of others ; one 
 can imagine such a mind pained, and cracked, and shattered,
 
 26 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 by endeavouring to lead a life of ostentatious argument in 
 favour of others' opinions, of half-concealment of its chill, unal- 
 tering essence. It will be for posterity to make due allowance 
 for the variance between the character and the position of Lord 
 John Russell. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel was exactly fit for this life. The word 
 which exactly fits his oratory is specious. He hardly ever said 
 anything which struck you in a moment to be true ; he never 
 uttered a sentence which for a moment anybody could deny to 
 be plausible. Once, when they were opposed on a railway bill, the 
 keen irascibility of Lord Derby stimulated him to observe ' that 
 no one knew like the right honourable baronet how to dress up 
 a case for that House.' The art of statement, the power of 
 detail, the watching for the weak points of an opponent, an 
 average style adapting itself equally to what the speaker 
 believed and what he disbelieved, a business air, a didactic 
 precision for what it was convenient to make clear, an unctuous 
 disguise of flowing periods, and ' a deep sense of responsibility ' 
 for what it was convenient to conceal, an enormous facility, 
 made Sir Robert Peel a nearly unequalled master of the art of 
 political advocacy. For his times he was perhaps quite un- 
 equalled. He might have failed in times of deep, outpouring 
 patriotic excitement ; he had not nature enough to express it. 
 He might have failed in an age when there was nothing to do, 
 and when elegant personality and the finesse of artistic expres- 
 sion were of all things most required. But for an age of 
 important business, when there were an unusual number of 
 great topics to be discussed, but none great enough to hurry 
 men away from their business habits, or awaken the most 
 ardent passion or the highest imagination, there is nothing like 
 the oratory of Peel able but not aspiring, firm but not 
 exalted, never great but ever adequate to great affairs. It is 
 curious to know that he was trained to the trade. 
 
 'Soon after Peel was born, his father, the first baronet, 
 finding himself rising daily in wealth and consequence, and
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 2 7 
 
 believing that money in those peculiar days could always 
 command a seat in Parliament, determined to bring up his son 
 expressly for the House of Commons. When that son was 
 quite a child, Sir Robert would frequently set him on the table, 
 and say, "Now, Eobin, make a speech, and I will give you this 
 cherry." What few words the little fellow produced were 
 applauded ; and applause stimulating exertion, produced such 
 effects that, before Robin was ten years old, he could really 
 address the company with some degree of eloquence. As he 
 grew up, his father constantly took him every Sunday into his 
 private room, and made him repeat, as well as he could, the 
 sermon which had been preached. Little progress in effecting 
 this was made, and little was expected at first, but by steady 
 perseverance the habit of attention grew powerful, and the 
 sermon was repeated almost verbatim. When at a very dis- 
 tant day the senator, remembering accurately the speech of an 
 opponent, answered his arguments in correct succession, it was 
 little known that the power of so doing was originally acquired 
 in Drayton Church.' 
 
 A mischievous observer might say, that something else had 
 remained to Sir Robert Peel from these sermons. His tone is 
 a trifle sermonic. He failed where perhaps alone Lord John 
 Russell has succeeded in the oratory of conviction. 
 
 If we bear in mind the whole of these circumstances ; if we 
 picture in our minds a nature at once active and facile, easily 
 acquiring its opinions from without, not easily devising them 
 from within, a large placid adaptive intellect, devoid of irritable 
 intense originality, prone to forget the ideas of yesterday, 
 inclined to accept the ideas of to-day if we imagine a man 
 so formed cast early into absorbing, exhausting industry of 
 detail, with work enough to fill up a life, with action of itself 
 enough to render speculation almost impossible placed too in 
 a position unsuited to abstract thought, of which the conven- 
 tions and rules require that a man should feign other men's 
 thoughts, should impugn his own opinions we shall begin to
 
 28 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 imagine a conscientious man destitute of convictions on the 
 occupations of his life to comprehend the character of Sir 
 Robert Peel. 
 
 That Sir Robert was a very conscientious man is quite cer- 
 tain. It is even probable that he had a morbid sense of admi- 
 nistrative responsibility. We do not. say that he was so weighed 
 down as Lord Liverpool, who is alleged never to have opened his 
 letters without a pang of foreboding that something had mis- 
 carried somewhere ; but every testimony agrees that Sir Robert 
 had an anxious sense of duty in detail. Lord Wellesley, some- 
 where in this volume, on an occasion when it would have been 
 at least equally natural to speak of administrative capacity 
 and efficient co-operation, mentions only the ' the real impres- 
 sions which your kindness and high, character have fixed in my 
 mind.' The circumstances of his end naturally produced a 
 crowd of tributes to his memory, and hardly any of them omit 
 his deep sense of the obligations of action, The characteristic, 
 too, is written conspicuously on every line of these memoirs. 
 Disappointing and external as in some respects they seem, they 
 all the more evidently bear witness to this trait. They read 
 like the conscientious letters of an ordinary practical man ; the 
 great statesman has little other notion than that it is his duty 
 to transact his business well. As a conspicuous merit, the Duke 
 of Wellington, oddly enough according to some people's notions 
 at the time, selected Peel's veracity. * In the whole course of 
 my communication with him I have never known an instance 
 in which he did not show the strictest preference for truth. I 
 never had, in the whole course of my life, the slightest reason 
 for suspecting that he stated anything which he did not firmly 
 believe to be the fact. I could not sit down without stating 
 what I believe, after a long acquaintance, to have been his most 
 striking characteristic.' Simple people in the country were a 
 little astonished to hear so strong a eulogy on a man for not 
 telling lies. They were under the impression that people in 
 general did not. But those who have considered the tempting
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 29 
 
 nature of a statesman's pursuits, the secrets of office, the inevit- 
 able complication of his personal relations, will not be surprised 
 that many statesmen should be without veracity, or that one 
 should be eulogised for possessing it. It is to be remarked, 
 however, in mitigation of so awful an excellence, that Sir Robert 
 was seldom ' in scrapes,' and that it is on those occasions that 
 the virtue of veracity is apt to be most severely tested. The 
 same remark is applicable to the well-praised truthfulness of the 
 Duke himself. 
 
 In conjunction with the great soldier, Sir Robert Peel is 
 entitled to the fame of a great act of administrative conscience. 
 He purified the Tory party. There is little doubt that, during 
 the long and secure reign which the Tories enjoyed about the 
 beginning of the century, there was much of the corruption 
 naturally incident to a strong party with many adherents to 
 provide for, uncontrolled by an effective Opposition, unwatched 
 by a great nation. Of course, too, any government remaining 
 over from the last century would inevitably have adhering to it 
 various remanet corruptions of that curious epoch. There flou- 
 rished those mighty sinecures and reversions, a few of which 
 still remain to be the wonder and envy of an uuenjoying 
 generation. The House of Commons was not difficult then to 
 manage. There is a legend that a distinguished Treasury offi- 
 cial of the last century, a very capable man, used to say of any 
 case which was hopelessly and inevitably bad : ' Ah, we must 
 apply our majority to this question ; ' and no argument is so 
 effectual as the mechanical, calculable suffrage of a strong, un- 
 reasoning party. There were doubtless many excellent men in 
 the Tory party, even in its least excellent days ; but the two 
 men to whom the party, as such, owes most of purification 
 were the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. From tne 
 time when they became responsible for the management of a 
 Conservative government, there was no doubt, in office or in 
 the nation, that the public money and patronage were adminis- 
 tered by men whom no consideration would induce to use
 
 30 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 either for their personal benefit ; and who would, as far as their 
 whole power lay, discourage and prevent the corrupt use of 
 either by others. The process by which they succeeded in 
 conveying this impression is illustrated by a chapter in the 
 Dean of York's * Memoir of Peel,' in which that well-known 
 dignitary recounts the temptations which he applied to the 
 political purity of his relative : 
 
 While Peel was Secretary for Ireland, I asked him to give a very 
 trifling situation, nominally in his gift, to a worthy person for whom 
 I felt an interest. He wrote me word that he was really anxious to 
 oblige me in this matter, hut that a nobleman of much parliamentary 
 interest, who supported the government, insisted upon his right to 
 dispose of all patronage in his own neighbourhood. So anxious was 
 Peel to show his good will towards me, that he prevailed upon the 
 Lord-Lieutenant to ask as a favour from the aforesaid nobleman that 
 the situation might be given to my nominee : but the marquis replied, 
 that the situation was of no value, yet, to prevent a dangerous pre- 
 cedent, he must refuse the application. 
 
 In times long after, when Sir Robert Peel became prime minister, 
 I asked him often in the course of many years for situations for my 
 sons, which situations were vacant and in his immediate gift. I sub- 
 join three letters which I received from him on these subjects ; they 
 were written after long intervals and at different periods, but they all 
 speak the same language : 
 
 Whitehall, December 20 (no date of year). 
 
 3Ir DEAR DEAX OF YORK, I thank you for j'our consideration 
 of what you deem the unrequited sacrifice which I make in the public 
 service. I3ut I beg to say that my chief consolation and reward is the 
 consciousness that my exertions are disinterested that I have con- 
 sidered official patronage as a public trust, to be applied to the reward 
 and encouragement of public service, or to the less praiseworthy, but 
 still necessary, purpose of promoting the general interests of the 
 government. That patronage is so wholly inadequate to meet the fair 
 claims of a public nature, that are daily presented for my consideration, 
 and that constitute the chief torment of office, that I can only over- 
 come the difficulties connected with the distribution by the utmost 
 forbearance as to deriving any personal advantage from it. If I had 
 absolute control over the appointment to which you refer, I should 
 apply it to the satisfaction of one or other of the engagements into
 
 7 he Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 which. I entered when I formed the government, and which (from the 
 absolute want of means) remain unfulfilled. But I have informed the 
 numerous parties who have applied to me on the subject of that 
 appointment, that I feel it to be my duty, on account of the present 
 condition of the board and the functions they have to perform, to select 
 for it some experienced man of business connected with the naval pro- 
 fession, or some man distinguished in that profession. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Dean, affectionately yours, 
 
 HOBERT PEEL. 
 
 I applied again for another place of less importance : the answer 
 was much the same as before : 
 
 Whitehall, April 5, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR DEAN OF YORK, I must dispose of the appointment to 
 which you refer upon the same principle on which I have uniformly 
 disposed of every appointment of a similar nature. 
 
 I do not consider patronage of this kind (and, indeed, I may truly 
 say it of all patronage) as the means of gratifying private wishes of any- 
 one. Those who have made locally great sacrifices and great exertions 
 for the maintenance of the political cause which they espouse, have 
 always been considered fairly entitled to be consulted in respect to the 
 disposal of local patronage, and would justly complain if, in order to 
 promote the interests of a relative of my own, I were to disregard their 
 recommendations. It would subject me to great personal embarrass- 
 ment, and be a complete departure from the rule to which I have 
 always adhered. 
 
 All patronage of all descriptions, so far from being of the least 
 advantage personally to a minister, involves him in nothing but 
 embarrassment. Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 ROBERT PKEL. 
 
 T publish one more letter of the same kind, because all these letters 
 exhibit the character of the writer, and contain matters of some public 
 interest. The distributor of stamps died in the very place where my 
 son was resident, and where he and I had exerted considerable interest 
 in assisting the government members. I thought that now, perhaps, 
 an exception might be made to the general rule, and I confidently 
 recommended my eldest son for the vacancy. The following was the 
 answer : 
 
 Whitehall, May 1. 
 
 MY DEAR DEAX, Whatever arrangements may be made with 
 respect to the office of distributor of stamps, lately held by Mr. ,
 
 32 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 I do not feel myself justified in appropriating to myself any share of 
 the local patronage of a county with which I have not the remotest 
 connection by property, or any other local tie. 
 
 There are three members for the county of who support the 
 government ; and, in addition to the applications which I shall no 
 doubt have from them, I have already received recommendations 
 
 from the Duke of and Earl , each having certainly better 
 
 claims than I have personally for local appointments in the county 
 of . 
 
 I feel it quite impossible to make so complete a departure from the 
 principles on which I have invariably acted, and which I feel to be 
 
 nothing more than consistent with common justice, as to take shire 
 
 offices for my own private purposes. 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 
 ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 These letters show the noble principle on which Sir Robert's public 
 life was founded. I am quite sure that he had a great regard for my 
 sons. He invited them to his shooting-quarters, was pleased to find 
 them amusement, and made them many handsome presents ; but he 
 steadily refused to enrich them out of the public purse merely because 
 they were his nephews. Many prime ministers have not been so 
 scrupulous. 
 
 And clearly one divine wishes Sir Eobert Peel had not been so. 
 The changes of opinion which Sir Eobert Peel underwent 
 are often cited as indications of a want of conscientiousness. 
 They really are, subject, of course, to the preceding remarks, 
 proofs of his conscientiousness. We do not mean in the ob- 
 vious sense of their being opposed to his visible interest, and 
 having on two great occasions destroyed the most serviceable 
 party organisation ever ruled by a statesman in a political age ; 
 but in a more refined sense, the timeliness of his transitions 
 may, without overstraining, be thought a mark of their bona, 
 fides. He could not have changed with such felicitous ex- 
 actness, if he had been guided by selfish calculation. The 
 problems were too great and too wide. There have, of course, 
 been a few men Talleyrand and Theramenes are instances 
 who have seemed to hit, as if by a political 'sense, the fitting
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 33 
 
 moment to leave the side which was about to fall, and to join 
 the side which was about to rise. But these will commonly 
 be found to be men of a very different character from that of 
 Peel. Minds are divided into open and close. Some men 
 are so sensitive to extrinsic impressions, pass so easily from 
 one man to another, catch so well the tone of each man's 
 thought, use so well the opportunities of society for the pur- 
 poses of affairs, that they are, as it were, by habit and practice, 
 metrical instruments of public opinion. Sir Eobert was by 
 character, both natural and acquired, the very reverse. He was 
 a reserved, occupied man of business. In the arts of society, 
 in the easy transition from person to person, from tone to 
 tone, he was but little skilled. If he had been left to pick up 
 his rules of conduct by mere social perception and observation, 
 his life would have been a life of miscalculations ; instead 
 of admiring the timeliness of his conversions, we should 
 wonder at the perversity of his transitions. The case is not 
 new. In ancient times, at a remarkable moment, in the 
 persons of two selfish men of genius, the open mind was 
 contrasted with the close. By a marvellous combination of 
 successive manoeuvres, Julius Csesar rose from ruin to empire ; 
 the spoiled child of society sensitive to each breath of 
 opinion ever living, at least among the externals of enjoy- 
 ment always retaining, by a genial kindliness of manner, 
 friends from each of the classes which he variously used. By 
 what the vulgar might be pardoned for thinking a divine 
 infatuation, Pompeius lost the best of political positions, 
 threw away every recurring chance, and died a wandering 
 exile. As a reserved, ungenial man, he never was able to 
 estimate the feeling of the time. ' I have only to stamp 
 with my foot when the occasion requires, to raise legions 
 from the soil of Italy ! ' were the words of^one who could not, 
 in his utmost need, raise a force to strike one blow for Italy 
 itself. The fate of Pompeius would have been that of Peel, 
 if he too had played the game of [selfish calculation. His 
 
 D
 
 34 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 changes, as it has been explained, are to be otherwise ac- 
 counted for. He was always anxious to do right. An occu- 
 pied man of business, he was converted when other men of 
 business in the nation were converted. 
 
 It is not, however, to be denied that a calm and bland 
 nature like that of Peel is peculiarly prone to self-illusion. 
 Many fancy that it is passionate, imaginative men who most 
 deceive themselves ; and of course they are more tempted a 
 more vivid fancy and a more powerful impulse hurry them 
 away. But they know their own weakness. * Do you believe 
 in ghosts, Mr. Coleridge ? ' asked some lady. * No, ma'am, I 
 have seen too many,' was the answer. A quiet, calm nature, 
 when it is tempted by its own wishes, is hardly conscious that 
 it is tempted. These wishes are so gentle, quiet, as it would 
 say, so ' reasonable,' that it does not conceive it possible to be 
 hurried away into error by them. Nor is there any hurry. 
 They operate quietly, gently, and constantly. Such a man will 
 very much believe what he wishes. Many an imaginative out- 
 cast, whom no man would trust with sixpence, really forms his 
 opinions on points which interest him by a much more 
 intellectual process at least has more purely intellectual 
 opinions beaten and tortured into him than the eminent and 
 respected man of business, in whom every one confides, who is 
 considered a model of dry judgment, of clear and passionless 
 equanimity. Doubtless Sir Kobert Peel went on believing in 
 the corn-laws, when no one in the distrusted classes even 
 fancied that they were credible. 
 
 It has been bitterly observed of Sir Kobert Peel, that he 
 was * a Radical at heart ;' and, perhaps with a similar thought 
 in his mind, Mr. Cobden said once, at a League meeting, *I do 
 not altogether like to give up Peel. You see he is a Lanca- 
 shire man.' And it cannot be questioned that, strongly opposed 
 as Sir Robert Peel was to the Reform Bill, he was really much 
 more suited to the reformed than to the unreformed House of 
 Commons. The style of debating in the latter was described
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 35 
 
 by one who had much opportunity for observation, Sir James 
 Mackintosh, as ' continuous, animated, after-dinner discussion.' 
 The House was composed mainly of men trained in two great 
 schools, on a peculiar mode of education, with no great real 
 knowledge of the classics, but with many lines of Virgil and 
 Horace lingering in fading memories, contrasting oddly with 
 the sums and business with which they were necessarily 
 brought side by side. These gentlemen wanted not to be 
 instructed, but to be amused ; and hence arose what, from the 
 circumstance of their calling, may be called the class of con- 
 versationalist statesmen. Mr. Canning was the type of these. 
 He was a man of elegant gifts, of easy fluency, capable of 
 embellishing anything, with a nice wit, gliding swiftly over 
 the most delicate topics ; passing from topic to topic like the 
 raconteur of the dinner-table, touching easily on them all, 
 letting them all go as easily ; confusing you as to whether he 
 knows nothing or knows everything. The peculiar irritation 
 which Mr. Canning excited through life was, at least in part, 
 owing to the natural wrath with which you hear the changing 
 talk of the practised talker running away about all the 
 universe ; never saying anything which indicates real know- 
 ledge, never saying anything which at the very moment can 
 be shown to be a blunder; ever on the surface, and ever 
 ingratiating itself with the superficial. When Mr. Canning 
 was alive, sound men of all political persuasions the Duke of 
 Wellington, Lord Grey ever disliked him. You may hear old 
 Liberals to this day declaring he was the greatest charlatan 
 who ever lived, angry to imagine that his very ghost exists ; 
 and when you read his speeches yourself, you are at once con- 
 scious of a certain dexterous insincerity which seems to lurk 
 in the very felicities of expression, and to be made finer with 
 the very refinements of the phraseology. Like the professional 
 converser, he seems so apt at the finesse of expression, so prone 
 to modulate his words, that you cannot imagine him putting 
 his fine mind to tough thinking, really working, actually grap- 
 
 D 2
 
 36 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 pling with the rough substance of a great subject. Of course, 
 if this \vere the place for an estimate of Mr. Canning, there 
 would be some limitation, and much excuse to be offered for all 
 this. He was early thrown into what we may call an aristocratic 
 debating society, accustomed to be charmed, delighting in 
 classic gladiatorship. To expect a great speculator, or a 
 principled statesman, from such a position, would be expecting 
 German from a Parisian, or plainness from a diplomatist. He 
 grew on the soil on which he had been cast ; and it is hard, 
 perhaps impossible, to separate the faults which are due to it 
 and to him. He and it have both passed away. The old 
 delicate parliament is gone, and the gladiatorship which it 
 loved. The progress of things, and the Keform Bill which was 
 the result of that progress, have taken, and are taking, the 
 national representation away from the university classes, and 
 conferring it on the practical classes. Exposition, arithmetic, 
 detail, reforms these are the staple of our modern eloquence. 
 The old boroughs which introduced the young scholars are 
 passed away ; and even if the young scholars were in parlia- 
 ment, the subjects do not need the classic tact of expression. 
 Very plain speaking suits the * passing tolls,' * registration of 
 joint-stock companies,' finance, the Post-office. The petty 
 regulation of the details of civilisation, which happily is the 
 daily task of our government, does not need, does not suit, a 
 recherche taste or an ornate eloquence. As is the speech, so 
 are the men. Sir Robert Peel was inferior to Canning in the 
 old parliament ; he would have been infinitely superior to him 
 in the new. The aristocratic refinement, the nice embellish- 
 ment, of the old time, were as alien to him as the detail and 
 dryness of the new era were suitable. He was admirably fitted 
 to be where the Reform Bill placed him. He was fitted to 
 work and explain ; he was not able to charm or to amuse. 
 
 In its exact form this kind of eloquence and statesmanship 
 is peculiar to modern times, and even to this age. In ancient 
 times the existence of slavery forbade the existence of a middle
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 class eloquence. The Cleon who possessed the tone and the 
 confidence of the people in trade was a man vulgar, coarse, 
 speaking the sentiments of a class whose views were narrow 
 and whose words were mean. So many occupations were con- 
 fined to slaves, that there was scarcely an opening for the sen- 
 sible, moderate, rational body whom we now see. It was, of 
 course, always possible to express the sentiments and prejudices 
 of people in trade. It is new to this era, it seems created for 
 Sir Eobert Peel to express those sentiments, in a style refined, 
 but not too refined ; which will not jar people of high cultiva- 
 tion, which will seern suitable to men of common cares and im- 
 portant transactions. 
 
 In another respect Sir Kobert Peel was a fortunate man. 
 The principal measures required in his age were ' repeals.' 
 From changing circumstances, the old legislation would no 
 longer suit a changed community ; and there was a clamour, 
 first for the repeal of one important act, and then of another. 
 This was suitable to the genius of Peel. He could hardly have 
 created anything. His intellect, admirable in administrative 
 routine, endlessly fertile in suggestions of detail, was not of the 
 class which creates, or which readily even believes an absolutely 
 new idea. As has been so often said, he typified the practical 
 intelligence of his time. He was prone, as has been explained, 
 to receive the daily deposits of insensibly-changing opinion ; but 
 he could bear nothing startling ; nothing bold, original, single, 
 is to be found in his acts or his words. Nothing could be so 
 suitable to such a mind as a conviction that an existing law was 
 wrong. The successive gradations of opinion pointed to a clear 
 and absolute result. When it was a question, as in the case of 
 the Reform Bill, not of simple abolition, but of extensive and 
 difficult reconstruction, he ' could not see his way.' He could 
 be convinced that the anti-Catholic laws were wrong, that the 
 currency laws were wrong ; that the commercial laws were 
 wrong ; especially he could be convinced that the laissez-faire 
 system was right, and the real thing was to do nothing ; but he
 
 38 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 was incapable of the larger and higher political construction. 
 A more imaginative genius is necessary to deal with the con- 
 sequences of new creations, and the structure of an unseen 
 future. 
 
 This remark requires one limitation. A great deal of what 
 is called legislation is really administrative regulation. It does 
 not settle what is to be done, but how it is to be done ; it does 
 not prescribe what our institutions shall be, but directs in 
 what manner existing institutions shall work and operate. Of 
 this portion of legislation Sir Robert Peel was an admirable 
 master. Few men have fitted administrative regulations with 
 so nice an adjustment to a prescribed end. The Currency Act 
 of 1844 was an instance of this. If you consult the speeches 
 by which that bill was introduced and explained to parliament, 
 you certainly will not find any very rigid demonstrations of 
 political economy, or dry compactness of abstract principle. 
 Whether the abstract theory of the supporters of that act be 
 sound or unsound, no exposition of it ever came from the lips 
 of Peel. He assumed the results of that theory ; but no man 
 saw more quickly the nature of the administrative machinery 
 which was required. The separation of the departments of the 
 Bank of England, the limitation of the country issues, though 
 neither of them original ideas of Sir Robert's own mind, yet 
 were not, like most of his other important political acts, forced 
 on him from without. There was a general agreement among 
 the received authorities in favour of a certain currency theory ; 
 the administrative statesman saw a good deal before other men 
 what was the most judicious and effectual way of setting it at 
 work and regulating its action. 
 
 We have only spoken of Sir Robert Peel as a public man, 
 and if you wish to write what is characteristic about him, that 
 is the way to do so. He was a man whom it requires an effort 
 to think of as engaged in anything but political business. 
 Disraeli tells us that some one said that Peel was never happy 
 except in the House of Commons, or doing something which
 
 The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 39 
 
 had some relation to something to be done there. In com- 
 mon life, we continually see men scarcely separable as it were 
 from their pursuits : they are as good as others, but their 
 visible nature seems almost all absorbed in a certain visible 
 calling. When we speak of them we are led to speak of it, when 
 we would speak of it we are led insensibly to speak of them. 
 It is so with Sir Robert Peel. So long as constitutional states- 
 manship is what it is now, so long as its function consists in 
 recording the views of a confused nation, so long as success 
 in it is confined to minds plastic, changeful, administrative 
 we must hope for no better man. You have excluded the 
 profound thinker; you must be content with what you can 
 obtain the business-gentleman.
 
 40 
 
 LORD BROUGHAM* 
 
 [1857.] 
 
 Ir was a bold, perhaps a rash idea, to collect the writings of 
 Henry Brougham. They were written at such distant dates ; 
 their subjects are so various ; they are often so wedged into the 
 circumstances of an age that they scarcely look natural in a 
 series of volumes. Some men, doubtless, by a strong grasp of 
 intellect, have compacted together subjects as various ; the 
 finger-marks of a few are on all human knowledge ; others, by 
 a rare illuminative power, have lit up as many with a light that 
 seems peculiar to themselves. Franciscus Baconus sic cogi- 
 tavit may well illustrate an opera omnia. But Lord Brougham 
 has neither power ; his restless genius has no claim to the 
 still, illuminating imagination ; his many-handed, apprehensive 
 intelligence is scarcely able to fuse and concentrate. Variety 
 is his taste, and versatility his power. His career has not been 
 quiet. For many years rushing among the details of an age, 
 he has written as he ran. There are not many undertakings 
 bolder than to collectthe*works of such a life and such a man. 
 The edition itself seems a good one. The volumes are con- 
 venient in size, well printed, and fairly arranged. The various 
 writings it contains have been revised, but not over-revised, by 
 their author. It is not, however, of the collection that we wish 
 to speak. "We would endeavour, so far as a few hasty pages 
 may serve, to delineate^the career and character of the writer. 
 The attempt is among the most difficult. He is still among 
 
 1 II 'orJtx of Henry Lord Brougham, F.P.S., Member of the National Insti- 
 tute of France and the Royal Academy of Naples. London : Griffin.
 
 Lord Brougham. 4 1 
 
 us ; we have not the materials, possibly not the impartiality, 
 of posterity. Nor have we the familiar knowledge of contem- 
 poraries ; the time when Lord Brougham exerted his greatest 
 faculties is beyond the political memory of younger men. 
 There are no sufficient books on the events of a quarter of a 
 century ago, we have only traditions ; and this must be our 
 excuse if we fall, or seem to fall, into error and confusion. 
 
 The years immediately succeeding the great peace were 
 years of sullenness and difficulty. The idea of the war had 
 passed away ; the thrill and excitement of the great struggle 
 were no longer felt. We had maintained, with the greatest 
 potentate of modern times, a successful contest for existence. 
 We had our existence, but we had no more ; our victory had 
 been great, but it had no fruits. By the aid of pertinacity and 
 capital, we had vanquished genius and valour ; but no visible 
 increase of European influence followed. Napoleon said that 
 Wellington had made peace as if he had been defeated. We 
 had delivered the Continent ; such was our natural idea : but 
 the Continent went its own way. There was nothing in its 
 state to please the everyday Englishman. There were kings 
 and emperors ; ' which was very well for foreigners, they had 
 always been like that ; but it was not many kings could pay ten 
 per cent, income-tax.' Absolutism, as such, cannot be popular 
 in a free country. The Holy Alliance, which made a religion 
 of despotism, was scarcely to be reconciled with the British 
 constitution. Altogether we had vanquished Napoleon, but we 
 had no pleasure in what came after him. The cause which 
 agitated our hearts was gone ; there was no longer a noise of 
 victories in the air ; continental affairs were dead, despotic, dull ; 
 we scarcely liked to think that we had made them so; with 
 weary dissatisfaction we turned to our own condition. 
 
 This was profoundly unsatisfactory. Trade was depressed ; 
 agriculture ruinous; the working class singularly disaffected. 
 During the war, our manufacturing industry had grown most 
 rapidly ; there was a not unnatural expectation that, after a
 
 42 Lord Brougham. 
 
 general peace, the rate of increase would be accelerated. The 
 whole continent, it was considered, would be opened to us ; 
 Milan and Berlin decrees no longer excluded us ; Napoleon 
 did not now interpose between ' the nation of shopkeepers ' 
 and its customers ; now he was at St. Helena, surely those 
 customers would buy ? It was half forgotten that they could 
 not. The drain of capital for the war had been, at times, 
 heavily felt in England ; there had been years of poverty and 
 discredit ; still our industry had gone on, our workshops had 
 not stopped. We had never known what it was to be the 
 seat of war, as well as a power at war. We had never known 
 our burdens enormously increased, just when our industry was 
 utterly stopped ; disarranged as trading credit sometimes was, 
 it had not been destroyed. No conscription had drained us of 
 our most efficient consumers. The Continent, south and north, 
 had, though not everywhere alike, suffered all these evils ; its 
 populations were poor, harassed, depressed. They could not 
 buy our manufactures, for they had no money. The large pre- 
 parations for a continental export lay on hand; our traders 
 were angry and displeased. Nor was content to be found in 
 the agricultural districts. During the war, the British farmer 
 had inevitably a monopoly of this market ; at the approach of 
 peace, his natural antipathy to foreign corn influenced the 
 legislature. The Home Secretary of the time had taken into 
 consideration whether 76s. or 80s. was such a remunerating 
 price as the agriculturist should obtain, and a corn-law had 
 passed accordingly. But no law could give the farmer famine 
 prices, when there was scarcity here and plenty abroad. There 
 were riots at the passing of the ' Bread-tax,' as it was ; in 
 1813, the price of corn was 120s.; the rural mind was sullen 
 in 1816, when it sunk to 57s. The protection given, though 
 unpopular with the poor, did not satisfy the farmer. 
 
 The lower orders in the manufacturing districts were, of 
 necessity, in great distress. The depression of trade produced 
 its inevitable results of closed mills and scanty employment.
 
 Lord Brougham. 43 
 
 Wages, when they could be obtained, were very low. The 
 artisan population was then new to the vicissitudes of industry : 
 how far they are, even now, instructed in the laws of trade, 
 recent prosperity will hardly let us judge; but, at that time, 
 they had no doubt that it was the fault of the State, and if not 
 of particular statesmen, then of the essential institutions, that 
 they were in want. They believed the Government ought to 
 regulate their remuneration, and make it sufficient. During 
 some straitened years of the war the name of ' Luddites ' 
 became known. They had principally shown their discontent 
 by breaking certain machines, which they fancied deprived 
 them of work. After the peace, the records of the time are full 
 of ' Spencean Philanthropists,' ' Hampden Clubs,' and similar 
 associations, all desiring a great reform some of mere politics, 
 others of the law of property and all social economy. Large 
 meetings were everywhere held, something like those of the 
 year 1839 : a general insurrection, doubtless a wild dream of a 
 few hot-brained dreamers, was fancied to have been really 
 planned. The name ' Eadical ' came to be associated with this 
 discontent. The spirit which, in after years, clamoured dis- 
 tinctly for the five points of the Charter, made itself heard in 
 mutterings and threatenings. 
 
 Nor were the capitalists, who had created the new wealth, 
 socially more at ease. Many of them, as large employers of 
 labour, had a taste for Toryism ; the rule of the people to them 
 meant the rule of their workpeople. Some of the wealthiest 
 and most skilful became associated with the aristocracy, but it 
 was in vain with the majority to attempt it. Between them 
 and the possessors of hereditary wealth there was fixed a great 
 gulf ; the contrast of habits, speech, manners, was too wide. 
 The two might coincide in particular opinions ; they might 
 agree to support the same institutions ; they might set forth, 
 in a Conservative creed, the same form of sound words : but, 
 though the abstract conclusions were identical, the mode of 
 holding them to borrow a subtlety of Father Newman's was
 
 44 Lord Brougham. 
 
 exceedingly different. The refined, discriminating, timorous 
 immobility of the aristocracy was distinct from the coarse, 
 dogmatic, keep-downishness of the manufacturer. Yet more 
 marked was the contrast, when the opposite tendencies of 
 temperament had produced, as they soon could not but do, a 
 diversity of opinion. The case was not quite new in England. 
 Mr. Burke spoke of the tendency of the first East Indians to 
 Jacobinism. They could not, he said, bear that their present 
 importance should have no proportion to their recently-acquired 
 riches. No extravagant fortunes have, in this century, been 
 made by Englishmen in India ; but Lancashire has been a 
 California. Families have been created there, whose names we 
 all know, which we think of when we mention wealth ; some of 
 which are now, by lapse of time, passing into the hereditary 
 caste of recognised opulence. This, however, has been a work 
 of time ; and, before it occurred, there was no such intermediate 
 class between the new wealth and the old. 'It takes,' it is 
 said that Sir Robert Peel observed, * three generations to make 
 a gentleman.' In the meantime, there was an inevitable mis 
 understanding ; the new cloth was too coarse for the old. Be- 
 sides this, many actual institutions offended the eyes of the 
 middle class. The state of the law was opposed both to their 
 prejudices and interests : that you could only recover your 
 debts by spending more than the debt, was hard ; and the 
 injury was aggravated, the money was spent in ' special plead 
 ing ' ' in putting a plain thing so as to perplex and mislead a 
 plain man.' ' Lord Eldon and the Court of Chancery,' as Sydney 
 Smith expressed it, ' sat heavy on mankind.' The existence of 
 slavery in our colonies, strongly supported by a strong aristo- 
 cratic and parliamentary influence, offended the principles of 
 middle-class Christianity, and the natural sentiments of simple 
 men. The cruelty of the penal law the punishing with death 
 sheep-stealing and shop-lifting jarred the humanity of that 
 second order of English society, which, from their habits of 
 reading and non-reading, may be called, par excellence, the
 
 Lord Brougham. 45 
 
 scriptural classes. The routine harshness of a not very wise 
 executive did not mitigate the feeling. The modus operandi 
 of Government appeared coarse and oppressive. 
 
 We seemed to pay, too, a good deal for what we did not like. 
 At the close of the war, the ten per cent, income tax was of 
 course heavily oppressive. The public expenditure was beyond 
 argument lavish ; and it was spent in pensions, sinecures (for 
 * them idlers ' in the speech of Lancashire), and a mass of sun- 
 dries, that an economical man of business will scarcely admit 
 to be necessary, and that even now, after countless pruning?, 
 produce periodically ' financial reform associations,' * adminis- 
 trative leagues,' and other combinations which amply testify 
 the enmity of thrifty efficiency to large figures and muddling 
 management. There had remained from the eighteenth cen- 
 tury a tradition of corruption, an impression that direct pecu- 
 niary malversation pervaded the public offices; an idea true in 
 the days of Eigby or Bubb Dodington, but which, like many 
 other impressions, continued to exist many years after the facts 
 in which it originated had passed away. Government, in the 
 hands of such a man as Lord Liverpool, was very different from 
 government in the hands of Sir Robert Walpole : respectability 
 was exacted ; of actual money-taking there was hardly any. Still, 
 especially among inferior officials, there was something to shock 
 modern purity. The size of jobs was large: if the Treasury of 
 that time could be revived, it would be depressed at the little- 
 ness of whatever is perpetrated in modern administration. 
 There were petty abuses too in the country in municipalities 
 in charitable trusts in all outlying public moneys, which 
 seemed to the offended man of business, who saw them with 
 his own eyes, evident instances confirming his notion of the 
 malpractices of Downing Street. * There are only five little 
 boys in the school of Richester; they may cost 200?., and the 
 income is 2000?., and the trustees don't account for the bal- 
 ance ; which is the way things are done in England : we keeps 
 an aristocracy,' &c. The whole of this feeling was concentrated
 
 46 Lord Brougham. 
 
 into a detestation of rotten boroughs. The very name was 
 enough : that Lord Dover, with two patent sinecures in the 
 Exchequer and a good total for assisting in nothing at the 
 Audit office, should return two members for one house, while 
 Birmingham, where they made buttons, 'as good buttons as 
 there are in the world, sir,' returned no members at all, was 
 an evident indication that reform was necessary. Mr. Canning 
 was an eloquent man ; but ' even he could not say that a de- 
 caying stump was the people' Gatton and Old Sarum became 
 unpopular. The source of power seemed absurd, and the use 
 of power was tainted. Side by side with the incipient Chart- 
 ism of the northern operative, there was growing daily more 
 distinct and clear the Manchester philosophy, which has since 
 expressed itself in the Anti-Corn-Law League, and which for 
 good and evil is now an element so potent in our national life. 
 Both creeds were forms of discontent. And the counterpoise 
 was wanting. The English constitution has provided that 
 there shall always be one estate raised above the storms of 
 passion and controversy, which all parties may respect and 
 honour. The King is to be loved. But this theory requires, 
 for a real efficiency, that the throne be filled by such a person 
 as can be loved. In those times it was otherwise. The no- 
 minal possessor of the crown was a very old man, whom an 
 incurable malady had long sequestered from earthly things. 
 The actual possessor of the royal authority was a voluptuary of 
 overgrown person, now too old for healthy pleasure, and half 
 sickened himself at the corrupt pursuits in which, nevertheless, 
 he indulged perpetually. His domestic vices had become 
 disgracefully public. Whatever might be the truth about 
 Queen Caroline, no one could say she had been well treated. 
 There was no loyalty on which suffering workers, or an angry 
 middle class, could repose : all through the realm there was 
 a miscellaneous agitation, a vague and wandering discontent. 
 
 The official mind of the time was troubled. We have a re- 
 cord of its speculations in the life of Lord Sidmouth, who more
 
 Lord Brougham. 47 
 
 than any one perhaps embodied it. He had been Speaker, and was 
 much inclined to remedy the discontent of the middle classes 
 by * naming them to the House.' A more conscientious man 
 perhaps has never filled a public position. If the forms of the 
 House of Commons had been intuitively binding, no one could 
 have obeyed them better : the ' mace ' was a * counsel of per- 
 fection ' to him ; all disorder hateful. In the Home Office it 
 was the same. The Luddites were people who would not 
 obey the Speaker. Constituted authority must be enforced. 
 The claims of a suffering multitude were not so much neglected 
 as unappreciated. A certain illiberality, as we should now 
 speak, pervades the whole kind of thought. The most striking 
 feature is an indisposition, which by long indulgence has 
 become an inability, to comprehend another person's view, to 
 put oneself in another's mental place, to think what he thinks, 
 to conceive what he inevitably is. Lord Sidmouth referred 
 to the file. He found that Mr. Pitt had put down disaffection 
 by severe measures. Accordingly, he suspended the Habeas 
 Corpus Act, passed six Acts, commended a Peterloo massacre, 
 not with conscious unfeelingness, but from an absorbed offi- 
 ciality, from a knowledge that this was what ' the department ' 
 had done before, and an inference that this must be done again. 
 As for the reforming ideas of the middle classes, red tape 
 had never tied up such notions ; perhaps it was the French 
 Revolution over again : you could not tolerate them. 
 
 Between such a dominant mind as this, and such a subject 
 mind as has been described, there'was a daily friction. The situ- 
 ation afforded obvious advantages to enterprising men. Its pecu- 
 liarity did not escape the shrewd eyes of John Lord Eldon. 'If,' 
 said the Conservative Chancellor, ' I were to begin life again, 
 
 d n my eyes, but I would begin as an agitator.' Henry 
 
 Brougham did so begin. During the war he had distinguished 
 himself in the exposition of the grievances of the trading interest. 
 Our Government had chosen a mode of carrying it on specially 
 fitted to injure our commerce. 'Napoleon had said that no
 
 48 Lord Brougham. 
 
 vessel should touch a British port, and then enter a French one, 
 or one under French control. The Orders in Council said that 
 no vessel whatever should enter any such port without having 
 first touched at some port of Great Britain." l The natural results 
 were the annihilation of our trade with the Continent and a quar- 
 rel with the United States. The merchants of the country were 
 alarmed at both consequences. Perhaps until then men hardly 
 knew how powerful our trading classes had become. Meetings 
 were held in populous places ; petitions in great numbers an 
 impressive and important thing in those times were presented. 
 Wherever foreign commerce existed, the discontent expressed 
 itself in murmurs. The forms of the House of Commons were 
 far more favourable than they are now to action from without ; 
 and this is not unnatural, since there had been as yet but few 
 actions from without, and it had not been necessary to have a 
 guard against them. ( The petitions, as has been said, were 
 numerous ; and on the presentation of each there was a speech 
 from the member presenting it, trying to bring on a debate, and 
 suggesting topics which might irritate the ministry and con- 
 vince the country.' Mr. Brougham was always in his place. 
 
 * Hardly an hour passed without detecting some false statement 
 or illogical argument; hardly a night passed without gaining 
 some convert to the cause of truth.' The result was decisive. 
 
 * Although opposed by the whole weight of the Govern- 
 ment both in public and out of doors ; although at first vigo- 
 rously resisted by the energy, the acuteness, the activity, 
 and the expertness which made Mr. Perceval one of the 
 first debaters of his day ; although, after his death, the 
 struggle was maintained by the father of the system 2 with 
 all his fire and with his full knowledge of the subject 
 nay, although ' the Ministry risked their existence on the 
 question, the victory remained with the petitioners. The 
 Orders in Council were abolished, and the efficacy of 
 
 1 This and the following quotations are from the Speeches of Lord 
 Brougham and the Introductions to them, published in 1838. The latter were 
 written by himself. " 3Ir. Stephen.
 
 Lord Brougham. 49 
 
 agitation proved. ' The session of 1816 offered an example yet 
 more remarkable of the same tactics being attended with signal 
 success. On the termination of the war, the Government 
 were determined, instead of repealing the whole income-tax, 
 which the law declared to be " for and during the continuance 
 of the war, and no longer," to retain one-half of it.' ' As soon 
 as this intention was announced, several meetings were held.' 
 Some petitions were presented. Mr. Brougham declared that, 
 if the motion ' were pressed on Thursday, he should avail 
 himself of the forms of the House.' Of course the unpopu- 
 larity of paying money was decisive ; the income-tax fell. The 
 same faculty of aggression, which had been so successful in 
 these instances, was immediately so applied as to give voice to 
 the sullenness of the country; to express forms of discontent 
 as real, though not with an object as determinate. 
 
 Mr. Brougham did not understate his case : ' There is one- 
 branch of the subject which I shall pass over altogether I mean 
 the amount of the distresses which are now universally admitted' 
 to prevail over almost every part of the empire. Upon this 
 topic all men are agreed; the statements connected with it 
 are as unquestionable as they are afflicting.' Nor did he shrink 
 from detail. * I shall suppose,' he observed to the House, * a 
 farm of 400 acres of fair, good land, yielding a rent of from 
 500L to 600Z. a-year.' ' It will require a four years' course 
 200 acres being in corn, 100 in fallow, and 100 in hay and 
 grass;' and he seems to prove that at least it ought not to- 
 answer, 'independently of the great rise in lime and all sorts 
 of manure.' The commercial mania of the time takes its turn 
 in the description. 'After the cramped state in which the 
 enemy's measures, and our own retaliation (as we termed it) 
 had kept our trade for some years, when the events of spring 
 1814 suddenly opened the Continent, a rage for exporting 
 goods of every kind burst forth, only to be explained by re- 
 flecting on the previous restrictions we had been labouring 
 under, and only to be equalled (though not in extent) by some 
 
 E
 
 5O Lord Brougham. 
 
 of the mercantile delusions connected with South American 
 speculations. Everything that could be shipped was sent off; 
 all the capital that could be laid hold of was embarked. The 
 frenzy, I can call it nothing less, after the experience of 1806 
 and 1810, descended to persons in the humblest circumstances 
 and the farthest removed, by their pursuits, from commercial 
 cares. It may give the committee some idea of this disease, if 
 I state what I know to have happened in one or two places. 
 Not only clerks and labourers, but menial servants, engaged 
 the little sums which they had been laying up for a provision 
 against old age and sickness; persons went round tempting 
 them to adventure in the trade to Holland, and Germany, and 
 the Baltic ; they risked their mite in the hopes of boundless 
 profits ; it went with the millions of the more regular traders : 
 the bubble soon burst, like its predecessors of the South Sea, 
 the Mississippi, and Buenos Ayres ; English goods were selling 
 for much less in Holland and the north of Europe than in 
 London and Manchester; in most places they were lying a 
 dead weight without any sale at all; and either no returns 
 whatever were received, or pounds came back for thousands 
 that had gone forth. The great speculators broke; the 
 middling ones lingered out a precarious existence, deprived of 
 all means of continuing their dealings either at home or abroad ; 
 the poorer dupes of the delusion had lost their little hoards, 
 and went upon the parish the next mishap that befel them ; 
 but the result of the whole has been much commercial distress 
 a caution now absolutely necessary in trying new adventures 
 a prodigious diminution in the demand for manufactures, and 
 indirectly a serious defalcation in the effectual demand for the 
 produce of land.' 
 
 Next year Mr. Brougham described as the worst season 
 ever known. The year 1812, a year before esteemed one of 
 much suffering, rose in comparison to one of actual prosperity. 
 He began with the ' clothir.g,a branch of trade which, from acci- 
 dental circumstances, is not cs depressed as our other great
 
 Lord Brougham. 5 1 
 
 staples ; ' he passed to the iron trade, &c., &c. He dilated on 
 the distress, the discontent and suffering of the people. Of 
 course the Government were to blame. He moved that the 
 
 * unexampled ' difficulties of trade and manufactures were 
 
 * materially increased by the policy pursued with respect 
 to our foreign commerce that the continuance of these 
 difficulties is in a great degree owing to the severe pressure 
 of taxation under which the country labours, and which ought 
 by every practicable means to be lightened that the system 
 of foreign policy pursued by his Majesty's ministers has not 
 been such as to obtain for the people of this country those 
 commercial advantages which the influence of Great Britain 
 in foreign countries fairly entitled them to expect.' As be- 
 came a pupil of the Edinburgh University, Mr. Brougham was 
 not averse to political economy. He was ready to discuss the 
 theory of rent or the corn-laws. He made a speech, which he 
 relates as having had a greater success than any other which he 
 made in Parliament, in support of Mr. Calcraft's amendment, 
 to 'substitute 192,638^. 4s. 9<Z. for 38o,276. 9s. 6d., the esti- 
 mate for the household troops.' Foreign policy was a favourite 
 topic. Almost unsupported, as he said some years after, he 
 attacked the Holy Alliance. Looking back through the soften- 
 ing atmosphere of reminiscence, he almost seems to have a 
 kindness for Lord Castlereagh. He remembers with pleasure 
 the utter ' courage with which he exposed himself unabashed to 
 the most critical audience in the world, while incapable of utter- 
 ing anything but the meanest matter, expressed in the most 
 wretched language ; ' nor has he * forgotten the kind of pride 
 that mantled on the fronts of the Tory phalanx when, after being 
 overwhelmed with the fire of the Whig Opposition, or galled by 
 the fierce denunciations of the Mountain, or harassed by the 
 splendid displays of Mr. Canning, their chosen leader stood 
 forth, and presenting the graces of his eminently patrician 
 figure, flung open his coat, displayed an azure ribbon traversing 
 a snow-white chest, and declared 'his high satisfaction that he 
 
 E 2
 
 52 L ord Brougham. 
 
 could now meet the charges against him face to face, and repel 
 with indignation all that his adversaries had been bold and rash 
 enough to advance.' But the * Mr. Brougham ' of that time 
 showed no admiration; no denunciations were stronger than 
 his ; no sarcasm impinged more deeply ; if the * noble lord in 
 the blue ribbon ' wished anyone out of the House, the ' man 
 from the Northern Circuit ' was probably that one. Kings and 
 emperors met with little mercy, and later years have shown 
 how little was merited by the petty absolutism and unthinking 
 naiTowness of that time. 
 
 That Mr. Brougham indissolubly connected the education- 
 movement with his name everybody knows, but scarcely 
 anyone remembers how unpopular that movement was. Mr. 
 "\Vindham had said, some years before, * That the diffusion of 
 knowledge was proper, might be supported by many good 
 arguments; but he confessed he was a sceptic on that point, 
 It was said, Look at the state of the savages as compared with 
 ours. A savage among savages was very ivell, and the dif- 
 ference was only perceived when he came to be introduced into 
 civilised society.' 'His friend, Dr. Johnson, was of opinion 
 that it was not right to teach reading beyond a certain ex- 
 tent in society.' The same feeling continued. Mr. Peel, in 
 his blandest tones, attacked the education committee. Lord 
 Stowell, not without sagacity, observed, ' If you provide a larger 
 amount of highly-cultivated talent than there is a demand for, the 
 surplus is very likely to turn sour.' Such were the sentiments 
 of some of the best scholars of that era ; and so went all ortho- 
 dox sentiment. That education was the same as republicanism, 
 and republicanism as infidelity, half the curates believed. But, 
 in spite of all this opposition, perhaps with more relish on 
 account of it, Mr. Brougham was ever ready. He was a kind of 
 prophet of knowledge. His voice was heard in the streets. He 
 preached the gospel of the alphabet ; he sang the praises of the 
 primer all the day long. ' Practical observations,' ' discourses,' 
 * speeches,' exist, terrible to all men now. To the kind of edu-
 
 Lord BroiLgkam. 53 
 
 cation then advocated there may be objections. We may object 
 to the kind of ' knowledge ' then most sought after ; but there 
 can be no doubt that those who then laboured in its behalf must 
 be praised for having inculcated, in the horrid heat of the day, 
 as a boring paradox what is now a boring commonplace. 
 
 Our space would fail us if we were to attempt to recount 
 Brougham's labours on the slavery question, on George IV. 
 and Queen Caroline, or his hundred encounters with the 
 routine statesmen. The series commenced at the Peace, but 
 it continued for many years. Is not its history written in the 
 chronicles of Parliament ? You must turn the leaves no 
 unpleasant reading of those old debates, and observe how 
 often Mr. Brougham's name occurs, and on what cumbrous 
 subjects, before you can estimate the frequency of his attacks 
 and the harassing harshness of his labour. One especial sub- 
 ject was his more than any other man's law reform. He had 
 Eomilly and Mackintosh as fellow-labourers in the ameliora- 
 tion of the penal code ; he had their support, and that of some 
 others, in his incessant narrations of the grievances of indi- 
 viduals, and denunciations of the unfeeling unthinkingness of 
 our Home administration ; but no man grappled so boldly we 
 had almost said so coarsely with the crude complexities of our 
 civil jurisprudence : for a rougher nature, a more varied know- 
 ledge of action than we can expect of philanthropists were 
 needed for that task. The subject was most difficult to deal 
 with. The English commerce and civilisation hud grown up in 
 the meshes of a half-feudal code, further complicated with the 
 curious narrowness and spirit of chicane which haunt every- 
 where the law-courts of early times. The technicality which 
 produced the evil made the remedy more difficult. There was 
 no general public opinion on the manner of reform ; the public 
 felt the evil, but no one could judge of the efficacy of a remedy, 
 save persons studious in complicated learning, who would 
 hardly be expected to show how that learning could be rendered 
 useless hardly, indeed, to imagine a world in which it did not
 
 54 Lord Brougham. 
 
 exist. The old creed, that these ingenious abuses were the 
 last * perfection of reason,' still lingered. It must give Lord 
 Brougham some pride to reflect how many of the improvements 
 which he was the first to popularise, if not to suggest, have 
 been adopted how many old abuses of detail, which he first 
 indicated to Parliament, exist no longer how many more are 
 now admitted by everybody to be abuses, though the mode of 
 abolition is contested. The speech on law reform, which he 
 published in the collected edition of his speeches, is nearly a 
 summary of all that has been done or suggested in common or 
 civil law reform for the last thirty years. The effect which so 
 bold an attack on so many things by a single person produced 
 in that conservative time was prodigious. * There never was 
 such a nuisance as the man is,' said an old lawyer whom we 
 knew; and he expressed the feeling of his profession. If we 
 add, that beside all these minor reforms and secondary agita- 
 tions, Mr. Brougham was a bold advocate of Catholic emanci- 
 pation and parliamentary reform the largest heresies of that 
 epoch we may begin to understand the sarcasm of Mr. 
 Canning : ' The honourable and learned gentleman, having in 
 the course of his parliamentary life, supported or proposed 
 almost every species of innovation which could be practised on 
 the constitution, it was not very easy for ministers to do any- 
 thing without seeming to borrow from him. Break away in 
 what direction they would, whether to the right or to the left, 
 it was all alike. " Oh," said the honourable gentleman, " I was 
 there before you : you would not have thought of that if I had 
 not given you a hint." In the reign of Queen Anne there was 
 a sage and grave critic of the name of Dennis, who in his old age 
 got it into his head that he had written all the good plays 
 which were acted at that time. At last a tragedy came forth 
 with a most imposing display of hail and thunder. At the first 
 peal, Dennis exclaimed : " That is my thunder ! " So with the 
 honourable and learned gentleman ; there was no noise astir for 
 the good of mankind in any part of the world, but he instantly
 
 Lord Brougham. 55 
 
 claimed it for his thunder.' "We may have wearied our readers 
 with these long references to old conflicts, but it was necessary. 
 We are familiar with the aberrations of the ex-Chancellor ; we 
 forget how bold, how efficacious, how varied was the activity of 
 Henry Brougham. 
 
 There are several qualities in his genius which make such a 
 life peculiarly suited to him. The first of these is an aggressive, 
 impulsive disposition. Most people may admit that the world 
 goes ill ; old abuses seem to exist, questionable details to 
 abound. Hardly anyone thinks that anything may not be 
 made better. But how to improve the world, to repair the 
 defects, is a difficulty. Immobility is a part of man. A sluggish 
 conservatism is the basis of our English nature. ' Learn, my 
 son,' said the satirist, ' to bear tranquilly the calamities of others.' 
 We easily learn it. Most men have a line of life, and it im- 
 poses certain duties which they fulfil ; but they cannot be 
 induced to start out of that line. We dwell in ' a firm basis of 
 content.' ' Let the mad world go its own way, for it will go its 
 own way.' There is no doctrine of the English Church more 
 agreeable to our instinctive taste than that which forbids all 
 works of supererogation. ' You did a thing without being 
 obliged,' said an eminent statesman : ' then that must be 
 wrong.' We travel in the track. Lord Brougham is the 
 opposite of this. It is not difficult to him to attack abuses. 
 The more difficult thing for him would be to live in a world 
 without abuses. An intense excitability is in his nature. He 
 must ' go off.' He is eager to reform corruption, and rushes out to 
 refute error. A tolerant placidity is altogether denied to him. 
 
 And not only is this excitability eager, it is many-sided. 
 The men who have in general exerted themselves in labours for 
 others, have generally been rather of a brooding nature ; certain 
 ideas, views and feelings have impressed themselves on them 
 in solitude ; they come forth with them among the crowd, but 
 they have no part in its diversified life. They are almost 
 irritated by it. They have no conception except of their cause ;
 
 56. Lord Brougham . 
 
 they are abstracted in one thought, pained with the dizziness of 
 a heated idea. There is nothing of this in Brougham. He is 
 excited by what he sees. The stimulus is from without. He 
 saw the technicalities of the law-courts ; observed a charitable 
 trustee misusing the charity moneys ; perceived that George 
 IV. oppressed Queen Caroline ; went to Old Sarum. He is not 
 absorbed in a creed : he is pricked by facts. Accordingly, his 
 activity is miscellaneous. The votary of a doctrine is concen- 
 trated, for the logical consequences of a doctrine are limited. 
 But an open-minded man, who is aroused by what he sees, quick 
 at discerning abuses, ready to reform anything which he thinks 
 goes wrong will never have done acting. The details of life 
 are endless, and each of them may go wrong in a hundred ways. 
 
 Another faculty of Brougham (in metnphysics it is perhaps 
 but a phase of the same) is the faculty of easy anger. The 
 supine placidity of civilisation is not favourable to animosity. A 
 placid Conservative is perhaps a little pleased that the world is 
 going a little ill. Lord Brougham does not feel this. Like an 
 Englishman on the Continent, he is ready to blow up anyone. 
 He is a Jonah of detail ; he is angry at the dust of life, and 
 wroth with the misfeasances of employes. The most reverber- 
 ating of bastinadoes is the official mind basted by Brougham. 
 You did this wrong ; why did you omit that ? Document C 
 ought to be on the third file ; paper D is wrongly docketed in 
 the ninth file. Red tape will scarcely succeed when it is ques- 
 tioned; you should take it as Don Quixote did his helmet, 
 without examination, for a most excellent helmet. A vehement, 
 industrious man proposing to untie papers and not proposing 
 to spare errors is the terror of a respectable administrator. 
 ' Such an impracticable man, sir, interfering with the office, 
 attacking private character, messing in what cannot concern 
 him.' These are the jibes which attend an irritable anxiety for 
 the good of others. They have attended Lord Brougham through 
 life. He has enough of misanthropy to be a philanthropist. 
 
 How much of this is temper, and how much public spirit, it
 
 Lord Brougham. 57 
 
 is not for anyone to attempt to say. That a natural pleasure 
 in wrath is part of his character, no one who has studied the 
 career of Brougham can doubt. But no fair person can doubt, 
 either, that he has shown on many great occasions and, what 
 is more, on many petty occasions a rare zeal for the public 
 welfare. He may not be capable of the settled calm by which 
 the world is best administered. There is a want of consistency 
 in his goodness, of concentration in his action. The gusts of 
 passion pass over him, and he is gone for a time you can scarcely 
 say where. But, though he is the creature of impulse, his im- 
 pulses are often generous and noble ones. No one would do 
 what he has done, no one could have the intense motive power 
 to do what he has done, without a large share of diffused un- 
 selfishness. The irritation of the most acute excitability would 
 not suffice. It is almost an axiom in estimates of human 
 nature, that in its larger operations all that nature must 
 concur. Doubtless there is a thread of calculation in the 
 midst of his impulses ; no man rises to be lord-chancellor with- 
 out, at least in lulls and intervals of impulse, a most dis- 
 criminating and careful judgment of men and things and 
 chances. But after every set-off and abatement, and with- 
 out any softening of unamiable indications, there will yet 
 remain and a long series of years will continue to admire it 
 an eager principle of disinterested action. 
 
 Lord Brougham's intellectual powers were as fitted for the 
 functions of a miscellaneous agitator as his moral character. 
 The first of these, perhaps, is a singular faculty of conspicuous 
 labour. In general, the work of agitation proceeds in this way : 
 a conspicuous, fascinating popular orator is ever on the surface, 
 ever ready with appropriate argument, making motions, attract- 
 ing public attention ; beneath and out of sight are innumerable 
 workers and students, unfit for the public eye, getting up the 
 facts, elaborating conclusions, supplying the conspicuous orator 
 with the data on which he lives. There is a perpetual contro- 
 versy, when the narrative of the agitation comes to be written,
 
 58 Lord Brougham. 
 
 whether the merit of what is achieved belongs to the skilful ad- 
 vocate who makes a subtle use of what is provided for him, or 
 the laborious inferiors and juniors who compose the brief and 
 set in order the evidence. For all that comes before the public, 
 Lord Brougham has a wonderful power : he can make motions, 
 addresses, orations, when you wish and on what you wish. He 
 is like a machine for moving amendments. He can keep at 
 work any number of persons under him. Every agitation has a 
 tendency to have an office ; some league, some society, some 
 body of labourers must work regularly at its details. Mr. 
 Brougham was able to rush hither and thither through a hun- 
 dred such kinds of men, and gather up the whole stock of the 
 most recent information, the extreme decimals of the statistics 
 and diffuse them immediately with eager comment to a listen- 
 ing world. This may not be, indeed is not, the strictest and 
 most straining kind of labour ; the anxious, wearing, verifying, 
 self-imposed scrutiny of scattered and complicated details is a 
 far more exhausting task ; it is this which makes the eye dim 
 and the face pale and the mind heavy. The excitement of a 
 multifarious agitation will carry the energies through much ; 
 the last touches, and it is these which exhaust, need not be 
 put on any one subject. Yet, after all deductions, such a career 
 requires a quantity far surpassing all that most men have of 
 life and verve and mind. 
 
 Another advantage of Lord Brougham is his extreme readi- 
 ness ; what he can do, he can do at a moment's notice. He has 
 always had this power. Lord Holland, in his Memoirs referring 
 to transactions which took place many years ago, gives an illus- 
 tration of it. ' The management of our press,' he is speaking 
 of the question of the general election of 1807, 'fell into the 
 hands of Mr. Brougham. With that active and able individual 
 I had become acquainted through Mr. Allen in 1805. At the 
 formation of Lord Grenville's ministry, he had written, at my 
 suggestion, a pamphlet called the " State of the Nation." He 
 subsequently accompanied Lord Kosslyn to Lisbon. His early
 
 Lord Broiigham. 59 
 
 connection with the Abolitionists had familiarised him with the 
 means of circulating political papers, and given him some weight 
 with those best qualified to co-operate in such an undertaking. 
 His extensive knowledge, his extraordinary readiness, his assi- 
 duity and habits of composition, enabled him to correct some 
 articles, and to furnish a prodigious number himself. With 
 partial and scanty assistance from Mr. Allen, myself, and one 
 or two more, he in the course of a few days filled every book- 
 seller's shop with pamphlets most London newspapers, and all 
 country ones without exception, with paragraphs and supplied 
 a large portion of the boroughs throughout the kingdom with 
 handbills adapted to the local interests of the candidates, and all 
 tending to enforce the conduct, elucidate the measures, or ex- 
 pose the adversaries of the Whigs.' 
 
 Another power which was early remarked of Brougham, and 
 which is as necessary as any to an important leader in great 
 movements, is a skilful manipulation of men. Sir James 
 Mackintosh noted in his Journal, on January 30, 1818 : * The 
 address and insinuation of Brougham are so great, that nothing 
 but the bad temper which he cannot always hide could hinder 
 him from mastering everybody as he does Komilly. He leads 
 others to his opinion ; he generally appears at first to concur 
 with theirs, and never more than half opposes it at once. This 
 management is helped by an air of easy frankness that would 
 lay suspicion itself asleep. He will place himself at the head of 
 an opposition among whom he is unpopular ; he will conquer the 
 House of Commons, who hate, but now begin to fear him.' An 
 observer of faces would fancy he noted in Lord Brougham this 
 pliant astuteness marred by ill-temper. It has marked his career. 
 
 Another essential quality in multifarious agitation is an 
 extreme versatility. No one can deny Lord Brougham this. 
 An apparently close observer has described him : * Take the 
 routine of a day, for instance. In his early life he has been 
 known to attend, in his place in court, on circuit, at an early 
 hour in the morning. After having successfully pleaded the
 
 60 Lord Brougham. 
 
 cause of his client, he drives off to the hustings, and delivers, 
 at different places, eloquent and spirited speeches to the elec- 
 tors. He then sits down in the retirement of his closet to pen 
 an address to the Glasgow students, perhaps, or an elaborate 
 article in the " Edinburgh Review." The active labours of the 
 day are closed with preparation for the court business of the 
 following morning ; and then, in place of retiring to rest, as 
 ordinary men would after such exertions, he spends the night 
 in abstruse study, or in social intercourse with some friend 
 from whom he has been long separated. Yet he would be 
 seen, as early as eight on the following morning, actively 
 engaged in the court, in defence of some unfortunate object of 
 government persecution, astonishing the auditory, and his 
 fellow-lawyers no less, with the freshness and power of his elo- 
 quence. A fair contrast with this history of a day, in early 
 life, would be that of one at a more advanced period ; say, in 
 the year 1832. A watchful observer might see the new Lord 
 Chancellor seated in the court over which he presided, from an 
 early hour in the morning until the afternoon, listening to the 
 arguments of counsel, and mastering the points of cases with a 
 grasp of mind that enabled him to give those speedy and un- 
 embarrassed judgments that have so injured him with the 
 profession. If he followed his course, he would see him, soon 
 after the opening of the House of Lords, addressing their lord- 
 ships on some intricate question of law, with an acuteness that 
 drew down approbation even from his opponents ; or, on some 
 all-engrossing political topic, casting firebrands into the camp 
 of the enemy, and awakening them from the complacent repose 
 of conviction to the hot contests with more active and inquiring 
 intellects. Then, in an hour or so, he might follow him to the 
 Mechanics' Institution, and hear an able and stimulating dis- 
 course on education, admirably adapted to the peculiar capacity 
 of his auditors ; and towards ten, perhaps, at a Literary and 
 Scientific Institution in Marylebone, the same Proteus-like 
 intellect might be found expounding the intricacies of physical
 
 Lord Brougham. 6 1 
 
 science with a never-tiring and elastic power. Yet, during all 
 those multitudinous exertions, time would be found for the 
 composition of a discourse on Natural Theology, that bears no 
 marks of haste or excitement of mind, but presents as calm a 
 face as though it had been the laborious production of a con- 
 templative philosopher.' We may differ in our estimate of the 
 quality of these various efforts ; but no one can deny to him 
 who was capable of them a great share in what Adam Smith 
 mentioned as one of the most important facilities to the in- 
 tellectual labourer a quickness in * changing his hand.' 
 
 Nor would any of these powers be sufficient, without that 
 which is, in some sense, the principle of them all an enter- 
 prising intellect. In the present day this is among the rarest of 
 gifts. The speciality of pursuits is attended with a timidity of 
 mind. Each subject is given up to men who cultivate it, and 
 it only ; who are familiar with its niceties and absorbed in its 
 details- There is no one who dares to look at the whole. ' I 
 have taken all knowledge to be my province,' said Lord Bacon. 
 The notion, and still more the expression, of it seems ridiculous 
 now. The survey of each plot in the world of knowledge is 
 becoming more complete. We shall have a plan of each soon, 
 on a seven-inch scale ; but we are losing the picturesque pic- 
 tures of the outside and surface of knowledge in the survey of 
 its whole. We have the petty survey, as we say, but no chart, 
 no globe of the entire world ; no bold sketch of its obvious 
 phenomena, as they strike the wayfarer and impress themselves 
 on the imagination. The man of the speciality cannot describe 
 the large outlines ; he is too close upon the minutiae ; he does 
 not know the relations of other knowledge, and no one else 
 dares to infringe on his province on the * study of his life ' 
 for fear of committing errors in detail which he alone knows, 
 and which he may expose. Lord Brougham has nothing of 
 this cowardice. He is ready to give, in their boldest and most 
 general form, the rough outlines of knowledge as they strike 
 the man of the world, occupied in its affairs and familiar with
 
 62 Lord Brougham. 
 
 its wishes. He is not cooped up in a single topic, and he has 
 no dread of those who are. He may fall into error, but he 
 exhibits a subject as it is seen by those who know other 
 subjects, by a man who knows the world ; he at least attempts 
 an embracing conception of his topic, he makes you feel its 
 connection with reality and affairs. He has exhibited this 
 virtue at all stages of his career, but it was most valuable in 
 his earlier time. There is no requisite so important as in- 
 tellectual courage in one who seeks to improve all things in 
 all ways. 
 
 His oratory also suits the character of the hundred-subject 
 agitator well. It is rough-and-ready. It abounds in sarcasm, 
 in vituperation, in aggression. It does not shrink from detail. 
 It would batter any thing at any moment. We may think 
 as we will on its merits as a work of art, but no one can deny 
 its exact adaptation to a versatile and rushing agitator to a 
 Tribune of detail. 
 
 The deficiencies of Brougham's character in some cases 
 they seem but the unfavourable aspects of its excellences 
 were also fitted for his earlier career. The first of these, to 
 say it in a sentence, is the want of a thinking intellect. A 
 miscellaneous agitator must be ready to catch at anything, to 
 attack everything, to blame anyone. This is not the life for a 
 mind of anxious deliberation. The patient philosopher, who 
 is cautious in his positions, dubious of his data, slow in his con- 
 clusions, must fail at once. He would be investigating while 
 he should attack, inquiring while he should speak. He could 
 not act upon a chance ; the moment of action would be gone. 
 A sanguine and speedy intellect, ready to acquire, by its very 
 idea all but excludes the examining, scrupulous, hesitating in- 
 tellect which reflects. 
 
 Nor would a man of very sensitive judgment endure such a 
 career. An agitator must err by excess ; a delicate nature errs 
 by defects. There is a certain coarseness in the abusive breed. 
 A Cleon should not feel failure. No man has ever praised very
 
 Lord Brougham. 63 
 
 highly Lord Brougham's judgment ; but to have exceedingly 
 improved it would perhaps have impaired his earlier utility. 
 You might as fitly employ some delicate lady as a rough-rider, 
 as a man of a poisoning, refining judgment in the task of a 
 grievance- stater. 
 
 Harsh nerves, too, are no disadvantage. Perhaps they are 
 essential. Very nice nerves would shrink from a scattered and 
 jangled life. Three days out of six the sensitive frame would 
 be jarred, the agitator would be useless. It is possible, indeed, 
 to imagine that in a single noble cause a cause that would 
 light up the imagination, that would move the inner soul, a 
 temperament the most delicate, a frame that is most poetic, 
 might well be absorbingly interested. A little of such qualities 
 may be essential. The apostle of a creed must have the nature 
 to comprehend that creed ; his fancy must take it in, his 
 feelings realise it, his nature absorb it. To move the finer 
 nature, you need the deeper nature. Perhaps even in a 
 meaner cause, in a cause which should take a hold on the 
 moving mob, sway the masses, rule the popular fancy, rough as 
 the task of the mob-orator is, you require the delicate imagi- 
 nation. One finds some "trace of it still more of what is its 
 natural accompaniment, a sweet nature buried in the huge 
 frame and coarse exterior of O'ConnelL No unpoetic heart 
 could touch the Irish people. Lord Brougham is prose itself. 
 He was described, many years ago, as excelling all men in a 
 knowledge of the course of exchange. ' He is,' continued the 
 satirist, ' apprised of the exact state of our exports and imports, 
 and scarce a ship clears out its cargo at Liverpool or Hull but 
 he has the notice of the bill of lading.' To explain the griev- 
 ances of men of business needs no poetic nature. It scarcely 
 needs the highest powers of invective. There is something 
 nearly ridiculous in being the, ' Mirabeau of sums.' 
 
 There is a last quality which is difficult to describe in the 
 language of books, but which Lord Brougham excels in, and 
 which has perhaps been of more value to him than all his
 
 64 Lord Brougham. 
 
 other qualities put together. In the speech of ordinary men 
 it is called * devil ; ' persons instructed in the German language 
 call it ' the demonic element.' What it is one can hardly 
 express in a single sentence. It is most easily explained by 
 physiognomy. There is a glare in some men's eyes which seems 
 to say, * Beware, I am dangerous ; noli me tangere.' Lord 
 Brougham's face has this. A mischievous excitability is the 
 most obvious expression of it. If he were a horse, nobody 
 would buy him ; with that eye, no one could answer for his 
 temper. Such men are often not really resolute, but they are 
 not pleasant to be near in a difficulty. They have an aggressive 
 eagerness which is formidable. They would kick against the 
 pricks sooner than not kick at all. A little of the demon is 
 excellent for an agitator.] 
 
 His peculiar adaptation to his peculiar career raised Mr. 
 Brougham, in a few years, to a position such as few men have 
 ever obtained in England such as no other man perhaps has 
 attained by popular agitation. When he became member for 
 Yorkshire, in 1830, he was a power in the country. The cause 
 which he was advocating had grown of itself. The power of the 
 middle-classes, especially of the commercial classes, had increased . 
 Lord Eldon was retiring. Lord Sidmouth had retired. What 
 we now call ' liberality ' was coming into fashion. Men no longer 
 regarded the half-feudal constitution as a * form of thought.' 
 Argument was at least thought fair. And this seems likely and 
 natural. No one can wonder that the influence of men of 
 business grew with the development of business, and they 
 adopted the plain, straightforward, cautious creed, which we now 
 know to be congenial to them. It is much more difficult to ex- 
 plain how reform became a passion. The state of the public 
 mind during the crisis of the Keform Bill is one which those 
 who cannot remember it cannot understand. The popular 
 enthusiasm, the intense excitement, the rush of converts, the 
 union of rectors and squires with those against whom they had 
 respectively so long preached and sworn, the acclamation for
 
 L ord Brougham . 6 5 
 
 the ' whole bill and nothing but the bill,' are become utterly 
 strange. As the first French Assembly in a single night 
 abolished, with public outcry, the essential abuses of the old 
 regime, so our fathers at once, and with enthusiasm, abolished 
 the close boroughs and the old representation, the lingering 
 abuses of half-feudal England. The present Frenchmen are 
 said not to comprehend August 4 : we can hardly understand 
 the year '32. An apathy has fallen upon us. But we can. 
 nevertheless, and without theorising, comprehend what an 
 advantage such an enthusiasm was to the Liberals of that 
 time. Most Whig ministries have been like Low-Church bishops. 
 There is a feeling that the advocates of liberty ought 
 scarcely to coerce ; they have ruled, but they seem to deny the 
 succession by which they ruled; they have been distrusted by 
 . a vague and half-conservative sentiment. In the tumult of 
 1832 all such feelings were carried away. Toryism was abolished 
 with delight. 
 
 Mr. Brougham was among the first to share the advantage. 
 There is a legend that in the first Whig ministry Lord Broug- 
 ham was offered the post of Attorney-general, and that he only 
 replied by disdainfully tearing up the letter containing the offer. 
 Whether the anecdote be literally true or not, we cannot say. 
 The first of the modern Whig ministries is in the post-histori- 
 cal period. We have not yet enough of contemporary evidence 
 to be sure of its details : years must pass before the memoir- 
 writers can accumulate. But in spirit the tale is doubtless 
 accurate. Lord Grey did not wish to make Mr. Brougham 
 Lord-Chancellor, and Mr. Brougham refused any inferior place 
 as beneath his merits and his influence. The first Whig 
 ministry were, indeed, in a position of gome difficulty. The 
 notion that a successful Opposition, as such, should take the 
 reins of administration, has been much derided. ' Sir,' said a 
 sceptic on this part of constitutional government, ' I would as 
 soon choose for a new coachman the man who shied stones best at 
 my old one ! ' And, without going the length of such critics, it 
 
 F
 
 66 Lord Bro ugJi a in . 
 
 must be allowed that the theory may produce odd results, when 
 the persons summoned by their victory to assume office have 
 been for many years in opposition. The party cannot have 
 acquired official habits : the traditions of business cannot be 
 known to them ; their long course of opposition will have 
 forced into leadership men hardly fitted for placid government. 
 There is said to have been much of this feeling when Lord 
 Grey's ministry were installed ; it seemed as if that * old 
 favourite of the public,' Mr. Buckstone, were called to license 
 plays. Grave Englishmen doubted the gravity of the adminis- 
 tration. To make Lord Brougham Chancellor was, therefore, 
 particularly inconvenient. He was too mobile ; you could not 
 fancy him droning. He had attacked Lord Eldon during many 
 years of course; but did he know law? He was a most 
 active person ; would he sit still upon the woolsack ? Of his 
 inattention to his profession men circulated idle tales. * Pity 
 he hadn't known a little law, and then he would have known a 
 little of everything,' was the remark of one who certainly only 
 knows one thing. A more circumstantial person recounted that, 
 when Brougham had been a pupil of Sir Nicholas Tindal, in the 
 Temple, an uncle of his, having high hopes of his ability, asked 
 the latter : ' I hope my nephew is giving himself up, soul and 
 body, to his profession ? ' ' I do not know anything,' replied 
 the distinct special-pleader, ' as to his soul, but his body is very 
 seldom in my chambers.' Putting aside with contempt this 
 surface of tales, it could not be denied that Mr. Brougham's 
 practice at the bar large and lucrative as it was immense as 
 was the energy required to maintain it at the same time \\ith 
 his other labours had yet not shown him to possess the finest 
 discretion, the most delicate tact of the advocate. Mr. Scarlett 
 stole verdicts away from him. ' He strikes hard, sir,' said an 
 attorney ; * but he strikes wrong.' His appointment as Chan- 
 cellor scarcely strengthened the ministry of the time. Mr. 
 Brougham was a hero ; Lord Brougham was ' a necessity.' It 
 was like Mr. Disraeli being Chancellor of the Exchequer.
 
 Lord Brougham. 67 
 
 After the lapse of years, and with the actual facts before us, 
 it is not difficult to see how far these anticipations have been 
 falsified, and how far they have been justified by the result. All 
 the notions as to Lord Brougham's ignorance of law may at once 
 be discarded. A man of his general culture and vigorous facul- 
 ties, with a great memory and much experience in forensic busi- 
 ness, is no more likely to be ignorant of the essential bookwork 
 of law than a tailor to be ignorant of scissors and seams. A man 
 in business must be brought in contact with it ; a man of mind 
 cannot help grasping it. No one now questions that Lord 
 Brougham was and is a lawyer of adequate attainments. But, 
 at the same time, the judgments which supply the conclusive 
 proof of this the complete refutation of earlier cavillers also 
 would lead us to deny him the praise of an absolutely judicial 
 intellect. Great judges maybe divided into two classes judges 
 for the parties, and judges for the lawyers. The first class of 
 these are men who always decide the particular case before them 
 rightly, who have a nice insight into all that concerns it, are 
 acute discerners of fact, accurate weighers of testimony, just dis- 
 criminators of argument. Lord Lyndhurst is perhaps as great 
 a judge in this kind as it is easy to fancy. If a wise man had a 
 good cause, he would prefer its being tried before Lyndhurst to 
 its being tried before anyone else. For the ' parties,' if they 
 were to be considered in litigation, no more would be needed. 
 By law-students, however, and for the profession, something 
 more is desired. They like to find, in a judicial decision, not 
 only a correct adjustment of the particular dispute in court, but 
 also an ample exposition of principles applicable to other dis- 
 putes. The judge who is peculiarly exact in detecting the pre- 
 cise peculiarities of the case before him, will be very apt to decide 
 only what is essential to, absolutely needed by, that case. His 
 delicate discrimination will see that nothing else is necessary ; 
 he will not bestow conclusions on after-generations ; he will let 
 posterity decide its own controversies. A judge of different kind 
 has a professional interest in what comes before him : it is
 
 68 Lord Brougham. 
 
 in his eyes not a pitiful dispute whether A or B is entitled to 
 a miserable field, but a glorious opportunity of deciding some 
 legal controversy on which he has brooded for years, and on 
 which he has a ready-made conclusion. Accordingly, his judg- 
 ments are in the nature of essays. They are, in one sense, 
 applicable to the matter in hand they decide it correctly ; but 
 they go so much into the antecedents of the controversy 
 give so much of principle that the particular facts seem a 
 little lost : the general doctrine fills the attention. No one 
 can read a judgment of the late Lord Cottenham without feel- 
 ing that it fixed the law on the matter in hand upon a defined 
 basis for future years. Very likely he finds an authority for the 
 case which has occurred in his practice ; he does not stay to 
 inquire whether the litigants appreciated the learning ; perhaps 
 they did not possibly they would have preferred that a more 
 exclusive prominence should be given to themselves. Now Lord 
 Brougham has neither of these qualities ; his intellect wants the 
 piercing precision which distinguishes the judge the unerring 
 judge of the case then present ; and though competently 
 learned, he has never been absorbed in his profession as a judge 
 of ' principle ' almost always must be. A man cannot provide 
 a dogma suiting all the cases of the past, and deciding all the 
 cases for the future, without years of patient reflection. His 
 mind must be stored with doctrines. No one can fancy this of 
 Lord Brougham. He is not to be thought of as giving still 
 attention to technical tenets, years of brooding consideration to 
 an abstract jurisprudence. Accordingly, though an adequate, and 
 in his time, for his speed cleared off arrears a most useful 
 judge, he cannot be said to attain the first rank in the judicial 
 scale ; and such we believe is the estimation of the world. 
 
 Of the political duties of the Chancellor, and Lord Brougham's 
 performance of them, it is not easy to speak. Many of them are 
 necessarily secret, and the history of those times cannot yet be 
 written. That he showed wonderful energy, zeal, and power, no 
 one can doubt ; nor that the essential defects of his character
 
 Lord Brougham. 69 
 
 soon showed him but little qualified for an administrator. In 
 the year 1802, Francis Horner anticipated, that if 'an active 
 career were opened to Brougham, he would show a want of 
 prudence and moderation ; ' and it is curious to read, as a 
 commentary on it, what the Dake of Wellington wrote to 
 Sir E. Peel, on the 15th November, 1835. ' His Majesty men- 
 tioned that Lord Brougham 1 had threatened he would not put 
 the great seal to a commission to prorogue the parliament ; ' 
 and afterwards correcting himself: 'It appears that Lord 
 Brougham did not make the threat that he would not prorogue 
 the parliament, but that Lord Melbourne said he was in such a 
 state of excitement that he might take that course.' We must 
 wait for- Lord Brougham's memoirs before we know the exact 
 history of that time ; but all the glimpses we get of it show the 
 same picture of wildness and eccentricity. 
 
 The times the most nearly revolutionary times which Eng- 
 land has long seen were indeed likely to try an excitable tem- 
 perament to the utmost ; but at the same time they afforded 
 scope to a brilliant manager of men, which only such critical 
 momentary conjectures can do. Mr. Eoebuck gives a curious 
 instance of this : 
 
 The necessity of a dissolution had long been foreseen, and decided 
 on by the ministers, but the King had riot yet been persuaded to con- 
 sent to so bold a measure ; and now the two chiefs of the administra- 
 tion were about to intrude themselves into the royal closet, not only 
 to advise and ask for a dissolution, but to request the king on the 
 sudden on this very day, and within a few hours to go down and 
 put an end to his parliament in the midst of the session, and with all 
 the ordinary business of the session yet unfinished. The bolder mind 
 of the Chancellor took the lead, and Lord Grey anxiously solicited him 
 to manage the King on the occasion. So soon as they were admitted 
 the Chancellor, with some care and circumlocution, propounded to 
 the King the object of the interview they had sought. The startled 
 monarch no sooner understood the drift of the Chancellor's somewhat 
 
 1 The editors of Sir K. Peel's Memoirs have left this name in Llank; but if 
 they had wished it not to be known, they should have suppressed the passage. 
 Everybody knows who held the great seal at that time.
 
 Lord Brougham. 
 
 periphrastic statement, then he exclaimed in wonder and ama/.ement 
 against the very idea of such a proceeding. ' How is it possible, my 
 lords, that I can after this fashion repay the kindness of parliament 
 to the queen and myself ? They have just granted me a most liberal 
 civil-list, and to the queen a splendid annuity in case she survives me.' 
 The Chancellor confessed that they had, as regarded his Majesty, 
 been a liberal and wise parliament, but said that nevertheless their 
 further existence was incompatible with the peace and safety of the 
 kingdom. Both he and Lord Grey then strenuously insisted upon . 
 the absolute necessity of their request, and gave his Majesty to under- 
 stand that this advice was by his ministers unanimously resolved on ; 
 and that they felt themselves unable to conduct the affairs of the 
 country in the present condition of the parliament. This last state- 
 ment made the King feel that a general resignation would be the con- 
 sequence of a further refusal. Of this, in spite of his secret wishes, 
 he was at the moment really afraid, and therefore he, bj r employing 
 petty excuses, and suggesting small and temporary difficulties, soon 
 began to show that he was about to yield. ' But, my lords, nothing 
 is prepared ; the great officers of state are not summoned.' ' Pardon 
 me, sir,' said the Chancellor, bowing with profound apparent humility, 
 ' we have taken the great liberty of giving them to understand that 
 your Majesty commanded their attendance at the proper hour.' ' But, 
 my lords, the crown and the robes, and other things needed, are not 
 prepared.' ' Again I most humbly entreat your Majesty's pardon for 
 iny boldness,' said the Chancellor ; ' they are all prepared and ready 
 the proper officers being desired to attend in proper form and time.' 
 ' But, my lords,' said the King, reiterating the form in which he put 
 his objection, 'you know the thing is wholly impossible; the guards, 
 the troops, have had no orders, and cannot be ready in time.' This 
 objection was in reality the most formidable one. The orders to the 
 troops on such occasions emanate always directly from the King, and 
 no person but the King can in truth command them for such service ; 
 and as the Prime Minister and daring Chancellor well knew the nature 
 of royal susceptibility on such matters, they were in no slight degree 
 doubtful and anxious as to the result. The Chancellor therefore, with 
 some real hesitation, began again as before, ' Pardon me, sir, we know 
 how bold the step is that, presuming on your great goodness, and 
 your anxious desire for the safety of your kingdom, and happiness of 
 your people, we have presumed to take. I have given orders, and 
 the troops are ready.' The King started in serious anger, flamed red 
 in the face, and burst forth with, ' What, my lords, have you dared
 
 Lord Brougham . 7 1 
 
 to act thus? Such a thing was never heard of. You, my Lord 
 Chancellor, ought to know that such an act is treason, high treason, 
 my lord.' ' Yes, sir, 1 said the Chancellor, ' I do know it ; and nothing 
 but my thorough knowledge of your Majesty's goodness, of your 
 paternal anxiety for the good of your people, and my own solemn 
 belief that the safety of the state depends upon this day's proceedings, 
 could have emboldened me to the performance of so unusual, and, in 
 ordinary circumstances, so improper a proceeding. In all humility I 
 submit myself to your Majesty, and am ready in my own person to 
 bear all the blame, and receive all the punishment which your 
 Majesty may deem needful ; but I again entreat your Majesty to 
 listen to us and to follow our counsel, and as you value the security 
 of your crown and the peace of your realms, to yield to our most 
 earnest solicitations.' After some further expostulations by both his 
 ministers, the King cooled down and consented. Having consented, 
 he became anxious that everything should be done in the proper 
 manner, and gave minute directions respecting the ceremonial. The 
 speech to be spoken by him at the prorogation was ready prepared 
 and in the Chancellor's pocket. To this he agreed, desired that every- 
 body might punctually attend, and dismissed his ministers for the 
 moment with something between a menace and a joke upon the 
 audacity of their proceeding. 
 
 With the fall of Lord Melbourne's first administration ter- 
 minated Lord Brougham's administrative career. As everyone 
 knows, on the defeat of Sir Eobert Peel and the subsequent 
 return of the Whigs to power, he was not invited to resume 
 office. Since that time for now more than twenty years 
 he has had to lead the life, in general the most trying to 
 political reputation, perhaps to real character, and more than 
 any other alien to the character of his mind and the tendencies 
 of his nature. We have had many recent instances how diffi- 
 cult it is to give what is variously termed an ' independent 
 support,' and a * friendly opposition,' to a Government of which 
 you approve the general tendencies, but are inclined to criticise 
 the particular measures. The Peelites and Lord John Kussell 
 have for several years been in general in this position, and 
 generally with a want of popular sympathy. As they agree 
 with the Grovernment in principle, they cannot take, by way of
 
 72 Lord Brougham . 
 
 objection, what the country considers broad points ; their sug- 
 gestions of detail seem petty and trivial to others the public 
 hardly think of such things ; but men who have long considered 
 a subject, who have definite ideas and organised plans, can 
 scarcely help feeling an eager interest in the smallest minutiae 
 of the mode of dealing with it. Sometimes they discern a real 
 importance undiscerned by those less attentive ; more com- 
 monly, perhaps, they fancy there is something peculiarly feli- 
 citous in contrivances settled by themselves and congenial to 
 their habits or their notions. Lord Brougham was in a posi- 
 tion to feel this peculiarly. The various ideas which he had 
 struggled for in earlier life were successful one by one ; the 
 hundred reforms he suggested were carried ; the hundred 
 abuses he had denounced were abolished. The world which 
 was, was changed to the world which is ; but it was not changed 
 by him. That he should have been favourably disposed to the 
 existing liberal administrations was not likely ; the separation 
 was too recent, perhaps too abrupt. An eager and excitable 
 disposition is little likely to excel in the measured sentences, 
 the chosen moments, the polished calm of the frondeur. Ac- 
 cordingly, the life of Brougham for many years has not heen 
 favourable to his fame. On particular occasions, as on the 
 abolition of Negro apprenticeship, he might attain something 
 of his former power. But, in general, his position has been 
 that of the agitator whose measure is being substantially 
 carried, yet with differences of detail aggravating to his temper 
 and annoying to his imagination. Mr. Cobden described Sir 
 Robert Peel's mode of repealing the corn-laws with the micro- 
 scopic sliding-scale for three years, as seventeen-and-sixpence 
 on the demand of the Anti-corn-law League, and good security 
 for the other half-crown. Yet excitable men at that very 
 moment clamoured for the last half-crown; they could not bear 
 the modification, the minute difference from that on which 
 they had set their hearts. We must remember this in relation 
 to what is now most familiar to us in the life of Lord Brougham.
 
 Lord Brougham. 73 
 
 To a man so active, to be put out of action is a pain which 
 few can appreciate ; that other men should enter in! o your 
 labours is not pleasant ; that they should be Canningites does 
 not make it any better. We have witnessed many escapades 
 of Lord Brougham ; we perhaps hardly know his temptations 
 and his vexations. 
 
 Such is the bare outline of the career of Lord Brougham. 
 A life of early, broken, various agitation ; a short interval of 
 ordinary administration occurring, however, at a time singu- 
 larly extraordinary ; a long old age secluded from the actual 
 conduct of affairs, and driven to distinguish itself by miscel- 
 laneous objection and diversified sarcasm. Singular stories of 
 eccentricity and excitement, even of something more than 
 either of these, darken these latter years. On these we must 
 not dwell. There are many aspects of Brougham's varied cha- 
 racter, a few of which we should notice by themselves. 
 
 The most connected with his political life is his career as a 
 law reformer. We have spoken of his early labours on this 
 subject ; we have said that few men who have devoted them- 
 selves to nothing else have exposed so many abuses, propounded 
 so many remedies ; that one of his early motions is a schedule of 
 half, and much more than half, that has been, or will be, done 
 upon a large portion of the subject. But here praise must end. 
 The completed, elaborated reforms by which Lord Brougham 
 will be known to posterity are few, are nothing in com- 
 parison with his power, his industry, and his opportunities. 
 There is nothing, perhaps, for which he is so ill qualified. 
 The bold vehement man who exposes an abuse has rarely the 
 skilful, painful, dissecting power which expunges it. Lord 
 Brougham once made a speech on conveyancing. ' I should 
 not,' said, on the next day, an eminent professor of that art, 
 1 like him to draw a deed relating to my property.' A law 
 reformer, in order that his work may be perfect, requires the 
 conveyancing abilities. He must be able to bear in miad the 
 whole topic to draw out what is necessary of it on paper
 
 74 Lord Brougham. 
 
 to see what is necessary to discriminate the rights of indi- 
 viduals to distinguish, with even metaphysical nicety, the 
 advantage he would keep from the abuse he would destroy. 
 He must elaborate enacting clauses which will work in the 
 complicated future, repealing clauses which will not interfere 
 with the complicated machinery of the past. His mind must 
 be the mind of a codifier. A rushing man, like Lord Brougham, 
 cannot hope to have this. A still and patient man, in quiet 
 chambers, apt in niceties, anxious by temperament, precise in 
 habit, putting the last extreme of perfection on whatever he 
 may attempt, is the man for the employment. You must not 
 expect this quiet precision from an agitator. There is the 
 same difference as that between the hard-striking pugilist and 
 the delicate amputating operator. 
 
 The same want of repose has repaired his excellence in a 
 pursuit to which, at first sight, it seems much less needful 
 the art of oratory. We are apt to forget that oratory is an 
 imaginative art. From our habits of business, the name of 
 rhetoric has fallen into disrepute : our greatest artists strive 
 anxiously to conceal their perfection in it ; they wish their 
 address in statement to be such, that the effect seems to be 
 produced by that which is stated, and not by the manner in 
 which it is stated. But not the less on that account is there a 
 real exercise of the imagination in conceiving of the events of 
 a long history, in putting them forward in skilful narration, 
 each fact seeming by nature to fall into its place, all the 
 details appearing exactly where they should a group, to 
 borrow a metaphor from another art, collecting itself from 
 straggling and desultory materials. Still more evidently is the 
 imagination requisite in expressing deep emotions, even com- 
 mon emotions, or in describing noble objects. Now, it seems 
 to be a law of the imagination that it only works in a mind 
 of stillness. The noise and crush of life jar it. ' No man,' 
 it has been said, ' can say, I will compose poetry : ' he must
 
 Lord Brougham . 7 5 
 
 wait until from a brooding, half-desultory inaction poetry 
 may arise, like a gentle mist, delicately and of itself. 
 
 I waited for the train at Coventry ; 
 I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge 
 To watch the three tall spires ; and there I shaped 
 The city's legend into this. 
 
 Lord Brougham would not have waited so. He would have 
 rushed up into the town ; he would have suggested an improve- 
 ment, talked the science of the bridge, explained its history to 
 the natives. The quiet race would think twenty people had 
 been there. And of course, in some ways this is admirable ; 
 such life and force are rare; even the 'grooms and porters' 
 would not be insensible to such an aggressive intelligence 
 so much knocking mind, But, in the meantime, no lightly- 
 touched picture of old story would have arisen an his imagina- 
 tion. The city's legend would have been thrust out : the * fairy 
 frostwork ' of the fancy would have been struck away : there 
 would have been talk on the schooling of the porter's eldest boy. 
 The rarity of great political oratory arises in a great measure from 
 this circumstance. Only those engaged in the jar of life have the 
 material for it ; only those withdrawn into a brooding imagina- 
 tion have the faculty for it. M. de Lamartine has drawn a strik- 
 ing picture of one who had the opportunity of action and the 
 dangerous faculty of leisure : * Vergniaud s'enivrait dans cette 
 vie d'artiste, de musique, de declamation et de plaisirs ; il se 
 pressait de jouir de sa jeunesse, comme s'il eut le pressenti- 
 rnent qu'elle serait situt cueillie. Ses habitudes etaient medita- 
 tives et paresseuses. II se levait au milieu du jour ; il ecrivait 
 peu et sur des feuilles eparses : il appuyait le papier sur ses 
 genoux comme un homme presse qui se dispute le tempts ; il 
 composait ses discours lentement dans ses reveries et les re- 
 tenait a 1'aide de notes dans sa memoire ; il polissait son 
 eloquence a loisir, comme le soldat polit son arme au repos.' 
 This is not the picture of one who is to attain eminence in 
 stirring and combative time. Harsher men prevailed ; a
 
 76 Lord Brougham . 
 
 mournful fate swallowed up Vergniaud's delicate fancies. He 
 died, because he was idle ; but he was great, because he was 
 idle. Idleness with such minds is only the name for the pas- 
 sive enjoyment of a justly-moving imagination. 
 
 We should only weary our readers with a repetition of what 
 has been said a hundred times already, if we tried to explain 
 that Lord Brougham has nothing of this. His merit is, that 
 he was never idle in his life. He must not complain if he has 
 the disadvantage of it also. That he was a most effective 
 speaker in his great time, is of course undoubted. His power 
 of sarcasm, his amazing readiness, his energetic vigour of 
 language, made him, if not a very persuasive, at least a most 
 formidable orator. His endless animation must tell even to 
 excess upon his audience. But he has not acted wisely for his 
 fame in publishing his speeches. They have the most un- 
 pardonable of all faults the fault of dulness. It is scarcely 
 possible to read them. Doubtless, at the time their influence 
 was considerable ; they may even have been pleasant, as you 
 like to watch the play of a vicious horse ; but now, removed 
 from the hearing of the speaker's voice out of the way of the 
 motions of his face and the glare of his eye even their evil- 
 speaking loses its attractiveness. The sarcasm seems blunt 
 the denunciation heavy. They are crowded with a detail 
 which may have been, though acute observers say it was not, 
 attractive at the time, but which no one can endure now. Not 
 only do you feel that you are bored, but you are not sure that 
 you are instructed. An agitator's detail is scarcely to be 
 trusted. His facts may be right, but you must turn historian 
 in order to test them ; you must lead a life of state-papers and 
 old letters to know if they are true. It is perhaps possible for 
 the imagination of man to give an interest to any considerable 
 action of human life. A firmly-drawing hand may conduct 
 us through the narration an enhancing touch enliven the 
 details ; but, to achieved this with contested facts in a combative 
 life, is among the rarest operations of a rare power. The imagina-
 
 Lord Brougham . 7 7 
 
 tion has few tasks so difficult. To Lord Brougham, least of all, 
 has it been possible to attract men by the business detail and 
 cumbrous aggressions of the last age. His tone is too harsh. 
 He has shattered his contemporaries, but he will not charm 
 posterity. 
 
 Lord Brougham has wished to be known, not only as an 
 orator, but as a writer on oratory. He has written a ' Discourse ' 
 on Ancient Oratory, recommending, and very deservedly, its 
 study to those who would now excel in the art ; and there is no 
 denying that he has rivalled the great Greek orator, at least 
 in one of his characteristic excellences. There is no more 
 manly book in the world than Brougham's Speeches ; he always 
 ' calls a spade a spade ' ; the rough energy strikes ; we have none 
 of the tawdry metaphor, or half-real finery of the inferior 
 orators, there is not a simile which a man of sense should not 
 own. Nevertheless, we are inclined to question whether his 
 studies on ancient oratory, especially on the great public 
 oration of Demosthenes, have been entirely beneficial to him. 
 These masterly productions were, as everyone knows, the eager 
 expression of an intense mind on questions of the best interest ; 
 they have accordingly the character of vehemence. Speaking 
 on subjects which he thought involved the very existence of 
 his country, he could not be expected to speak very temperately; 
 he did not, and could not admit, that there was fair ground for 
 difference of opinion ; that an equally patriotic person, after 
 proper consideration, could by possibility arrive at an opposite 
 conclusion. The circumstances of the parliamentary orator in 
 this country are quite different. A man cannot discuss the 
 dowry of the Princess Eoyal, the conditions of the Bank Charter, 
 as if they were questions of existence all questions arising now 
 present masses of fact, antecedents in blue-books, tabulated 
 statistics, on which it is impossible that there should not be a 
 necessity for an elaborate inquiry that there should not be 
 discrepancy of judgment after that inquiry. The Demosthenic 
 vehemence is out of place. The calm didactic exposition,
 
 73 Lord Brougham. 
 
 almost approaching to that of the lecturer, is more efficacious 
 than the intense appeal of an eager orator. That ' Counsellor 
 Broom was all in a fume,' is a line in one of the best ludicrous 
 poems of a time rather fertile in such things. On points of 
 detail it is ridiculous to be in a passion ; on matters of business 
 it is unpersuasive to be enthusiastic; even on topics less 
 technical, the Greek oratory is scarcely a model to be imitated 
 precisely. A certain nonchalant ease pervades our modern world 
 we affect^an indifference we scarcely feel ; our talk is light, 
 almost to affectation ; our best writing is the same ; we suggest 
 rather than elaborate, hint rather than declaim. The spirit of 
 the ancient world was very different the tendency of its con- 
 versation probably was to a rhetorical formality, an haranguing 
 energy ; certainly it is the tendency of its written style. * With 
 every allowance,' says Colonel Mure, ' for the peculiar genius of 
 the age in which the masterpieces of Attic prose were produced 
 a consideration which must always have a certain weight in 
 literary judgments still, the impartial modern critic cannot 
 but discern in this pervading rhetorical tone a defect, perhaps 
 
 the only serious defect, in the classical Greek style It 
 
 certainly is not natural for the historian or the popular essayist 
 to address his readers in the same tone in which the defender 
 of a client or the denouncer of a political opponent addresses 
 a public assembly.' So great a change in the general world, in 
 the audience to be spoken to, requires a change in the speaker. 
 The light touch of Lord Palmerston is more effective than the 
 most elaborated sentences of a formal rhetorician. Of old, 
 when conversation and writing were half oratorical, oratory 
 might be very oratorical ; now that conversation is very con- 
 versational, oratory must be a little conversational. In real 
 life, Lord Brougham has too much of the orator's tact not to be 
 half aware of this ; but his teaching forgets it. 
 
 That Lord Brougham should have adopted a theory enjoining 
 vehemence in oratory, is an instance to be cited by those who 
 hold that a man's creed is a justification for his inclinations.
 
 Lord Brougham. 79 
 
 He is by nature over-vehement ; and what is worse, it is not vehe- 
 mence of the best kind ; there is something of a scream about 
 it. People rather laughed at his kneeling to beseech the peers. 
 No one is sure that there is reel feeling in what he reads and 
 hears ; it seems like a machine going. Lord Cockburn has an odd 
 anecdote. An old judge, who loved dawdling, disliked the ' dis- 
 composing qualities ' of Brougham. His revenge consisted in 
 sneering at Brougham's eloquence, by calling it or him the 
 Harangue. * Well, gentlemen, what did the Harangue say next ? 
 Why it said this (misstating it) ; but here, gentlemen, the 
 Harangue was wrong and not intelligible.' We have some 
 feeling for the old judge. If you take a speech of Brougham, 
 and read it apart from his voice, you have half a notion that 
 it is a gong going, eloquence by machinery, an incessant talking 
 thing. 
 
 It is needless to point out how completely an excitable un- 
 genial nature, such as we have so mueh spoken of, incapacitates 
 Lord Brougham for abstract philosophy. His works on that 
 subject are sufficiently numerous, but we are not aware that even 
 his most ardent admirers have considered them as works of really 
 the first class. It would not be difficult to extract from the 
 * Political Philosophy,' which is probably the best of them, 
 singular instances of inconsistency and of confusion. The error 
 was in his writing them; he who runs may read, but it does 
 not seem likely he will think. The brooding disposition, and 
 the still, investigating intellect, are necessary for consecutive 
 reasonings on delicate philosophy. 
 
 The same qualities, however, fit a man for the acquisition of 
 general information. A man who is always rushing into the 
 street will become familiar with the street. One who is for 
 ever changing from subject to subject will not become painfully 
 acquainted with any one, but he will know the outsides of them 
 all, and the road from each to the other. Accordingly, all the 
 descriptions of Lord Brougham', even in his earliest career, 
 speak of his immense information. Mr. Wilberforce, in perhaps
 
 8o Lord Brougham. 
 
 the earliest printed notice of him, recommended Mr. Pitt to 
 employ him in a diplomatic capacity, on account of his famili- 
 arity with languages, and the other kinds of necessary knowledge. 
 He began by writing on Porisms ; only the other day he read a 
 paper on some absurdities imputed to the Integral Calculus, in 
 French, at Paris. It would be in the highest degree tedious to 
 enumerate all the subjects he knows something of. Of course, 
 an extreme correctness cannot be expected. ' The most mis- 
 informed man in Europe,' is a phrase of satire ; yet, even in its 
 satire, it conveys a compliment to Brougham's information. 
 
 An especial interest in physical science may be remarked in 
 Brougham, as in most men of impressible minds in his genera- 
 tion. He came into life when the great discoveries in our know- 
 ledge of the material world were either just made, or were on the 
 eve of being made. The enormous advances, which have been 
 actually made in material civilisation, were half anticipated. 
 There was a vague hope in science. The boundaries of the uni- 
 verse, it was hoped, would move. Active, ardent minds were 
 drawn with extreme hope to the study of new moving power ; 
 a smattering of science was immeasurably less common then 
 than now, but it exercised a stronger dominion, and influenced a 
 higher class of genius. It was new, and men were sanguine. 
 In the present day, younger men are perhaps repelled into the 
 opposite extreme. We live among the marvels of science, but 
 we know how little they change us. The essentials of life are 
 what they were. We go by the train, but we ai-e not improved 
 at our journey's end. We have railways, and canals, and manu- 
 factures excellent things, no doubt, but they do not touch 
 the soul. Somehow, they seem to make life more superficial. 
 With a half-wayward dislike, some in the present generation 
 have turned from physical science and material things. ' We 
 have tried these, and they fail,' is the feeling. ' What is the 
 heart of man the better for galvanic engines and hydraulic 
 presses ? Leave us to the old poetry and the old philosophy ; 
 there is at least a life and a mind.' It is the dav after the
 
 Lord Brougham . 8 1 
 
 feast. We do not care for its delicacies ; we are rather angry 
 at its profusion ; we are cross to hear it praised. Men who 
 came into active life half a century ago were the guests invited 
 to the banquet ; they did not know what was coming, but they 
 heard it was something gorgeous and great; they expected 
 it with hope and longing. The influence of this feeling was 
 curiously seen in the Useful Knowledge Society, the first great 
 product of the educational movement in which Lord Brougham 
 was the most ardent leader. No one can deny that their 
 labours were important, their intentions excellent, the collision 
 of mind which they created most beneficial. Still, looking to 
 their well-known publications, beyond question the knowledge 
 they particularly wished to diffuse is, according to the German 
 phrase, 'factish.' Hazlitt said 'they confounded a knowledge 
 of useful things with useful knowledge.' An idea, half uncon- 
 scious, pervades them, that a knowledge of the detail of ma- 
 terial knowledge, even too of the dates and shell of outside 
 history, is extremely important to the mass of men ; that 
 all will be well when we have a cosmical ploughboy and a mob 
 that knows hydrostatics. We shall never have it ; but even if 
 we could, we should not be much the better. The heart and 
 passions of men are moved by things more within their attain- 
 ment ; the essential nature is stirred by the essential life ; by 
 the real actual existence of love, and hope, and character, and 
 by the real literature which takes in its spirit, and which is 
 in some sort its undefecated essence. Thirty years ago th& 
 preachers of this now familiar doctrine were unknown, nor was 
 their gospel for a moment the one perhaps most in season. It 
 was good that there should be a more diffused knowledge of 
 the material world ; and it was good, therefore, that there 
 should be partisans of matter, believers in particles, zealots for 
 tissue, who were ready to incur any odium and any labour that 
 a few more men might learn a few more things. How a man 
 of incessant activity should pass easily to such a creed is 
 evident. He would see the obvious ignorance. The less 
 
 G
 
 82 Lord Brougham . 
 
 obvious argument, which shows that this ignorance, in great 
 measure inevitable, was of far less importance than would be 
 thought at first sight, would never be found by one who moved 
 so rapidly. 
 
 We have gone through now, in some hasty way, most of the 
 lights in which Lord Brougham has. been regarded by his con- 
 temporaries. There is still another character in which posterity 
 will especially think of him. He is a great memoirist. His 
 * Statesmen of George III.' contains the best sketches of the poli- 
 tical men of his generation, one with another, which the world 
 has, or is likely to have. He is a fine painter of the exterior of 
 human nature. Some portion of its essence requires a deeper 
 character ; another portion, more delicate sensations ; but of the 
 rough appearance of men, as they struck him in the law-court 
 and in parliament of the great debater struggling with his 
 words the stealthy advocate gliding into the confidence of the 
 audience the great judge unravelling all controversies, and de- 
 ciding by a well-weighed word all complicated doubts of such 
 men as these, and of men engaged in such tasks as these, there 
 is no greater painter perhaps than Brougham. His eager aggres- 
 sive disposition brought him into collision with conspicuous men ; 
 his skill in the obvious parts of human nature has made him 
 understand them. A man who has knocked his head against a 
 wall if such an illustration is to be hazarded will learn the 
 nature of the wall. Those who have passed fifty years in man- 
 aging men of the world, will know their external nature, and if 
 they have literary power enough, will describe it. In general, 
 Lord Brougham's excellence as a describer of character is con- 
 fined to men whom he had thus personally and keenly encoun- 
 tered. The sketches of the philosophers of the eighteenth 
 century, of French statesmen, are poor and meagre. He re- 
 quires evidently the rough necessities of action to make him 
 observe. There is, however, a remarkable exception. He pre- 
 serves a singularly vivid recollection of the instructors of his 
 youth ; he nowhere appears so amiable as in describing them.
 
 L ord Brougham . 8 3 
 
 He is over-partial, no doubt ; but an old man may be permitted 
 (o reverence, if he can reverence, his schoolmaster. 
 
 This is all that our limits will permit us to say of Lord 
 Brougham. On so varied a life, at least on a life with such varied 
 pursuits, one might write to any extent. The regular biographer 
 will come in after years. It is enough for a mere essayist to 
 sketch, or strive to sketch, in some rude outline, the nature of 
 the man. 
 
 G2
 
 MR. GLADSTONE.* 
 
 [I860.] 
 
 WE believe that Quarterly essayists have a peculiar mission in 
 relation to the characters of public men. We believe it is their 
 duty to be personal. This idea may seem ridiculous to some of 
 our readers ; but let us consider the circumstances carefully. 
 We allow that personality abounds already, that the names of 
 public men are for ever on our lips, that \ve never take up a 
 newspaper without seeing them. But this incessant personality 
 is wholly fragmentary ; it is composed of chance criticism on 
 special traits, of fugitive remarks on temporary measures, of 
 casual praise and casual blame. We can expect little else from 
 what is written in haste, or is spoken without limitation. 
 Public men must bear this criticism as they can. Those whose 
 names are perpetually in men's mouths must not be pained if 
 singular things are sometimes said of them. Still some 
 deliberate truth should be spoken of our statesmen, and if 
 Quarterly essayists do not speak it, who will ? We fear it will 
 remain unspoken. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone is a problem, and it is very remarkable that 
 he should be u problem. We have had more than ordinary 
 means for judging of him. He has been in public life for 
 seven and twenty years ; he has filled some of the most con- 
 spicuous offices in the State ; he has been a distinguished 
 member of the Tory party ; he is a distinguished member of 
 the Liberal party ; he has brought forward many measures ; he 
 
 1 Speech i>f Ihc Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Finance of the Year 
 and the Treaty of Commerce with France. Delivered in the House of Commons 
 oa Friday, February 10, I860. Corrected by the Author.
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 85 
 
 has passed many years in independent Opposition, which is 
 unquestionably the place most favourable to the display of 
 personal peculiarities in Parliament ; he is the greatest orator 
 in the House of Commons ; he never allows a single important 
 topic to pass by without telling us what he thinks of it ; and 
 yet, with all these data, we are all of us in doubt about him. 
 What he will do, and what he will think, still more, why he 
 will do it, and why he will think it, are qucestiones vexatce at 
 every political conjuncture. At the very last ministerial crisis, 
 when the Government of Lord Derby was on the verge of 
 extinction, when every voice on Lord John's resolution was of 
 critical importance, no one knew till nearly the last hour how 
 Mr. Gladstone would vote, and in the end he voted against 
 his present colleagues. The House of Commons gossips are 
 generally wrong about him. Xor is the uncertainty confined 
 to parliamentary divisions ; it extends to his whole career. 
 Who can calculate his future course ? Who can tell whether 
 he will be the greatest orator of a great administration ; 
 whether he will rule the House of Commons -, whether he will 
 be, as his gifts at first sight mark him out to be, our greatest 
 statesman ? or whether, below the gangway, he will utter 
 unintelligible discourses ; will aid in destroying many ministries 
 and share in none ; will pour forth during many hopeless years 
 a bitter, a splendid, and a vituperative eloquence ? 
 
 We do not profess that we can solve all the difficulties that 
 are suggested even by the superficial consideration of a cha- 
 racter so exceptional. We do not aspire to be prophets. Mr. 
 Gladstone's destiny perplexes us perhaps as much as it per- 
 plexes our readers. But we think that we can explain much 
 of his past career ; that many of his peculiarities are not so un- 
 accountable as they seem ; that a careful study will show us 
 the origin of most of them ; that we may hope to indicate some 
 of the material circumstances and conditions on which his 
 future course depends, though we should not be so bold as to 
 venture to foretell it.
 
 86 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 During the discussion on the Budget, an old Whig who did 
 not approve of it, but who had to vote for it, muttered of its 
 author, ' Ah, Oxford on the surface, but Liverpool below.' And 
 there is truth in the observation, though not in the splenetic 
 sense in which it was intended. Mr. Gladstone does combine, 
 in a very curious way, many of the characteristics which we 
 generally associate with the place of his education and many of 
 those which we usually connect with the place of his birth. No 
 one can question the first part of the observation. No man 
 has through life been more markedly an Oxford man than Mr. 
 Gladstone. His * Church and State,' published after he had 
 been several years in public life, was instinct with the very 
 spirit of the Oxford of that time. His ' Homer,' published the 
 other day, bears nearly equal traces of the school in which he 
 was educated. Even in his ordinary style there is a tinge half 
 theological, half classical, which recalls the studies of his youth. 
 Many Oxford men much object to the opinions of their dis- 
 tinguished representative ; but none of them would deny, that 
 he remarkably embodies the peculiar results of the peculiar 
 teaching of the place. 
 
 And yet he has something which his collegiate training 
 never would have given him, which it is rather remarkable it 
 has not taken away from him. There is much to be said in 
 favour of the University of Oxford. No one can deny to it 
 very great and very peculiar merits. But certainly it is not an 
 exciting place, and its education operates as a narcotic rather 
 than as a stimulant. Most of its students devote their lives to 
 a single profession, and we may observe among them a kind of 
 sacred torpidity. In many rural parsonages there are men of 
 very great cultivation, who are sedulous in their routine duties, 
 who attend minutely to the ecclesiastical state of the souls in 
 their village, but who are perfectly devoid of general intellec- 
 tual interests. They have no anxiety to solve great problems ; 
 to busy themselves with the speculations of their age; to
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 87 
 
 impress their peculiar theology for peculiar it is both in its 
 expression and in its substance on the educated mind of their 
 time. Oxford, it has been said, ' disheartens a man early.' At 
 any rate, since Newmanism lost Father Newman, few indeed of 
 her acknowledged sons attain decided eminence in our deeper 
 controversies. Jowett she would repudiate, and Mansel is but 
 applying the weapons scepticism to the service of credulity. 
 The most characteristic of Oxford men labour quietly, deli- 
 cately, and let us hope usefully, in a confined sphere ; they hope 
 for nothing more, and wish for nothing more. Even in secular 
 literature we may observe an analogous tone. The ' Saturday 
 Review ' is remarkable as an attempt on the part of ' university 
 men ' to speak on the political topics and social difficulties of 
 the time. And what do they teach us ? It is something like 
 this : ' So-and-so has written a tolerable book, and we would 
 call attention to the industry which produces tolerable books. 
 So-and-so has devoted himself to a great subject, and we would 
 observe that the interest now taken in great subjects is very 
 commendable. Such-and-such a lady has delicate feelings, 
 which are desirable in a lady, though we know that they are 
 contrary to the facts of the world. All common persons are 
 doing as well as they can, but it does not come to much after 
 all. All statesmen are doing as ill as they can, and let us be 
 thankful that that does not come to much either.' We may 
 search and search in vain through this repository of the results 
 of * university teaching ' for a single truth which it has estab- 
 lished, for a single high cause which it has advanced, for a 
 single deep thought which is to sink into the minds of its 
 readers. We have, indeed, a nearly perfect embodiment of the 
 corrective scepticism of a sleepy intellect. * A B says he has 
 done something, but he has not done it; CD has made a 
 parade of demonstrating this or that proposition, but he does 
 not prove his case ; there is one mistake in page o, and another 
 in page 113 ; a great history has been written of this or that 
 century, but the best authorities as to that period have not
 
 88 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 been consulted, which, however, is not very remarkable, as 
 there is nothing in them.' We could easily find, if it were 
 needful, many traces of the same indifferent habit, the same 
 apathetic culture, in the more avowed productions of Oxford 
 men. The shrewd eye of Mr. Emerson, stimulated doubtless 
 by the contrast to America, quickly caught the trait. ' After 
 all,' says the languid Oxford gentleman of his story, * there is 
 nothing true and nothing new, and no matter ! ' 
 
 To this, as to every other species of indifferentism, Air. 
 Gladstone is the antithesis. Oxford has not disheartened him. 
 Some of his colleagues would say they wished it had. He is 
 interested in everything he has to do with, and often interested 
 too much. He proposes to put a stamp on contract notes with 
 an eager earnestness as if the destiny of Europe, here and here- 
 after, depended upon its enactment. He cannot let anything 
 alone. ' Sir,' said an old distributor of stamps in Westmoreland, 
 ' my head, sir, is worn out. I must resign. The Chancellor, 
 sir, is imposing of things that I can't understand.' The world 
 is not well able to understand them either. The public de- 
 partments break down under the pressure of the industry of their 
 superior. Mr. Gladstone is ready to work as long as his brain 
 will hold together to make speeches as long as he has utter- 
 ance (words he is sure to have) ; but the subordinate officials will 
 not work equally hard. They have none of the excitement of 
 origination ; they will not share the credit of success. They do, 
 however, share the discredit of failure. In the high pressure 
 season of this year's Budget, Acts of Parliament have been passed 
 in which essential provisions were not to be found, in which what 
 was intended to be enacted was omitted or exceeded, in which 
 the marginal notes were widely astray of the text. In his lite- 
 rary works Mr. Gladstone is the same. His book on Homer is 
 perhaps the most zealous work which this generation has pro- 
 duced. He has the enthusiasm of a German professor for the 
 scholastic detail, for the exact meaning of word No. 1, for the
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 89 
 
 precise number of times which word No. 2 is used by the poet ; 
 he has the enthusiasm of a lover for Helen, the enthusiasm of an 
 orator for the speeches. Of his theological books we need not 
 speak ; every reader will recall the curious succession of need- 
 less qucestiunculce by which their interest is marred. 
 
 Some of this energy Mr. Gladstone probably owes to the 
 place of his birth. Lancashire is sometimes called ' America- 
 and- water : ' we suspect it is America and very little water. 
 The excessive energy natural to half-educated men who have 
 but a single pursuit cannot, indeed, in any part of England, 
 produce the monstrous results which it occasionally produces 
 in the United States ; it is kept in check by public opinion, by 
 the close vicinity of an educated world. But in its own pur- 
 suit, in commerce, we question whether New York itself is more 
 intensely eager than Liverpool at any rate, it is difficult to 
 conceive how it can be. Like several other remarkable men 
 whose families belong to the place, Mr. Gladstone has carried 
 into other pursuits the eagerness, the industry we are loth to 
 say the rashness, but the boldness which Liverpool men apply 
 to the business of Liverpool. Underneath the scholastic polish 
 of his Oxford education, he has the speculative hardihood, the 
 eager industry of a Lancashire merchant. 
 
 Such is one of the principal peculiarities which Mr. G lad- 
 stone's character presents even to a superficial observer. But 
 something more than superficial observation is necessary really 
 to understand a character so complicated and so odd. We will 
 touch upon some of the traits which are among the most im- 
 portant ; and if our minute analysis has, or seems to have, some 
 of the painfulness of a vivisection, we would observe that a 
 defect of this kind is in some degree inseparable from the task 
 we have undertaken. We cannot explain the special pecu- 
 liarities of a singular man of genius without a somewhat ela- 
 borate and a half-metaphysical discussion. 
 
 It is needless to say that Mr. Gladstone is a great orator. 
 Oratory is one of the pursuits as to which there is no error.
 
 90 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 The criterion is ready. Did the audience feel? were they ex- 
 cited ? did they cheer ? These questions, and others such as 
 these, can be answered without a mistake. A man who can 
 move the House of Commons still, after many changes, the 
 most severe audience in the world must be a great orator. 
 The most sincere admirers and the most eager depreciators of 
 Mr. Gladstone are agreed on this point, and it is almost the 
 only point on which they are agreed. 
 
 It will be well, however, to pause upon this characteristic 
 of Mr. Gladstone's genius, and to examine the nature of it 
 rather anxiously, because it seems to afford the true key to 
 some of his most perplexing peculiarities. Mr. Gladstone has, 
 beyond any other man in this generation, what we may call 
 the oratorical impulse. We are in the habit of speaking of 
 rhetoric as an art, and also of oratory as a faculty, and in 
 both cases we speak quite truly. No man can speak with- 
 out a special intellectual gift, and no man can speak well 
 without a special intellectual training. But neither this gift 
 of the intellect nor this education will suffice of themselves. 
 A man must not only know what to say, he must have a 
 vehement longing to get up and say it. Many persons, rather 
 sceptical persons especially, do not feel this in the least. They 
 see before them an audience a miscellaneous collection of 
 odd-looking men but they feel no wish to convince them of 
 anything. ' Are not they very well as they are ? They be- 
 lieve what they have been brought up to believe.' ' Confirm 
 every man in his own manner of conceiving,' said one great 
 sage. *A savage among savages is very well,' remarked an- 
 other. You may easily take away one creed and then not be 
 able to implant another. * You may succeed in unfitting men 
 for their own purposes without fitting them for your purposes ' 
 thus thinks the cui bono sceptic. Another kind of sceptic 
 is distrustful, and speaks thus : ' I know I can't convince 
 these people ; if I could, perhaps I would, but I can't. Only 
 look at them ! they have all kinds of crotchets in their heads.
 
 Mr. Gladstone. gr 
 
 There is a wooden-faced man in spectacles. How can you con- 
 vince a wooden-faced man in spectacles ? And see that other 
 man with a narrow forehead and compressed lips is it any 
 use talking to him ? It is of no use ; do not hope that mere 
 arguments will impair the prepossessions of nature and the 
 steady convictions of years.' Mr. Gladstone would not feel 
 these sceptical arguments. He would get up to speak. He has 
 the didactic impulse. He has the ' courage of his ideas.' He 
 will convince the audience. He knows an argument which 
 will be effective, he has one for one and another for another ; 
 he has an enthusiasm which he feels will rouse the apathetic, 
 a demonstration which he thinks must convert the incredu- 
 lous, an illustration which he hopes will drive his meaning even 
 into the heads of the stolid. At any rate, he will try. He has 
 a, nature, as Coleridge might have said, towards his audience. 
 He is sure, if they only knew what he knows, they would feel as 
 he feels, and believe as he believes. And by this he conquers. 
 This living faith, this enthusiasm, this confidence, call it as we 
 will, is an extreme power in human affairs. One croyant, said 
 the Frenchman, is a greater power than fifty incredules. In the 
 composition of an orator, the hope, the credulous hope, that he 
 will convince his audience, is the primum mobile, it is the primi- 
 tive incentive which is the spring of his influence and the source 
 of his power. Mr. Gladstone has this incentive in perhaps an 
 excessive and dangerous measure. Whatever may be right or 
 wrong in pure finance, in abstract political economy, it is cer- 
 tain that no one save Mr. Gladstone would have come down 
 with the Budget of 1 860 to the Commons of 1 860. No other 
 man would have believed that such a proposal would have a 
 chance. Yet after the warning the disheartening warning of 
 a reluctant cabinet Mr. Gladstone came down from a de- 
 pressing sick-bed, with semi-bronchitis hovering about him, 
 entirely prevailed for the moment, and three parts conquered 
 after all. We will not say that the world is given to men of 
 this temperament and this energy ; on the contrary, there is
 
 92 y]/r. Gladstone. 
 
 often a turn in the tide, the ovation of the spring may be the 
 prelude to unpopularity in the autumn ; but we see that 
 audiences are given them ; we see that unimpressible men are 
 deeply moved by them that the driest topics of legislation and 
 finance are for the instant affected by them that the pro- 
 longed effects of that momentary influence may be felt for many 
 years, sometimes for centuries. The orator has a dominion 
 over the critical instant, and the consequences of the decisions 
 taken during that instant may last long after the orator and 
 the audience have both passed away. 
 
 Nor is the didactic impulse the only one which is essential 
 to a great political orator; nor is it the only one which Mr. 
 Gladstone has. We say it with respect, but he has the con- 
 tentious impulse. He illustrates the distinction between the 
 pacific and the peaceful. On all great questions, on the con- 
 troversies of states and empires, Mr. Gladstone is the most 
 pacific of mankind. He hates the very rumour of war ; he 
 trusts in moral influences ; he detests the bare idea of military 
 preparations. He will not believe that preparations are neces- 
 sary till the eneny is palpable. In the early part of 1853 he 
 did not believe that the Russian war was impending ; after the 
 conversations of the Emporor Nicholas with Sir Hamilton Sey- 
 mour, he proposed to Parliament a scheme for converting some 
 portions of the National Debt, which could only be successful 
 if peace continued, and which, after the outbreak of the war, 
 failed ignominiously. In 1860, mutatis mutandis, he has done 
 the same. He staked his financial reputation upon a fine cal- 
 culation ; he gave us a Budget in which the two ends scarcely 
 met. The Chinese war came, and they no longer meet. We be- 
 lieve that Mr. Gladstone so much hates the bare idea of the 
 possibility of war, that after many warnings, after at least one 
 failure which must have been painful, and which should have 
 been instructive, he has refused to take even the contingency 
 of hostilities into his calculations. Some one said he was not 
 only a Christian, but a morbid Christian. He cannot imagine
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 93 
 
 that anything so coarse as war will occur ; when it does occur, 
 he has a tendency to disapprove of it as soon as he can. 
 During the Russian war he soon joined, in fact if not in name, 
 the peace-at-all-price party; he exerted his finest reasonings 
 and his most persuasive eloquence against a war which was 
 commenced with his consent. At the present moment no 
 Englishman, not Mr. Bright himself, feels so little the impulse 
 to arm. He will not believe in a war till he sees men fighting. 
 He is the most pacific of our statesmen in theory and in policy. 
 When you hear Mr. Gladstone, he is about the most combative. 
 He can bear a good deal about the politics of Europe ; but 
 let a man question the fees on vatting, or the change in the 
 game certificate, or the stamp on bills of lading what melo- 
 dious thunders of loquacious wrath ! The world, he hints, is 
 likely to end at such observations, and it is dreadful that they 
 should be made by the honourable member who made them 
 * by the honourable member who four years ago said so-and-so, 
 and five years before that moved,' &c. &c. The number of 
 well-intentioned and tedious persons whom Mr. Gladstone 
 annually scolds into a latent dislike of him must be consider- 
 able. 
 
 But though we may smile at the minutiae in which this 
 contentious impulse sometimes shows itself, we must remember 
 that the impulse itself is essential to a great political orator, 
 everywhere in some degree, but in England especially. To be 
 an influential speaker in the House of Commons, a man must 
 be a great debater. He must excel not only in elaborate set 
 speeches, but likewise in quick occasional repartee. No one 
 but a rather contentious person will ever so excel. Mr. Fox, 
 the most genial of men, was asked why he disputed so vehe- 
 mently about some trifle or other. He said, ' I must do so ; I 
 can't live without discussion.' And this is the temperament of 
 a great debater. It must be a positive pain to him to be silent 
 under questionable assertions, to hear others saying that which 
 he cannot agree with. An indifferent sceptic such as we
 
 94 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 formerly spoke of, endures this very easily. * He thinks, no 
 doubt, that what the speaker is saying is quite wrong ; but people 
 do not understand what he is saying ; very likely they won't 
 understand the answer : besides } we've a majority ; what is the 
 use of arguing when you have a majority ? Let us outvote him 
 on the spot, and go to bed.' And so, report says, have whips 
 argued to Mr. Gladstone, but he is ever ready. He takes up 
 the parable of disputation at a quarter-past twelve, and goes on 
 till he has exhausted argument, illustration, ingenuity, and 
 research. To hardly any man have both the impulses of the 
 political orator been given in so great a measure : the didactic 
 orator is usually felicitous in exposition only ; the great debater 
 is, like Fox, only great when stung to reply by the cestrus of 
 contention. But Mr. Gladstone is by nature, by vehement 
 overruling nature, great in both arts ; he longs to pour forth 
 his own belief ; he cannot rest till he has contradicted everyone 
 else. 
 
 In addition to this oratorical temperament, Mr. Gladstone 
 has in a high degree the most important intellectual talent of 
 an orator ; he has what we may call an adaptive mind. He has 
 described this himself better than most people would describe 
 it: 
 
 Posts of modern times have composed great works in ages 
 that stopped their ears against them. ' Paradise Lost ' does not 
 represent the time of Charles the Second, nor the ' Excursion ' the 
 first decades of the present century. The case of the orator is entirely 
 different. His work, from its very inception, is inextricably mixed 
 up with practice. It is cast in the mould offered to him by the mind 
 of his hearers. It is an influence principally received from his 
 audience (so to speak) in vapour, which he pours back upon them in 
 a flood. The sympathj 7 and concurrence of his time, is, with his own 
 mind, joint parent of his work. He cannot follow nor frame ideals : 
 his choice is, to be what his age will have him, what it requires in 
 order to be moved by him, or else not to be at all. And as when we 
 find the speeches in Homer, we know that there must have been men 
 who could speak them, so, from the existence of units who could speak 
 them, we know that there must have leen crowds who could feel them.
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 95 
 
 We may judge of the House of Commons in the same way from 
 the great * Budget ' speech. No one, indeed, half guides, 
 half follows the moods of his audience more quickly, more 
 easily, than Mr. Gladstone. There is a little playfulness in 
 his manner, which contrasts with the dryness of his favourite 
 topics, and the intense gravity of his earnest character. He 
 has the same sort of control over the minds of those he is 
 addressing that a good driver has over the animals he guides : 
 he feels the minds of his hearers as the driver the mouths of 
 his horses. 
 
 The species of intellect that is required for this task is pre- 
 eminently the advocate's intellect. The instrument of oratory, 
 at least of this kind of oratory, is the argumentum ad hominein. 
 It is inextricably mixed up with practice.' It argues from 
 the data furnished to him * by the mind of his hearers.' He 
 receives his premises from them ' like a vapour, and pours out 
 his ' conclusions upon them like a flood.' Such an orator may 
 believe his conclusions, but he can rarely believe them for the 
 reasons which he assigns for them. He may be an enthusiast 
 in his creed, he may be a zealot in his faith, but not the less 
 will he be an advocate in his practice; not the less will he 
 catch at disputable premises because his audience accepts them ; 
 not the less will he draw inferences from them which suit his 
 momentary purpose ; not the less will he accept the most 
 startling varieties of assertion, for he will imbibe from one 
 audience a different * vapour ' of premises from that which he 
 will receive from another ; not the less will he have the 
 chameleon-like character which we associate with a consummate 
 advocate ; not the less will he be one thing to-day, with the 
 colour of one audience upon him ; not the less will he be 
 another to-morrow, when he has to address, persuade, and 
 influence some different set of persons. 
 
 We scarcely think, with Mr. Gladstone, that this style of 
 oratory is the very highest, though it is very natural that he 
 should think so, for it exactly expresses the oratory in which
 
 06 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 he is the greatest living master. Mr. Gladstone's conception 
 of oratory, in theory and in practice, is the oratory of Pitt, not 
 the oratory of Chatham or of Burke : it is the oratory of adap- 
 tation. \Ve do not deny that this is the kind of oratory which 
 is most generally useful, the only kind which is commonly per- 
 missible, the only one which in general would not be a bore ; 
 but, we must remember that there is an eloquence of great 
 principles which the hearers scarcely heed, and do not accept 
 such as, in its highest parts, is the eloquence of Burke we 
 must remember that there is an eloquence of great passions, of 
 high-wrought intense feeling, which is nearly independent of 
 the peculiarities of its audience, because it appeals to our 
 elemental human nature which is the same, or much the 
 same, in almost every audience, which is everywhere and 
 always susceptible to the union of vivid genius and eager 
 passion. Such as this last was, if we may trust tradition, the 
 eloquence of Chatham, the source of his rare, magical, and 
 occasional power. Mr. Gladstone has neither of these. Few 
 speakers equally great have left so few passages which can be 
 quoted so few which embody great principles in such a manner 
 as to be referred to by coming generations. He has scarcely 
 given us a sentence that lives in the memory; nor is his 
 declamation, facile and effective as it always is, the very 
 highest declamation: it is a nearly perfect expression of in- 
 tellectualised sentiment, but it wants the volcanic power of 
 primitive passion. 
 
 The prominence of advocacy in Mr. Gladstone's mind is in 
 appearance, though not in reality, diminished by the purity and 
 intensity of his zeal. There is an elastic heroism about him. 
 When he begins to speak, we may know that we are going to 
 hear what we shall not agree with. We may believe that the 
 measures he proposes are mischievous ; we may smile at the 
 emphasis with which some of their minutiae are insisted upon ; 
 but we inevitably feel that we have left the ordinary earth. 
 We know that high sentiments will be appealed to by one
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 97 
 
 who feels high sentiments ; that strong arguments will be 
 strongly stated by one who believes that argument should 
 decide controversy. We know that we are beyond the realm of 
 the patronage Secretary ; we have left behind us the doctrine 
 that corruption is the ruling power in popular assemblies, that 
 patronage is the purchase-money of power. We are not alleging 
 that in the real world in which we live there is not some truth 
 more or less of truth in these lower maxims ; but they do not 
 rule in Mr. Gladstone's world. He was not born to be a Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury. If he tried his hand at it, he would per- 
 plex the borough attorneys out of their lives. And he could not 
 keep the office a month ; he would evince a real disgust at de- 
 testable requests, and guide with odd impulsiveness the deli- 
 cate and latent machinery. His natural element is a higher 
 one. He has and it is one of the springs of great power a 
 real faith in the higher parts of human nature; he believes, 
 with all his heart and soul and strength, that there is such a 
 thing as truth ; he has the soul of a martyr with the intellect 
 of an advocate. 
 
 Another of Mr. Gladstone's characteristics is an extraor- 
 dinary love of labour. We have alluded several times to his 
 taste, we might almost say his whimsical taste, for minutiae. He 
 is ready with whatever detail may be necessary on any subject, 
 no matter of what kind. He covers his greatest schemes with 
 a crowd of irrelevant appendages, till it is difficult to see their 
 outline. The Budget of 1860 was large enough and complicated 
 enough, one would have thought, in its essential irremovable 
 features ; but its author did not think so. He had supple- 
 mentary provisions respecting game-certificates, respecting the 
 transmission of newspapers by the post, respecting ' several 
 other minuter changes with which he was almost ashamed to 
 trouble the committee.' The labour necessary to all these 
 accessories must have been enormous. Many of the alterations 
 may have must have been lying ready in his memory, or in 
 some old note-book, for many years. But the industry to fur- 
 
 H
 
 98 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 bish them up, to get them into a practicable, or even into a 
 proposable shape, would frighten not only most persons, but 
 most laborious persons. And Mr. Gladstone's energy seems to 
 be strictly intellectual. Nothing in his outward appearance 
 indicates the iron physique that often carries inferior men 
 through heavy tasks. Whatever he does that is peculiar, he 
 does by the peculiarity of his mind. He is carried through his 
 work, or seems to be so, by pure will, zeal, and effort. 
 
 The last characteristic of Mr. Gladstone which is very re- 
 markable, or which we shall mention, is his scholastic intellect. 
 We have not much of this in conspicuous men in the present 
 day, but in former times there was a good deal of it. Lord 
 Bacon had something like it in his eye when he spoke of 
 minds which were not ' discursive ' or skilful in discovering 
 analogies, but were discriminative or skilful in detecting dif- 
 ferences. The best scene for training this sort of intellect is the 
 law-court. Lord Bacon must have seen much of it in the work 
 of Gray's Inn when he was young, and traces of the discipline 
 which he then underwent may perhaps be found even in books 
 which were written by him many years afterwards. When, as 
 in positive law, the first principles are fixed, there is no room 
 for the highest originality ; the only admissible controversy is 
 whether a particular case comes or does not come within a 
 particular principle. On this point there is room for endless 
 distinctions and eternal hair-splitting. When the principles 
 settled by authority are not entirely consistent, the function of 
 this kind of distinguishing reason is even greater ; it has to 
 suggest nice refinements, which may reconcile the apparent dif- 
 ferences between the principles themselves, as well as to settle 
 the exact relation of the case, or the facts, to the doctrine of 
 the authorities. Accordingly the scholastic theologians of me- 
 diaeval times were the most expert masters of the discrimina- 
 tive ratiocination which the world has ever seen. They had to 
 reconcile the recognised authorities of the Catholic Church 
 authorities vast in size, and scattered over centuries in time
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 99 
 
 with one another, with good sense, with the facts of special 
 cases, with the general exigencies of the age. By their labour 
 was formed that acute logic, that subtle, if unreal philosophy 
 which fell at the Reformation, when the authorities of the 
 Catholic Church were no longer conclusive, and the art of 
 arranging them was no longer important. We have learned to 
 smile at the scholastic distinctions of former times ; the induc- 
 tive philosophy, which is now our most conspicuous pursuit, does 
 not need them ; the popular character of our ordinary discus- 
 sion does not admit of them. In a free country we must use 
 the sort of argument which plain men understand and plain 
 men certainly do not appreciate or apprehend scholastic refine- 
 ments. So at least we should say beforehand. Yet Mr. Glad- 
 stone is the statesman whose expositions have, for good or for 
 evil, more power than those of any other ; his voice is a greater 
 power in the country of plain men than any other man's ; 
 nevertheless, his intellect is of a thoroughly scholastic kind. 
 He can distinguish between any two propositions ; he never 
 allowed, he could not allow, that any two were identical. If 
 anyone on either side of the House is bold enough to infer 
 anything from anything, Mr. Gladstone is ready to deny that 
 the inference is correct to suggest a distinction which he 
 says is singularly important to illustrate an apt subtlety 
 which, in appearance at least, impairs the validity of the de- 
 duction. No schoolman could be readier at such work. We 
 may find the same tendency of mind even more strikingly 
 illustrated in his writings. At the time of the Gorham case, 
 for example, he wrote a pamphlet on the Royal Supremacy. 
 For the purposes of that case, it was of the last importance to 
 determine the exact position of the Crown with respect to 
 ecclesiastical affairs, and especially to the offence of heresy. 
 The law at first seems distinct enough on the matter. The 
 1st of Elizabeth provides 'that such jurisdictions, privileges, 
 superiorities, and pre-eminences, spiritual and ecclesiastical, as 
 by any spiritual or ecclesiastical power or authority hath here- 
 
 ii 2
 
 100 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 tofore been or may lawfully be exercised or used for the visita- 
 tion of the ecclesiastical state and persons, and for reformation, 
 order, and correction of the same, and of all manner of errors, 
 heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, 
 shall for ever, by authority of this present parliament, be united 
 and annexed to the imperial crown of this realm.' These words 
 would have seemed distinct and clear to most persons. They 
 would have seemed to give to the Crown all the power it could 
 wish to exercise all that any spiritual authority had ever 
 ' theretofore exercised ' rail that any temporal authority could 
 ever use. We should think it was clear that Queen Elizabeth 
 would have applied a rather summary method of instruction 
 to anyone who attempted to limit the jurisdiction conferred by 
 this enactment. If Mr. Gladstone had lived in the times about 
 which he was writing, he might have had to make a choice 
 between being silent and being punished ; but in the times of 
 Queen Victoria he is not subjected to an alternative so painful. 
 He writes securely : 
 
 We have now before us the terms of the great statute which, 
 from the time it was passed, has been the actual basis of the royal 
 authority in matters ecclesiastical ; and I do not load these pages by 
 reference to declarations of the Crown, and other public documents 
 less in authority than this, in order that we may fix our view the 
 more closely upon the expressions of what may fairly be termed a 
 fundamental law in relation to the subject-matter before us. 
 
 The first observation I make is this : there is no evidence in the 
 words which have been quoted that the Sovereign is, according to the 
 intention of the statute, the source or fountain-head of ecclesistical 
 jurisdiction. They have no trace of such a meaning, in so far as ifc 
 exceeds (and it does exceed) the proposition, that this jurisdiction has 
 been by law united or annexed to the Crown. 
 
 I no not now ask what have been the glosses of lawyers what are 
 the reproaches of polemical writers or even what attributes mav be 
 ascribed to prerogative, independent of statute, and therefore applicable 
 to the Church before as well as after the Reformation. I must for 
 the purposes of this argument assumo what I shall never cease to 
 believe until the contrary conclusion is demonstrated by fact namely,
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 101 
 
 that, in the case of the Church, justice is to be administered from the 
 English bench upon the same principles as in all other cases that our 
 judges, or our judicial committees, are not to be our legislators and 
 that the statutes of the realm, as they are above the sacred majesty of 
 the Queen, so are likewise above their ministerial interpreters. It 
 was by statute that the changes in the position of the Church at that 
 great epoch were measured by statute that the position itself is 
 denned ; and the statute, I say, contains no trace of such a meaning 
 as that the Crown either originally was the source and spring of 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or was to become such in virtue of the 
 annexation to it of the powers recited ; but simply bears the meaning, 
 that it was to be master over its administration. 
 
 So that which seems a despotism is gradually pruned down 
 into a vicegerency. ' All the superiorities and pre-eminences 
 spiritual and ecclesiastical,' which had ever been lawfully exer- 
 cised, are restricted to the single function of regulation; and by 
 a judicious elaboration the Crown becomes scarcely the head of 
 the Church, but only the visitor and corrector of it, as of several 
 other corporations. We are not now concerned with the royal 
 supremacy we have no wish to hint or intimate an opinion on 
 a vast legal discussion ; but we are concerned with Mr. Glad- 
 stone. And we venture to say that a subtler gloss, more 
 scholastically expressed, never fell from lawyer in the present 
 age, or from schoolmen in times of old. 
 
 The great faculties we have mentioned give Mr. Gladstone, 
 it is needless to say, an extraordinary influence in English 
 politics. England is a country governed mainly by labour and 
 by speech. Mr. Gladstone will work and can speak, and the 
 result is what we see. With a flowing eloquence and a lofty 
 heroism ; with an acute intellect and endless knowledge ; with 
 courage to conceive large schemes, and a voice which will per- 
 suade men to adopt those schemes it is not singular that Mr. 
 Gladstone is of himself a power in parliamentary life. He can 
 do there what no one else living can do. 
 
 But the effect of these peculiar faculties is by no means un- 
 mixedly favourable. In almost every one of them some faulty
 
 IO2 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 tendency is latent, which may produce bad effects in Mr. Glad- 
 stone's case has often done so, perhaps does so still. His greatest 
 characteristic, as we have indicated, is the singular vivacity 
 of his oratorical impulse. But great as is the immediate 
 power which a vehement oratorical propensity, whem accom- 
 panied by the requisite faculties, secures to the possessor, the 
 advantage of possessing it, or rather of being subject to it, is 
 by no means without an alloy. We have all heard that Paley 
 said he knew nothing against some one but that he was a 
 popular preacher. And Paley knew what he was saying. The 
 oratorical impulse is a disorganising impulse. The higher 
 faculties of the mind require a certain calm, and the excitement 
 of oratory is unfavourable to that calm. We know that this is 
 so with the hearers of oratory ; we know that they are carried 
 away from their fixed principles, from their habitual tendencies, 
 by a casual and unexpected stimulus. We speak commonly of 
 the power of the orator. But the orator is subject himself to 
 much the same calamity. The force which carries away his 
 hearers must first carry away himself. He will not persuade 
 any of his hearers unless he has first succeeded, for the 
 moment at least, in persuading his own mind. Every exciting 
 speech is conceived, planned, and spoken with excitement. 
 The orator feels in his own nerves, even in a greater degree, 
 that electric thrill which he is to communicate to his hearers. 
 The telling ideas take hold of him with a sortcf seizure. They 
 fasten close upon his brain. He has a sort of passionate 
 impulse to tell them. He hungers, as a Greek would have said, 
 till they are uttered. His mind is full of them. He has the 
 vision of the audience in his mind. Until he has persuaded 
 these men of these things, life is tame, and its other stimulants 
 are uninteresting. So much excitement is evidently unfavour- 
 able to calm reflection and deliberation. Mr. Pitt is said 
 to have thought more of the manner in which his measures 
 would strike the House than of the manner in which, when 
 carried, they would work. Of course he did every great
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 103 
 
 orator will do so, unless lie has a supernatural self-control. 
 An ordinary man sits down say to make a Budget : he 
 arranges the accounts ; adds up the figures ; contrasts the 
 effects of different taxes ; works out steadily hour after hour 
 their probable incidence, first of one, then of another. Nothing 
 disturbs him. With the orator it is different. During that 
 whole process he is disturbed by the vision of his hearers. 
 How they will feel, how they will think, how they will like 
 his proposals cannot but occur to him. He hears his ideas 
 rebounding in the cheers of his hearers ; he is disheartened, 
 at fancying that they will fall tamely on an inanimate and 
 listless multitude. He is subject to two temptations; he is 
 turned aside from the conceptions natural to the subject by 
 an imagination of his audience ; his own eager temperament 
 naturally inclines him . to the views which will excite that 
 audience most effectually. The tranquil deposit of ordinary 
 ideas is interrupted by the sudden eruption of volcanic forces. 
 We know that the popular instinct suspects the judgment of 
 great orators ; we know that it does not give them credit for 
 patient equanimity ; and the popular instinct is right. 
 
 Nor is cool reflection the only higher state of mind which 
 the oratorical impulse interferes with ; we believe that it is 
 singularly unfavourable also to the exercise of the higher kind 
 of imagination. Several great poets have written good dramatic 
 harangues ; but no great practical orator has ever written a 
 great poem. The creative imagination requires a singular 
 calm: it is 'the still unravished bride of quietness,' as the 
 poets say ' the foster-child of silence and slow time.' No 
 great work has ever been produced except after a long interval 
 of still and musing meditation. The oratorical impulse inter- 
 feres with this. It breaks the exclusive brooding of the mind 
 upon the topic ; it brings in a new set of ideas, the faces of 
 the audience and the passions of listening men ; it jerks the 
 mind, if the expression may be allowed, just when the delicate
 
 104 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 poetry of the mind is crystallising into symmetry. The process 
 is stayed, and the result is marred. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone has suffered from both these bad effects of 
 the oratorical temperament. His writings, even on imaginative 
 subjects, even on the poetry of Homer, are singularly devoid of 
 the highest imagination. They abound in acute remarks ; they 
 excel in industry of detail ; they contain many animated and 
 some eloquent passages. But there is no central conception 
 running through them ; there is no binding idea in them ; 
 there is nothing to fuse them together; they are elaborate aggre- 
 gates of varied elements ; they are not shaped and consolidated 
 wholes. Nor, it is remarkable, has his style the delicate graces 
 which mark the productions of the gentle and meditative mind ; 
 there is something hard in its texture, something dislocated 
 in its connections. In his writings, where he is removed fiom 
 the guiding check of the listening audience, he starts off, just 
 where you least expect it. He hurries from the main subject 
 to make a passing and petty remark. As he has not the central 
 idea of his work vividly before him, he overlays it with tedious, 
 accessory, and sometimes irrelevant detail. 
 
 His intellect has suffered also. He is undeniably defective in 
 the tenacity of first principle. Probably there is nothing which 
 he would less like to have said of him, and yet it is certainly 
 true. We speak, of course, of intellectual consistency, not ot' 
 moral probity. And he has not an adhesive mind; such adhe- 
 siveness as he has is rather to projects than principles. \Ve 
 will give it is all we have space to give a single remarkable 
 instance of his peculiar mutability. He has adhered in the 
 year 1860 to his project of reducing the amount levied in 
 England by indirect taxation. He announced in 1853 that he 
 would do so, and, what was singular enough, he was able to 
 do it when the time came. But this superficial consistency 
 must not disguise from us the entire inconsistency in abstract 
 principle between tne Budget of 1853 and the Budget of 1860. 
 The most important element in English finance at present is
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 105 
 
 the income-tax. In 1853 that tax was, Mr. Gladstone explained 
 to us, an occasional, an exceptional, a sacred reserve. It had 
 done much that was wonderful for our fathers in the French 
 war ; Sir K. Peel had used it with magical efficiency in our 
 own time ; but it was to be kept for first-rate objects. In 
 18fiO the income-tax has become the tax of all work. Whatever 
 is to be done, whatever other tax is to be relinquished, it is but 
 a penny more or a penny less of this ever-ready and omnipotent 
 impost. We do not blame Mr. Gladstone for changing his 
 opinion. We believe that an income-tax of moderate amount 
 should be a permanent element in our financial system. We 
 think that additions to it from time to time are the best ways 
 of meeting any sudden demand for exceptional expenditure. 
 But we cannot be unaware of the transition which he has 
 made. His opinion as to our most remarkable tax has varied, 
 not only in detail but in essence. It was to be a rare and 
 residuary agency ; it is now a permanent and principal force. 
 The inconsistency goes further. He used to think that he 
 would be guilty of a ' high political offence ' if he altered the 
 present mode of assessing the income-tax, if he equalised the 
 pressure on industrial and permanent incomes. But he is now 
 ready to consider any plan with that object in other words, 
 he is ready to do it if he can. A great change in his funda- 
 mental estimate of our greatest tax has made an evident and 
 indisputable change in his mode of viewing proposed reforms 
 and alterations in it. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's inclination his unconscious inclination for 
 the art of advocacy increases his tendency to suffer from the 
 characteristic temptations of his oratorical temperament. It is 
 scarcely necessary to say that professional advocacy is un- 
 favourable to the philosophical investigation of truth ; a more 
 battered commonplace cannot be found anywhere. To catch at 
 whatever turns up in favour of your own case ; to be obviously 
 blind to everything which tells in favour of the case of your 
 adversary ; to imply doubtr; as to principles which it is not
 
 io6 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 expedient to deny ; to suggest with delicate indirectness the 
 conclusive arguments in favour of principles which it is not 
 wise directly to affirm these, and such as these, are the arts 
 of the advocate. A political orator has them almost of neces- 
 sity, and Mr. Gladstone is not exempt from them. Indeed, 
 without any fault of his own, he has them, if not to an un- 
 usual extent, at least with a very unusual conspicuousness. 
 His vehement temperament, his ' intense and glowing mind,' 
 drive him into strong statements, into absolute and unlimited 
 assertions. He lays down a principle of tremendous breadth 
 to establish a detail of exceeding minuteness. He is not a 
 ' hedging ' advocate. He does not understand the art which 
 Hume and Peel different as were their respective spheres 
 practised with almost equal effect in those spheres. Mr. Glad- 
 stone dashes forth to meet his opponents. He will believe 
 easily he will state strongly whatever may confute them. 
 An incessant use of ingenious and unqualified principles is 
 one of Mr. Gladstone's most prominent qualities ; it is unfa- 
 vourable to exact consistency of explicit assertion, and to 
 latent consistency of personal belief. His scholastic intellect 
 makes matters worse. He will show that any two principles 
 are or may be consistent ; that if there is an apparent dis- 
 crepancy, they may still, after the manner of Oxford, ' be held 
 together.' One of the most remarkable of Father Newman's 
 Oxford Sermons explains how science teaches that the earth 
 goes round the sun, and how Scripture teaches that the sun 
 goes round the earth ; and it ends b} T advising the discreet 
 believer to accept both. Both, it is suggested, may be accom- 
 modations to our limited intellect aspects of some higher and 
 less discordant unity. We have often smiled at the recollection 
 of the old Oxford training in watching Mr. Gladstone's inge- 
 nious ' reconcilements.' It must be pleasant to have an ar- 
 gumentative acuteness which is quite sure to extricate you, at 
 least in appearance, from any intellectual scrape. But it is a 
 dangerous weapon to use, and particularly dangerous to a very
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 107 
 
 conscientious man. He will not use it unless he believes in its 
 results ; but he will try and believe in its results, in order that 
 he may use it. We need not spend further words in proving 
 that a kind of advocacy at once acute, refined, and vehement, 
 is unfavourable both to consistency of statement and to tena- 
 cious sluggishness of belief. 
 
 In this manner, the disorganising effects of his greatest 
 peculiarities have played a principal part in shaping Mr. Glad- 
 stone's character and course. They have helped to make him 
 annoy the old Whigs, confound the country gentlemen, and 
 puzzle the nation generally. They have contributed to bring on 
 him the long array of depreciating adjectives, ' extravagant,' 
 'inconsistent,' 'incoherent,' and ' incalculable.' 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's intellectual history has aggravated the un- 
 favourable influence of his characteristic tendencies. Such a 
 mind as his required, beyond any man's, the early inculcation 
 of a steadying creed. It required that the youth, if not the 
 child, should be father to the man : it required that a set of 
 fixed and firm principles should be implanted in his mind in its 
 first intellectual years that those principles should be precise 
 enough for its guidance, tangible enough to be commonly 
 intelligible, true enough to stand the wear and tear of ordinary 
 life. The tranquil task of developing coherent principle might 
 have calmed the vehemence of Mr. Gladstone's intellectual 
 impulses might have studied the impulsive discursiveness of 
 his nature. A settled and plain creed, which was in union with 
 the belief of ordinary men, might have kept Mr. Gladstone in 
 the common path of plain men might have made him intelli- 
 gible and safe. But he has had no such good fortune. He 
 began the world with a vast religious theory ; he embodied it 
 in a book on * Church and State ; ' he defended it, as was said, 
 mistily at any rate, he defended it in a manner which re- 
 quires much careful pains to appreciate, and much preliminary 
 information to understand ; he puzzled the ordinary mass of 
 English Churchmen ; he has been half out of sympathy with
 
 io8 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 them ever since. The creed which he has chosen, or which his 
 Oxford training stamped upon, was one not likely to be 
 popular with common Englishmen. It had a scholastic appear- 
 ance and a mystical essence which they dislike almost equally. 
 But this was not its worst defect. It was a theory which broke 
 down when it was tried. It was a theory with definite practical 
 consequences, which no one in these days will accept which 
 no one in these days will propose. It was a theory to be 
 shattered by the slightest touch of real life, for it had a definite 
 teaching which was inconsistent with the facts of that life 
 which all persons who were engaged in it were, on some ground 
 or other, unanimous in rejecting. In Mr. Gladstone's case it 
 has been shattered. He maintained, that a visible church 
 existed upon earth ; that every state was bound to be directed 
 by that church ; that all members of that state should, if 
 possible, be members of that church ; that at any rate none of 
 the members should be utterly out of sympathy with her ; that 
 the state ought to aid her in her characteristic work, and 
 refrain from aiding her antagonists in that work ; that within 
 her own sphere the church, though thus aided, is substantially 
 independent ; that she has an absolute right to elect her 
 own bishops, to determine her own creed, to make her own de- 
 finitions of orthodoxy and heresy. This is the high Oxford creed 
 and, in all essential points, it was Mr. Gladstone's first creed. 
 
 But a curious series of instructive events proved that 
 England at least would not adopt it, that the actual Church 
 of England is not the church of which it speaks, that the 
 actual English State is by no means the state of which it 
 speaks. The additional endowment of the Maynooth College 
 which Sir Robert Peel proposed was an express relinquishment 
 of the principle that the Church of England had an exclusive 
 right to assistance from the State; it proved that the Conserva- 
 tive party the special repository of constitutional traditions 
 was ready to aid a different and antagonistic communion. The 
 removal of the Jewish disabilities struck a still deeper blow : it
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 109 
 
 proved that persons who could riot be said to participate in 
 even the rudiments of Anglican doctrine might be prime 
 ministers and rulers in England. The theory of the exclusive 
 union of a visible church with a visible state vanished into the 
 air. The real world would not endure it. We fear it must be 
 said that the theory of the substantial independence of the 
 English church has vanished too. The case of Dr. Hampden 
 proved conclusively that the intervention of the English church 
 in the election of her bishops was an ineffectual ceremony; 
 that it could not be galvanised into effective life ; that it was 
 one of those lingering relics of the past which the steady 
 English people are so loth to disturb. Undisputed practice 
 shows that the prime minister, who is clearly secular prince, is 
 the dispenser of ecclesiastical dignities. And the judgment of 
 her Majesty's Council in the Grorham case went further yet. 
 It touched on the finest and tenderest point of all. It decided 
 that, on the critical question, heresy or no heresy, the final 
 appeal was not to an ecclesiastical court, but to a lay court to 
 a court, not of saintly theologians, but of tough old lawyers, to 
 men of the world most worldly. The Oxford dream of an 
 independent church, the Oxford dream of an exclusive church, 
 are both in practice forgotten ; their very terms are strange in 
 our ears ; they have no reference to real life. Mr. Gladstone 
 has had to admit this. He has voted for the endowment of 
 Maynooth ; he has voted for the admission of Jews to the House 
 of Commons ; he has acquiesced in the Hampden case ; he sees 
 daily the highest patronage of the church distributed by Lord 
 Palmerston, the very man who, on any high-church theory, 
 ought not to dispense it, to the very men who, on any high-church 
 theory, ought not to receive it. He wrote a pamphlet on the 
 (forham case, but he does not practically propose to alter the 
 constitution of the judicial committee of the privy council ; 
 he has never proposed to bring in a. bill for that purpose ; he 
 acquiesces in the supreme decision of the most secular court 
 which can exist over the most peculiarly ecclesiastical questions
 
 no Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 that can be thought of. These successive changes do credit to 
 Mr. Gladstone's good sense ; they show that he has a susceptible 
 nature, that he will not live out of sympathy with his age. 
 But what must be the effect of such changes upon any mind, 
 especially on a delicate and high-toned mind. They tend, and 
 must tend, to confuse the first principles of belief ; to disturb 
 the best landmarks of consistency ; to leave the mind open to 
 attacks of oratorical impulse ; to foster the catching habit of 
 advocacy ; to weaken the guiding element in a disposition 
 which was already defective in that element. The ' movement 
 of 1833,' as Father Newman calls it, has wrecked many fine 
 intellects, has broken many promising careers. It could not do 
 either for Mr. Gladstone, for his circumstances were favourable, 
 and his mental energy was far too strong ; but it has done him 
 harm, nevertheless ; it has left upon his intellect a weakening 
 strain and a distorting mark. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was a likely man to be enraptured with the 
 first creed with which he was thrown, and to push it too far. 
 He wants the warning instincts. Some one said of him for- 
 merly, ' He may be a good Christian, but he is an atrocious 
 pagan ; ' and the saying is true. He has not a trace of the 
 protective morality of the old world, of the modus in rebus, 
 the /iecroi/, the shrinking from an extreme, which are the pro- 
 minent characteristics of the ethics of the old world, which are 
 still the guiding creed of the large part of the world that is, 
 scarcely altered after two thousand years. And this much we 
 may concede to the secular moralists unless a man have from 
 nature a selective tact which shuns the unlimited, unless he 
 have a detective instinct which unconsciously but sensitively 
 shrinks from the extravagant, he will never enjoy a placid life, 
 he will not pass through a simple and consistent career. The 
 placid moderation which is necessary to coherent success cannot 
 be acquired, it must be born. 
 
 Perhaps we may seem already to have more than accounted 
 for the prominence of Mr. Gladstone's characteristic defects.
 
 Mr. Gladstone. in 
 
 We may seem to have alleged sufficient reasons for his being 
 changeable and impulsive, a vehement advocate and an auda- 
 cious financier. But we had other causes to assign which have 
 aggravated these faults. We shall not, indeed, after what we 
 have said, venture to dwell on them at length. We will bear in 
 mind the precept, * If you wish to exhaust your readers, exhaust 
 your subject.' But we will very slightly allude to one of them. 
 A writer like Mr. Gladstone, fond of deriving illustration 
 from the old theology, might speak of public life in England 
 as an economy. It is a world of its own, far more than most 
 Englishmen are aware of. It presents the characters of public 
 men in a disguised form ; and by requiring the seeming adop- 
 tion of much which is not real, it tends to modify and to distort 
 much which is real. An English statesman in the present day 
 lives by following public opinion ; he may profess to guide it a 
 little ; he may hope to modify it in detail ; he may help to 
 exaggerate and to develop it ; but he hardly hopes for more. 
 Many seem not willing to venture on so much. And what does 
 this mean except that such a statesman has to follow the vary 
 ing currents of a varying world ; to adapt his public expressions, 
 if not his private belief, to the tendencies of the hour ; to be 
 in no slight measure the slave the petted and applauded 
 slave, but still the slave of the world which he seems to rule. 
 Nor is this all. A minister is not simply the servant of the 
 public, he is likewise the advocate of his colleagues. No one 
 supposes that a cabinet can ever agree ; when did fifteen able 
 men fifteen able men, more or less rivals ever agree on any- 
 thing ? We are aware that differences of opinion, more or less 
 radical, exist in every cabinet ; that the decisions of every 
 cabinet are in nearly every case modified by concession ; that a 
 minority of the cabinet frequently dissents from them. Yet 
 all this latent discrepancy of opinion is never hinted at, much 
 less is it ever avowed. A cabinet minister comes down to the 
 House habitually to vote and occasionally to speak in favour of 
 measures which he much dislikes, from which he has in vain
 
 H2 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 attempted to dissuade his colleagues. The life of a great 
 minister is the life of a great advocate. No life can be ima- 
 gined which is worse for a mind like Mr. Gladstone's. He was 
 naturally changeable, susceptible, prone to unlimited state- 
 ments to vehement arguments. He has followed a career in 
 which it is necessary to follow a changing guide and to obey 
 more or less, but always to some extent, a fluctuating opinion ; 
 to argue vehemently for tenets which you dislike ; to defend 
 boldly a given law to-day, to propose boldly that the same law 
 should be repealed to-morrow. Accumulated experience shows 
 that the public life of our parliamentary statesmen is singu- 
 larly unsteadying, is painfully destructive of coherent principle ; 
 and we may easily conceive how dangerous it must be to a 
 mind like Mr. Gladstone's to a mind, by its intrinsic nature, 
 impressible, impetuous, and unfixed. 
 
 What, then, is to be the future course of the remarkable 
 statesman whose excellences and whose faults we have ven- 
 tured to analyse at such length ? No wise man would venture 
 to predict. A wise man does not predict much in this com- 
 plicated world, least of all will he predict the exact course of 
 a perplexing man in perplexing circumstances. But we will 
 hazard three general remarks. 
 
 First, Mr. Gladstone is essentially a man who cannot impose 
 his creed on his time, but must learn his creed of his time. 
 Every parliamentary statesman must, as we have said, do so in 
 some measure ; but Mr. Gladstone must do so above all men. 
 The vehement orator, the impulsive advocate, the ingenious but 
 somewhat unsettled thinker, is the last man from whom we 
 should expect an original policy, a steady succession of mature 
 and consistent designs. Mr. Gladstone may well be the ex- 
 positor of his time, the advocate of its conclusions, the admired 
 orator in whom it will take pride ; but he cannot be more. 
 Parliamentary life rarely admits the autocratic supremacy of 
 an original intellect ; the present moment is singularly un- 
 favourable to it; Mr. Gladstone is the last man to obtain it.
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 1 1 3 
 
 Secondly, Mr. Gladstone will fail if he follow the seductive 
 example of Sir Robert Peel. It is customary to talk of the un- 
 favourable circumstances in which the latter was placed, but 
 in one respect those circumstances were favourable. He had 
 very unusual means of learning the ideas of his time. They 
 were forced upon him by a loud and organized agitation. The 
 repeal of the corn-laws, the repeal of the Catholic disabilities, 
 the two acts by which he will be remembered were not 
 chosen by him, but exacted from him. The world around him 
 clamoured for them. But no future statesman can hope to 
 have such an advantage. The age in which Peel lived was an 
 age of destruction : the measures by which he will be remem- 
 bered were abolitions. We have now reached the term of the 
 destructive period. We cannot abolish all our laws ; we have 
 few remaining with which educated men find fault. The ques- 
 tions which remain are questions of construction how the- 
 lo\ver classes are to be admitted to a share of political power 
 without absorbing the whole power ; how the natural union of 
 Church and State is to be adapted to an age of divided reli- 
 gious opinion, and to the necessary conditions of a parliamentary 
 government. These, and such as these, are the future topics 
 of our home policy. And on these the voice of the nation will 
 never be very distinct. Destruction is easy, construction is very 
 difficult. A statesman who will hereafter learn what our real 
 public opinion is, will not have to regard loud agitators, but to- 
 disregard them ; will not have to yield to a loud voice, but to 
 listen for a still small voice; will have to seek for the opinion 
 which is treasured in secret rather than for that which is noised 
 abroad. If Mr. Gladstone will accept the conditions of his age ; 
 if he will guide himself by the mature, settled, and cultured re- 
 flection of his time, and not by its loud and noisy organs ; if he 
 will look for that which his thought, rather than for that which 
 is said he may leave a great name, be useful to his country, 
 may steady and balance his own mind. But if not, not. The 
 coherent efficiency of his career will depend on the guide which 
 
 I
 
 ii4 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 he takes, the index which he obeys, the Saipwv which he con- 
 sults. 
 
 There are two topics which are especially critical. Mr. 
 Gladstone must not object to war because it is war, or to ex- 
 penditure because it is expenditure. Upon these two points 
 Mr. Gladstone has shown a tendency not, we hope, an uncon- 
 trollable tendency, but still a tendency to differ from the best 
 opinion of the age. He has been unfortunately placed. His 
 humane and Christian feeling are opposed to war ; he has a 
 financial ideal which has been distorted, if not destroyed, by 
 a growing expenditure. But war is often necessary; finance is 
 not an end ; money is but a means. A statesmen who would 
 lead his age must learn its duties. It may be that the defence 
 of England, the military defence, is one of our duties. If so, 
 we must not sit down to count the cost. If so, it is not the age 
 for arithmetic. If so, it is for our statesmen it is especially 
 for Mr. Gladstone, who is the most splendidly gifted amongst 
 them to sacrifice cherished hopes ; to forego treasured schemes ; 
 to put out of their thoughts the pleasant duties of a pacific 
 time ; to face the barbarism of war ; to vanquish the instinctive 
 shrinkings of a delicate mind. 
 
 Lastly, Mr. Gladstone must beware how he again commits 
 himself to a long period of bewildering opposition. Office is a 
 steadying situation. A minister has means of learning from his 
 colleagues, form his subordinates, from unnumbered persons 
 who are only too ready to give him information, what the truth 
 is, and what public opinion is. Opposition, on the other hand, 
 is an exciting and a misleading situation. The bias of every 
 one who is so placed is to oppose the ministry. Yet on a 
 hundred questions the ministry are likely to be right. They 
 have special information, long consultations, skilled public 
 servants to guide them. On most points there is no misleading 
 motive. Every minister decides, to the best of his ability, upon 
 most of the questions which come before him. A bias to oppose 
 him, therefore, is always dangerous. It is peculiarly dangerous
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 115 
 
 to those in whom the contentious impulse is strong, whose life 
 is in debate. If Mr. Gladstone's mind is to be kept in a useful 
 track, it must be by the guiding influence of office, by an ex- 
 emption from the misguiding influence of opposition. 
 
 No one desires more than we do that Mr. Gladstone's future 
 course should be enriched, not only with oratorical fame, but 
 with useful power. Such gifts as his are amongst the rarest 
 that are given to men ; they are amongst the most valuable ; 
 they are singularly suited to our parliamentary life. England 
 cannot afford to lose such a man. If in the foregoing pages we 
 have seemed often to find fault, it has not been for the sake of 
 finding fault. It is necessary that England should comprehend 
 Mr. Gladstone. If the country have not a true conception of a 
 great statesman, his popularity will be capricious, his power 
 irregular, and his usefulness insecure.
 
 n6 
 
 WILLIAM PITT* 
 [1861.] 
 
 LORD STANHOPE'S Life of Mr. Pitt has both the excellences and 
 the defects which we should expect from him, and neither of 
 them are what we expect in a great historical writer of the pre- 
 sent age. Even simple readers are becoming aware that histori- 
 cal investigations, which used to be a sombre and respectable 
 calling, is now an audacious pursuit. Paradoxes are very bold 
 and very numerous. Many of the recognised t good people ' in, 
 history have become bad, and all the very bad people have 
 become rather good. We have palliations of Tiberius, eulogies 
 on Henry VIII., devotional exercises to Cromwell, and fulsome 
 adulation of Julius Caesar and of the first Napoleon. The 
 philosophy of history is more alarming still. One school sees 
 in it but a gradual development of atheistic belief, another 
 threatens to resolve it all into * the three simple agencies, 
 starch, fibrin, and albumen.' But in these exploits of audacious 
 ingenuity and specious learning Lord Stanhope has taken no> 
 part. He is not anxious to be original. He travels, if possible, 
 in the worn track of previous historians ; he tells a plain tale 
 in an easy plain way ; he shrinks from wonderful novelties ; 
 with the cautious scepticism of true common sense, he is 
 always glad to find that the conclusions at which he arrives 
 coincide with those of former inquirers. His style is charac- 
 teristic of his matter. He narrates with a gentle sense and 
 
 1 Life of the JllqJit Jf<nni ruble William Pitt. By Earl Stanhope, author 
 gf the History <>f Emjland from the Peace of Utrecht.
 
 William Pill. 1 1 7 
 
 languid accuracy, very different from the stimulating rhetoric 
 and exciting brilliancy of his more renowned contemporaries. 
 
 In the present case Lord Stanhope has been very fortunate 
 both in his subject and his materials. Mr. Pitt has never 
 had even a decent biographer, though the peculiarities of his 
 career are singularly inviting to literary ambition. His life 
 had much of the solid usefulness of modern times, and not a 
 little also of the romance of old times. He was skilled in eco- 
 nomical reform, but retained some of the majesty of old-world 
 eloquence. He was as keen in small figures as a rising 
 politician now ; yet he was a despotic premier at an age when, 
 in these times, a politician could barely aspire to be an Under- 
 secretary. It is not wonderful that Lord Stanhope should 
 have been attracted to a subject which is so interesting in it- 
 self, and which lies so precisely in the direction of his previous 
 studies. From his high standing and his personal connection?, 
 he has been able to add much to our minuter knowledge. He 
 has obtained from various quarters many valuable letters which 
 have not been published before. There is a whole series from 
 George III. to Mr. Pitt, and a scarcely less curious series from 
 Mr. Pitt to his mother. We need not add that Lord Stanhope 
 has digested his important materials with great care ; that 
 he has made of them almost as much as could be made ; that 
 he has a warm admiration and a delicate respect for the 
 great statesman of whom he is writing. His nearest approach 
 to an ungentle feeling is a quiet dislike to the great Whig 
 families. 
 
 Mr. Pitt is an example of one of the modes in which the 
 popular imagination is, even in historical times, frequently 
 and easily misled. Mankind judge of a great statesman prin- 
 cipally by the most marked and memorable passage in his 
 career. By chance we lately had the honour to travel with a 
 gentleman who said, that Sir Eobert Peel was the ' leader of 
 the Whigs ; ' and though historical evidence will always prevent 
 common opinion from becoming so absurd as this, it is unde-
 
 Ii8 William Pitt. 
 
 niable that, in the popular fancy of young men, Sir Robert 
 Peel is the Liberal minister who repealed the Corn-laws and 
 carried Catholic Emancipation. The world is forgetting that 
 he was once the favourite leader of the old Tory party the 
 steady opponent of Mr. Canning, and the steady adherent of 
 Lord Sid mouth and Lord Eldon. We remember his great re- 
 forms, of which we daily feel the benefit ; we forget that, during 
 a complete political generation, he was the most plausible sup- 
 porter of ancient prejudices, and the most decent advocate of 
 inveterate abuses. Mr. Pitt's fate has been very similar, but 
 far less fortunate. The event in his life most deeply im- 
 planted in the popular memory is his resistance to the French 
 Eevolution; it is this which has made him the object of 
 affection to extreme Tories, and of suspicion and distrust to 
 reasonable Liberals. Yet no rash inference was ever more un- 
 founded and unfalse. It can be proved that, in all the other 
 parts of Mr. Pitt's life, the natural tendency of his favourite 
 plan was uniformly Liberal ; that, at the time of the French 
 Revolution itself, he only did what the immense majority of the 
 English people, even of the cultivated English people, deli- 
 berately desired ; that he did it anxiously, with many mis- 
 givings, and in opposition to his natural inclinations ; that it 
 is very dubious whether, in the temper of the French nation 
 and the temper of the English nation, a war between them 
 could by possibility have been avoided at that juncture ; that, 
 in his administration and under his auspices, the spirit of 
 legislative improvement which characterises modern times may 
 almost be said to begin ; that he was the first English minister 
 who discussed political questions with the cultivated thought- 
 fulness and considerate discretion which seem to characterise 
 us now ; that, in political instruction, he was immeasurably 
 superior to Fox, and that in the practical application of just 
 principles to ordinary events, he was equally superior to Burke. 
 There are two kinds of statesmen to whom, at different 
 times, representative government gives an opportunity and a
 
 William Pitt. 1 1 g 
 
 career dictators and administrators. There are certain men 
 who are called in conjunctures of great danger to save the 
 Stat e. When national peril was imminent, all nations have felt 
 it needful to select the best man who could be found for 
 better, for worse ; to put unlimited trust in him ; to allow 
 him to do whatever he wished, and to leave undone whatever he 
 did not approve of. The qualities which are necessary for a 
 dictator are two a commanding character and an original in- 
 tellect. All other qualities are secondary. Regular industry, a 
 conciliatory disposition, a power of logical exposition, and argu- 
 mentative discussion, which are necessary to a parliamentary 
 statesman in ordinary times, are not essential to the selected 
 dictator of a particular juncture. If he have force of character 
 to overawe men into trusting him, and originality of intellect 
 sufficient to enable him to cope with the pressing, terrible, and 
 critical events with which he is selected to cope, it is enough. 
 Every subordinate shortcoming, every incidental defect, will be 
 pardoned. ' Save us ! ' is the cry of the moment ; and, in the 
 confident hope of safety, any deficiency will be overlooked, and 
 any frailty pardoned. 
 
 The genius requisite for a great administrator is not so 
 imposing, but it is, perhaps, equally rare, and needs a more 
 peculiar combination of qualities. Ordinary administrators are 
 very common : every-day life requires and produces every-day 
 persons. But a really great administrator thinks not only of 
 the day but of the morrow ; does not only what he must but 
 what he wants ; is eager to extirpate every abuse, and on the 
 watch for every improvement ; is on a level with the highest 
 political thought of his time, and persuades his age to be ruled 
 according to it to permit him to embody it in policy and in 
 laws. Administration in this large sense includes legislation, 
 for it is concerned with the far-seeing regulation of future con- 
 duct, as well as with the limited management of the present. 
 Great dictators are doubtless rare in political history ; but they 
 are not more so than great administrators, such as we have just
 
 I2O William Pitt. 
 
 defined them. It is not easy to manage any age ; it is not easy 
 to be on a level with the highest thought of any age ; but to 
 manage that age according to that highest thought is among 
 the most arduous tasks of the world. The intellectual character 
 of a dictator is noble but simple ; that of a great administrator 
 and legislator is also complex. 
 
 The exact description of Mr. Pitt is, that he had in the 
 most complete perfection the faculties of a great administrator, 
 and that he added to it the commanding temperament, though 
 not the creative intellect, of a great dictator. He was tried by 
 long and prosperous years, which exercised to the utmost his 
 peculiar faculties, which enabled him to effect brilliant triumphs 
 of policy and of legislation : he was tried likewise by a terrible 
 crisis, with which he had not the originality entirely to cope, 
 which he did not understand as we understand it now, but in 
 which he showed a hardihood of resolution and a consistency of 
 action which captivated the English people, and which impressed 
 the whole world. 
 
 A very slight survey of Mr. Pitt's career is all we have room 
 for here ; indeed, it is not easy within the compass of an article 
 to make any survey, however slight ; but we hope at least to 
 show that peculiar training, peculiar opportunity, and peculiar 
 ability, combined to make him what he was. 
 
 It may seem silly to observe that Mr. Pitt was the son of 
 his father, and yet there is no doubt that it was a critical 
 circumstance in the formation of his character. When he was 
 born, as Lord Macaulay has described, his father's name was 
 the most celebrated in the whole civilised world ; every post 
 brought the news of some victory or some great stroke of policy, 
 and his imagination dwelt upon the realities before him. ' I 
 am glad I am not the eldest son,' he said. * I should like to 
 speak in the House of Commons, like papa.' And there are 
 other sayings indicating an early ambition and an early con- 
 sciousness of power. There is nothing extraordinary in this. 
 Most boys are conceited ; most boys have a wonderful belief in
 
 William Pitt. 1 2 1 
 
 their own power. ' At sixteen,' says Mr. Disraeli, ' everyone 
 believes he is the most peculiar man who ever lived.' And 
 there is certainly no difficulty in imagining Mr. Disraeli think- 
 ing so. The difficulty is, not to entertain this proud belief, but 
 to keep it ; not to have these lofty visions, but to hold them. 
 Manhood comes, and with it come the plain facts of the world. 
 There is no illusion in them ; they have a distinct teaching. 
 * The world,' they say definitely, 'does not believe in you. You 
 fancy you have a call to a great career, but no one else even 
 imagines that you fancy it. You do not dare to say it out loud.' 
 Before the fear of ridicule and the touch of reality, the illusions 
 of youth pass away, and with them goes all intellectual courage. 
 We have no longer the hardihood, we have scarcely the wish 
 to form our own creed, to think our own thoughts, to act upon 
 our own belief; we try to be sensible, and we end in being 
 ordinary ; we fear to be eccentric, and we end in being com- 
 monplace. It is from this fate that the son of a commanding 
 prime minister is at any rate preserved ; the world thinks about 
 him ; the world alludes to him. He can speak ' in the grand 
 style,' and he will not be laughed at, or not much. When we 
 wonder at the indomitable resolution and the inflexible self- 
 reliance which Mr. Pitt through life displayed, we may lessen 
 our wonder by remembering that he never endured the bitter 
 ignominy of youth; that his self-confidence was never dis- 
 heartened by being ' an unknown man ; ' that he early received 
 from fortune the inestimable permission to be himself. 
 
 The education of Mr. Pitt was as favourable to the develop- 
 ment of his peculiar powers as his position. The public educa- 
 tion of England has very great merits, and is well fitted for the 
 cultivation of the average Englishman; but one at least of the 
 qualities which fit it for training ordinary men unfit it for 
 training an extraordinary man. Its greatest value to the mass 
 of those who are brought up in it, is its influence in diminishing 
 their self-confidence. They are early brought into a little but 
 rough world, which effects on a small scale what the real world
 
 122 William Pitt. 
 
 will afterwards effect still more thoroughly on a large one. It 
 teaches boys, who are no better than other boys, that they are 
 no better than other boys ; that the advantages of one are 
 compensated by the advantages of others ; that the world is a 
 miscellaneous and motley medley, in which it is not easy to 
 conquer, and over which it is impossible to rule. But it is 
 not desirable that a young man in Pitt's position should learn 
 this lesson. If you are to train a man to be prime minister at 
 five and twenty, you must not dishearten his self-confidence, 
 though it be overweening ; you must not tame his energy, 
 though it seem presumptuous. Ordinary men should and must 
 be taught to fear the face of the world ; they are to he guided 
 by its laws and regulated by its manners ; the one exceptional 
 man, who is in his first youth to rule the world, must be trained 
 not to fear it, but despise it. 
 
 The legitimate food of a self-relying nature is early solitude, 
 and the most stimulating solitude is solitude in the midst of 
 society. Mr. Pitt's education was of this kind entirely. He 
 was educated at home during his whole boyhood. He was sent 
 to Cambridge at a most unusually early age. He lived there 
 almost wholly with Mr. Pretyman, his tutor. ' While Mr. Pitt 
 was undergraduate,' writes that gentleman, * he never omitted 
 attending chapel morning and evening in the public hall, 
 except when prevented by indisposition. Nor did he pass a 
 single evening out of the college walls ; indeed, most of his 
 time was spent with me. During his whole residence at the 
 University,' Mr. Pretyman continues, ' I never knew him spend 
 an idle day, nor did he ever fail to attend me at the appointed 
 hour.' He did not make any friends, scarcely any social 
 acquaintances till he had taken his degree. He passed very 
 much of his time, his tutor tells us, in very severe study, and 
 very much of it, as we may easily believe, in the most absorbing 
 of early pleasures the monotonous excitement of ambitious 
 anticipation. On an inferior man, this sort of youth could have 
 had but one effect it must have made him a prig. But it
 
 William Pitt. 12 
 
 had not that effect on Pitt. It contributed to make him a shy, 
 haughty, and inaccessible man. Such he emerged from Cam- 
 bridge, and such he continued through life to be ; but he was 
 preserved from the characteristic degradation of well-inten- 
 tioned and erudite youth by two great counteracting influences, 
 a strong sense of humour and a genuine interest in great 
 subjects. His sense of fun was, indeed, disguised from the 
 vulgar by a rigid mask of grave dignity ; but in private it was 
 his strongest characteristic. ' Don't tell me,' he is said to have 
 remarked, ' of a man's being able to talk sense ; everyone can 
 talk sense ; can he talk nonsense ? ' And Mr. Wilberforce, the 
 most cheerful of human beings, who had seen the most amusing 
 society of his generation, always declared that Pitt's wit was 
 the best which he had ever known. And it was likely to be ; 
 humour gains much by constant suppression, and at no time cf 
 life was Pitt ever wanting in dexterous words. No man who 
 really cares for great things, and who sees the laughable side 
 of little things, ever becomes a ' prig.' 
 
 While at Cambridge likewise Pitt paid, as his tutor tells 
 us, great attention to what are now, in popular estimation, the 
 characteristic studies of the place. His attainments in mathe- 
 matics were probably not much like the elaborate and exact 
 knowledge which the higher wranglers now yearly carry away 
 from the University, but they were considerable for his time, 
 and they comprehended the most instructive part of the subject, 
 the first principles; a vague hope, too, is expressed that he 
 may read Newton's 'Principia' 'after some summer circuit,' 
 which, as we may easily suppose, was not realised. 
 
 Though the tutor's information is not very exact, we may 
 accept his general testimony that Pitt was a good mathemati- 
 cian, according to the academic standing of that day. There is, 
 indeed, strong corroborative evidence of the fact in Mr. Pitt's 
 financial speeches. It is not easy to draw out the evidence 
 in writing, and it would be very tiresome to read the evidence 
 if it were drawn out ; but a skilful observer of the contrast
 
 124 William Pitt. 
 
 between educated and uneducated language will find in Pitt 
 many traces of mathematical studies. Raw argument and 
 common-sense correctness come by nature, but only a prelimi- 
 nary education can give the final edge to accuracy in statement, 
 and the last nicety to polished and penetrating discussion. In 
 later life, the facile use of financial rhetoric was as familiar to 
 Mr. Pitt as to Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 His classical studies were pursued upon a plan suggested 
 by his father, which was certainly well adapted for the par- 
 ticular case, though it would not be good for mankind in gene- 
 ral. A sufficient experience proves that no one can be taught 
 any language thoroughly and accurately except by composition 
 in it ; and Mr. Pitt had apparently never practised any sort 
 of composition in Greek or Latin, whether verse or prose. But, 
 for the purpose of disciplining a student in his own language, 
 the reverse practice of translating from the classical languages 
 is the best single expedient which has ever been made use of. 
 And to this Mr. Pitt was trained by his father from early boy- 
 hood. He was taught to read off the classics into the best 
 English he could find, never inserting a word with which he 
 was not satisfied, but waiting till he found one with which he 
 was satisfied. By constant practice he became so ready that 
 he never stopped at all; the right word always presented itself 
 immediately. When he was asked in later life, how he had 
 acquired the mellifluous abundance of appropriate language 
 with which he amazed and charmed the House of Commons, it 
 was to this suggestion of his father that he at once imputed it. 
 
 To the probably unconscious influence of the same in- 
 structor we may asciibe his early interest in parliamentary 
 conflict. We have before quoted the naive expression of his 
 boyish desire to be in the House of Commons. There is a still 
 more curious story of him in very early youth. It is said, ' He 
 was introduced, on the steps of the throne in the House of 
 Lords, to Mr. Fox, who was his senior by ten years, and already 
 in the fulness of his fame. Fox used afterwards to relate that,
 
 William Pitt. 125 
 
 as the discussion proceeded, Pitt repeatedly turned to him and 
 said, " But surely, Mr. Fox, that might be met thus ; " or, 
 " Yes, but he lays himself open to retort." What the par- 
 ticular criticisms were, Fox had forgotten ; but he said that he 
 was much struck at the time by the precocity of a lad who 
 through the whole sitting was thinking only how all the 
 speeches on both sides could be answered.' 
 
 Nor were his political studies confined to the studious cul- 
 tivation of oratorical language, or to a thorough acquisition of 
 the art of argumentative fence : he attended also to the sub- 
 stance of political science. He was the first great English 
 statesman who read, understood, and valued the ' Wealth of Na- 
 tions.' Fox had * no great opinion of those reasonings ; ' and the 
 doctrines of free trade, though present, like all great political 
 ideas, to the overflowing mind of Burke, were, like all his ideas, 
 at the daily mercy of his eager passions and his intense and 
 vivid imagination. Mr. Pitt, as it would seem, while still at 
 college, acquired and arranged them with the collected con- 
 sistency which was the characteristic of his mind. So thorough 
 a training, in the superficial accomplishments, the peculiar 
 associations, and the abstract studies of political life, has not 
 perhaps fallen to the lot of any other English Statesman. 
 
 Nor was the political opportunity of Mr. Pitt at all inferior 
 to his political training. The history of the first twenty years 
 of the reign of George III. is a history of his struggles with 
 the aristocratic proprietors of parliamentary boroughs. Neither 
 the extension of the power of the Crown, nor the maintenance 
 of the political ascendency of the Whig families, was very 
 popular with the nation at large ; the popular element in the 
 constitution was for the most part neutral in the conflict ; it 
 reserved the greater part of its influence for objects more inte- 
 resting to itself; but between the two parties, between the 
 Crown and the great borough proprietors, the strife was eager, 
 intense, and unremitting. 
 
 As the present writer has elsewhere explained, the situation
 
 126 William Pitt. 
 
 in which a constitutional king was placed under the old system 
 of an unreformed Parliament was more than an energetic man 
 could endure. According to the theory of that government, 
 the patronage of the Crown was to be used to purchase votes 
 in Parliament, and to maintain a parliamentary majority by 
 constant bargains with borough proprietors. 
 
 But who is to use the patronage ? The theory assumes that it is 
 to be used by the minister of the day. According to it, the head of 
 the party which is predominant in Parliament is to employ the 
 patronage of the Crown for the purpose of confirming that predomi- 
 nance. But suppose that the Crown chooses to object to this ; suppose 
 that the King for the time being should say, ' This patronage is mine ; 
 the places in question are places in my service ; the pensions in question 
 are pensions from me. I will myself have at least some share in the 
 influence that is acquired by the conferring of those pensions and the 
 distribution of those places.' George III. actually did say this. 
 He was a king in, one respect among a thousand ; he was willing to 
 do the work of a Secretary of the Treasury ; his letters for very many 
 years are filled with the petty details of patronage ; he directed who 
 should have what, and stipulated who should not have anything 
 This interference of the King must evidently in theory, and did certainly 
 in fact, destroy the efficiency of the alleged expedient. Yery much of 
 the patronage of the Crown went, not to the adherents of the prime 
 minister, because they were his adherents, but to the King's friends, 
 because they were his friends. Many writers have been very severe 
 on George III. for taking the course which he did take, and have 
 frequently repeated the well-known maxims, which show that what 
 he did was a deviation from the constitution. Very likely it was ; but 
 what is the use of a constitution which takes no account of the 
 ordinary motives of human nature? It was inevitable that an 
 ambitious king, who had industry enough to act as he did, would so 
 act. Let us consider his position. He was invested with authority 
 which was apparently great. He was surrounded by noblemen and 
 gentlemen who passed their life in paying him homage, and in pro- 
 fessing perhaps excessive doctrines of loyal obedience to him. When 
 the Duke of Devonshire, or the Duke of Bedford, or the Duke of 
 Newcastle, approached the royal closet, they implied by words and 
 manner that he had immeasurably more power than they had. In 
 fact, it was expected that he should have immeasurably less. It was 
 expected that, though these noblemen daily acknowledged that he wa?
 
 William Pitt. 127 
 
 their superior, he should constantly act as if he were their inferior. 
 The prime minister was in reality appointed by them, and it was ex- 
 pected that the King should do what the prime minister told him : 
 that he should assent to measures on which he was not consulted ; that 
 he should make peace when Mr. Grenville said peace was right ; that 
 he should make war whenever Mr. Grenville said war was right ; 
 that he should allow the offices of his household and the dignities of 
 his court to be used as a means for the support of cabinets whose 
 members he disliked, and whose policy he disapproved of. It is 
 evident that no man who was not imbecile would be content with 
 such a position. It is not difficult to bear to be without power, it is 
 not very difficult to bear to have only the mockery of power ; but it 
 is unbearable to have real power, and to be told that you must con- 
 tent yourself with the mockery of it ; it is unendurable to have in 
 your hands an effectual instrument of substantial influence, and also 
 to act day by day as a pageant, without any influence whatever. 
 Human nature has never endured this, and we may be quite sure that 
 it never will endure it. It is a fundamental error in the ' esoteric 
 theory ' of the Tory party, that it assumed the King and the prime 
 minister to be always of the same mind, while they often were of 
 different minds. 1 
 
 By a series of stratagems Greorge III. at last obtained, in 
 the person of Lord North, a minister who combined a sufficient 
 amount of Parliamentary support with an unlimited devotion 
 to the royal pleasure. He was a minister of great ability, great 
 parliamentary tact, unbounded good humour, and no firmness. 
 He yielded everything to the intense, eager, petty incisiveness 
 of his sovereign. The King was the true minister for all pur- 
 poses of policy and business. Lord North was only the talking 
 minister of the present French Assemblies, who is bound to 
 explain and to defend measures which he did not suggest, and 
 about which he was not consulted. 
 
 It is difficult to say how long Lord North's Government 
 might not have continued, if it had not been for the military 
 calamities of the American war. That war had been very 
 popular at its commencement, and continued popular as long 
 
 1 History of the Unrcformed Parliament, and its lessons. An essay, pub- 
 lished in 1868, p. 28.
 
 128 William Pitt. 
 
 as it was likely to be successful : it became unpopular as soon 
 as it was likely to fail. The merchants began to murmur at 
 the stoppage of trade. The country gentlemen began to mur- 
 mur at the oppressive burden of war-taxes. The nation began 
 to reconsider its opinion as to the justice of the 1 quarrel, as 
 soon as it appeared that our military efforts would probably be 
 disastrous. Lord North shared in these feelings ; he did not 
 believe the war would succeed; no longer hoped it would 
 succeed ; no longer thought that there was any motive for con- 
 tinuing to carry it on, but for several years he did continue to 
 carry it on. The will of Greorge III. was a very efficient force 
 on everyone just about him, and his personal ascendancy over 
 many men intellectually far his superiors is a curious example 
 of the immense influence of a distinct judgment and inflexible 
 decision, with fair abilities and indefatigable industry, and 
 placed in a close contact with great men and great affairs. 
 
 At length, in March, 1782, the calamitous issue of the 
 American war became too evident, and Lord North resigned. 
 Lord Holland gives us a curious history of the mode in which he 
 announced to the House that he was no longer prime minister. 
 
 I have heard my uncle Fitzpatrick give a very diverting account 
 of the scene that passed in the House of Commons on the day of 
 Lord North's resignation, which happened to be a remarkably cold 
 day with a fall of snow. A motion of Lord Surrey's for the dismissal 
 of ministers, stood for that day, and the Whigs were anxious that it 
 should come on before the resignation of Lord North was officially 
 announced, that his removal from office might be more manifestly 
 and formally the act of the House of Commons. He and Lord 
 Surrey rose at the same instant. After much clamour, disorder, and 
 some insignificant speeches on order, Mr. Fox, with great quickness 
 and address, moved, as the most regular method of extricating the 
 House from its embarrassment, ' That Lord Surrey be now heard.' But 
 Lord North, with yet more admirable presence of mind, mixed witli 
 pleasantry, rose immediately and said, 'I rise to speak to that 
 motion ; ' and, as his reason for opposing it, stated his resignation and 
 the dissolution of the Ministry. The House, satisfied, became 
 impatient, and after some ineffectual efforts of speakers on both sides 
 to procure a hearing, an adjournment took place. Snow was falling,
 
 William Pitt. 129 
 
 and the nighb tremendous. All the members' carriages were dismissed, 
 ani Mr.-i. Banner's room at th3 door was crowded. But Lord North's 
 carriaga was waiting. He put into it one or two of his friends, whom 
 he had invited to gj h;>m3 with him, and turning to the crowd, 
 chiefly composed of his bitter enemies, in the midst of their triumph, 
 exclaimed, in this hour of defeat and supposed mortification, with 
 admirable good humour and pleasantry, ' I have my carriage. You 
 see, gentlemen, the advantage of being in the secret. Good-night.' 
 
 Such acquiescent bonhomie is admirable, no doubt; but 
 easy good-nature is no virtue for a man of action, least of 
 all for a practical politician in critical times. It was Lord 
 North's 'happy tempsr' which first made him the mean slave 
 of Cfeorge III., which afterwards induced him to ally himself 
 with the most virulent assailants of that monarch, and, at a 
 preceding period, of himself. 
 
 When Lord North resigned, it was natural that the leaders 
 of the Opposition should come at once into predominant power ; 
 but a ministerial crisis in the early part of Greorgs III.'s reign 
 was never permitted to proceed in what is now fixed as the 
 constitutional etiquette. The King always interfered with it. 
 On this occasion, the only political party who could take office 
 was that which, under the judicious guidance of Lord Kocking- 
 ham, and supported by the unequalled oratory of Fox and 
 Burke, had consistently opposed the American war. But the 
 leaders of this party were personally disliked by Gfeorge III. 
 Lord Kockingham he had once before called * one of the most 
 insignificant nobleman in my service.' Mr. Fox, from a curious 
 combination of causes, he hated. Accordingly, though it was 
 necessary for him to treat with Lord Kockingham and his 
 friends, he did not treat with them directly. He employed as 
 an intermediate agent Lord Shelburne, the father of the present 
 Marquis of Lansdowne, a politician whom it is not difficult to 
 describe, but whom it is difficult really to understand. Police- 
 men tell us that there is such a character as a ' reputed thief,' 
 who has never been convicted of any particular act of thievery. 
 
 K
 
 William Pitt. 
 
 Lord Shelburne was precisely that character in political life ; 
 everyone always said he was dishonest, but no particular act of 
 dishonesty has ever been brought home to him. It is not for 
 us now to discuss the dubious peculiarities of so singular a 
 character. But it will be admitted, that it was a most unfor- 
 tunate one for conducting the delicate personal negotiations 
 inevitable on the formation of a cabinet, and that it specially 
 unfitted the person believed to possess it to be a good go- 
 between between a King who hated the Opposition and an 
 Opposition who distrusted the King. The inevitable result 
 followed : every member of the incoming party was displeased 
 with the King ; everyone disbelieved the assertions of Lord 
 Shelburne ; everyone distrusted the solidity of a ministry con- 
 structed in a manner so anomalous. A ministry, however, was 
 constructed, of which Lord Shelburne and Lord Rockingham 
 were both members ; and both, Mr. Fox said, intended to be 
 prime ministers. 
 
 Lord Rockingham must evidently have been a man of very 
 fine and delicate judgment. He could not speak in the House 
 of Lords, and his letters are rather awkwardly expressed ; but 
 those who compare the history of the Whig party for some 
 years before his death with the history of that party for some 
 years after it, and those who compare the career of Burke for 
 the same two periods, will perceive that both over the turbu- 
 lence of the great party and the turbulence of the great orator 
 the same almost invisible discretion exercised a guiding and 
 restraining control. After Lord Rockingham's death, both 
 the Whig party and Mr. Burke committed great errors and fell 
 into lamentable excesses, which were entirely unlike anything 
 which happened while he was yet alive. If he had been per- 
 mitted to exercise a composing influence, it is possible that the 
 ministry we have described might have lasted ; but, unfortu- 
 nately, within three months after its formation he fell ill and 
 died. Mr. Fox, who had just been quarrelling with Lord Shel- 
 burne, refused to serve under him and sent in his resignation;
 
 William Pitt. 131 
 
 and his example was followed by Burke, and by most of the 
 followers of Lord Kockingham. 
 
 Lord Shelburne, however, still intended to be prime min- 
 ister. The King was in his favour. The Whigs had no great 
 aristocratic leader. The Duke of Portland, who was put for- 
 ward as such, had no powers of speech and but feeble powers of 
 thought. There was no difference of political opinion which 
 need have separated any Whig from Shelburne. He was there- 
 fore justified in hoping that if he persevered, he might rally 
 round him in no long time the greater portion of the Whig party, 
 notwithstanding the secession of its present leaders. He doubt- 
 less hoped also, by taking advantage of the various influences 
 of the Crown, to attach to himself very many of the followers 
 of Lord North, who were the old adherents of the Crown. But 
 these were anticipations only. For the moment he was more 
 completely separated from the parliamentary ability of his age 
 than any minister has since been. He came into office in op- 
 position to Lord North and one great party ; he remained in 
 office in opposition to Fox and Burke, the leaders of the other 
 great party. The trained leaders of the old Ministry and the 
 trained leaders of the old Opposition were both opposed to him. 
 If he decided to remain prime minister, it was necessary for 
 him to take some bold step. He did so. He made Mr. Pitt 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer and the leader of the House of 
 Commons, though he was but twenty-three. 
 
 Such singular good fortune has never happened to any 
 English statesman since parliamentary government in this 
 country has been consolidated into its present form, and it is 
 very unlikely that anything like it can ever happen again. 
 Perhaps no man of twenty-three could get through the quan- 
 tity of work that is now required to fill the two offices of 
 Finance Minister and leader of the House of Commons. In 
 Pitt's time the Chancellor of the Exchequer (he himself tells 
 us) needed no private secretary ; he had no business requiring 
 any. The Leader of the House of Commons did not even 
 
 K2
 
 132 William Pitt. 
 
 require one-tenth part of the ready available miscellaneous in- 
 formation which he must now have at his command, and most 
 of which cannot be learned from any books. To fill the offices 
 which Mr. Pitt filled at twenty-three, it would in this age be 
 necessary that a man should have a trained faculty of trans- 
 acting business rapidly, which no man of twenty-three can 
 have; and that he should have also a varied knowledge of 
 half a hundred subjects, which no college can teach, and which 
 no book of reference will ever contain. Mr. Pitt, however, met 
 with no difficulty. Though the finances of the country had 
 been disordered by the American War, and though the ministry 
 was daily assailed by the dexterous good-humour of Lord North 
 and the vehement invectives of Fox and Burke, ' the boy,' as 
 they called him, was successful in his Budget, and successful in 
 his management of the House of Commons. It soon, however, 
 became evident that Lord Shelburne's ministry could not stand 
 long. There were three parties in the House, and a coalition 
 of any two was sufficient to outnumber any one. According to 
 a calculation preserved in a letter from Gibbon, everything de- 
 pended on the decision of Mr. Fox. If he returned to the 
 Government, it would be strong ; if he allied himself with Lord 
 North, it must fail. He did ally himself with Lord North, and 
 Lord Shelburne resigned. 
 
 The coalition between Fox and Lord North is not defended 
 even by Lord John Russell, who defends almost every act in 
 the political life of his great hero. Indeed, it was not likely 
 that he would defend it ; for to it we owe the almost unbroken 
 subjection of the Whigs, and the almost unbroken reign of the 
 Tories, for five and twenty years. 
 
 No political alliance in English history has been more 
 unpopular than this coalition. For once the King and the 
 people were on the same side, and that side the right side. 
 During by far the greater part of his reign the wishes of 
 George III. were cither opposed to the wishes of his people, 
 or the wishes of the two, though identical, were pernicious.
 
 William Pitt. 133 
 
 During the first part of his reign his attempts to increase the 
 royal influence were generally unpopular ; during the latter 
 part, he and his people were both favourable to the American 
 War and to the French War, with what result history shows. 
 But at the period at which we are speaking, both the prominent 
 prejudices of the King and the deepest feelings of the people 
 were offended by the same event. The Coalition deeply an- 
 noyed the King. It was hateful to him that his favourite. 
 Lord North, who had been his confidential minister for years, 
 who was enriched with the marks of his bounty and good-will, 
 who was the leader of many politicians, always biassed in 
 favour of the Crown, and always anxious to support its in- 
 fluence, if they could, should after all ally himself with Mr. 
 Fox, who had opposed the Crown for years ; who had called 
 its latent influence ' an infernal spirit ; ' who was the leader 
 of the party opposed to the American War, and therefore, in 
 the King's view, of the party which had advocated treason and 
 abetted the disruption of the empire ; who, worse than all, was 
 the companion and encourager of the Prince of Wales in every 
 species of dissipation; who introduced him to haunts and 
 countenanced him in habits which made the very heart of an 
 economical and decorous monarch horrified and angry : who at 
 that very moment was endeavouring to make ' capital,' as we 
 should now say, out of the political prospects and present in- 
 fluence of his profligate associate. George III. used to call the 
 * coalition ministry ' his ' son's ministry : ' and he could not 
 embody his detestation of it in terms more expressive, to those 
 who knew their meaning. On the other hand, the people were 
 not unnaturally offended also. The Coalition brought into 
 very clear prominence the most characteristic weakness of our 
 unreformed constitution. Though it professed to be, and 
 really was, a popular constitution, the people could not be 
 induced to believe that they had much concern in it. The 
 members chosen by popular election were a minority; those no- 
 minated by aristocratic and indirect influence were a majority.
 
 134 William Pitt. 
 
 Accordingly most men believed, or were prone to believe, that 
 the struggles in Parliament were faction-lights for place and 
 power ; that the interest of the nation had little to do with 
 them, or nothing ; that they were contests for political power, 
 and for the rich pecuniary rewards which influential office 
 then conferred. The Coalition seemed to prove that this was 
 so even to demonstration. If there ever had been a bona fide, 
 and not a simulated, struggle in Parliament, it was the struggle 
 between Fox and Lord North. They had opposed one another 
 for years ; Fox had heaped on Lord North every term of in- 
 vective, opprobrium, and contempt ; Lord North had said 
 everything which a good-natured and passive man could say in 
 reply. They had taken different sides both on the obvious 
 question which had been the dividing and critical one of the 
 last few years, and on the latent question which was the real 
 one underlying the greater part of the controversies of the age 
 and giving to them most of their importance. Lord North was 
 the great parliamentary advocate of the American War ; Fox 
 was its most celebrated and effective opponent. Lord North 
 was the most decent agent, and the most successful co-operator, 
 whom Greorge III. had yet found in his incessant policy of 
 maintaining and augmenting the power of the Crown. Fox 
 was known to be opposed to that policy with all his mind, soul, 
 and strength ; he was known to have heaped upon that policy 
 every bitter term of contempt, opprobrium, and execration 
 which the English language contains ; he was known to have 
 incurred the bitter hatred of George III. by so doing. With 
 these facts before them, what could the nation infer when they 
 saw these two statesmen combine for the evident purpose of 
 obtaining immediate office ? They could only say what they 
 did. They said at once that the Coalition must be dishonest if 
 the previous opposition had been real, and that the coalescing 
 statesmen were utterly untrustworthy if that opposition had 
 been simulated. 
 
 The government of the Coalition was not, however, destined
 
 William Pitt. 
 
 to be durable. George III. was a dangerous man to drive to 
 extremity. Though without great creative ability, he had dex- 
 terous powers of political management, cultivated by long habit 
 and experience ; he had an eager obstinacy allied to the obsti- 
 nacy of insanity; it was not safe to try him too far. The 
 Coalition Government, however, tried him as far as it was 
 possible. They framed an India Bill, giving the patronage of 
 India to commissioners, to be from time to time nominated by 
 Parliament, to be irremovable by the Crown, the first of whom 
 were to be nominated by themselves. The King was enraged 
 at a scheme so injurious to his secret influence. He considered 
 that it was a scheme for enabling Mr. Fox to buy votes in 
 Parliament. Lord Fitzwilliam, his intimate political friend, 
 was to be at the head of the new Board ; and it was expected, 
 perhaps intended, that the Board should be an independent 
 instrument of parliamentary power at the service of the aristo- 
 cratic Whigs, and in daily opposition to the influence of the 
 Crown to that personal influence which George III. had all 
 his life been hoarding and acquiring. The people were almost 
 as much enraged at the scheme as the King himself. They 
 thought that the politicians who had just formed a corrupt 
 coalition to obtain office were now providing a corrupt expe- 
 dient for retaining that office. 'Being dishonest themselves,' 
 it was said, ' they are providing themselves with the means of 
 purchasing the votes of others who are dishonest likewise.' 
 The exact value of these accusations we have not space to esti- 
 mate now ; something might certainly be said in extenuation, 
 if it were needful, but at the time the popular feeling was 
 powerfully excited by them ; they were expressed by Pitt with 
 marvellous force and marvellous variety, and re-echoed through 
 the nation. 
 
 The parliamentary influence of the Coalition Government 
 which was supported by the greater part of the borough pro- 
 prietors, both Whig and Tory, was, however, sufficient to carry 
 their India Bill through the House of Commons by majorities
 
 136 William Pitt. 
 
 which would now be considered very large. It reached the 
 House of Lords, and would have passed that House too, if 
 George III. had not taken one of the most curious steps in 
 our constitutional history. He wrote on a card : ' His Majesty 
 allowed Earl Temple to say that whoever voted for the India 
 Bill was not only not his friend, but would be considered by 
 him as an enemy ; and if these words were not strong enough, 
 Earl Temple might use whatever words he might deem stronger 
 and more to the purpose.' 
 
 Such was the influence of the Crown, such was especially 
 the personal influence which George III. had acquired by 
 steady industry and incessant attention to the personsalties of 
 politics, that the fate of the India Bill in the Lords very soon 
 became dubious. 'The bishops wavered;' the staunchest fol- 
 lowers of Lord North especially, being high Tories, became 
 uncertain ; and in the end the Bill was rejected by a majority 
 of ninety-five over seventy-six. 
 
 Nor did the King's active influence stop here. The Coalition 
 Ministry did not resign ; although their principal measure had 
 been rejected in the Lords, they kept their places; they in- 
 duced the House of Commons to resolve that it was a breach 
 of the privilege of Parliament to attempt to influence votes in 
 either House by announcing ' any opinion or pretended opinion 
 of his Majesty.' The Ministry was passive in its place ; but 
 George III. was never deterred by minor difficulties. He sent 
 his commands at midnight to Mr. Fox and Lord North to 
 deliver up the seals of office, and to send them by their under- 
 secretaries, as he must decline to see them in person. By (his 
 parliamentary coup d'etat he broke up an administration which, 
 though unpopular in the country, was supported by the ' great 
 owners' of parliamentary influence and an overwhelming ma- 
 jority in the House of Commons. 
 
 But who was to come in ? That the King could turn out 
 the old ministry was very clear, for he had done so ; but that 
 he could form a ministry that could last in such circumstances
 
 William Pitt. 137 
 
 seemed unlikely ; that he could form any ministry at all was 
 not evident. Political expectation was very eager. As soon as 
 the House met on the day after the midnight dismissal, a new 
 writ was moved for the borough of Appleby, ' in the room of 
 the Right Honourable William Pitt, who, since his election, 
 has accepted the office of First Lord of the Treasury and Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer.' The announcement was received 
 with laughter, for it seemed unlikely that an ambitious boy 
 (such was the speech of the time) should be able to carry on 
 the government, and to lead the House of Commons in the 
 face of an adverse majority, in direct opposition to the most 
 experienced statesmen, the most practised debaters, and the 
 most skilful manoeuvrers of his age. 
 
 Mr. Pitt was only twenty-five, and he had no one to rely 
 on. Mr. Dundas was a useful subordinate and an efficient 
 man of business, but he was not a great statesman or a great 
 orator, and he was a Scotch adventurer. In the Lords, Mr. Pitt 
 was confident of the support of Lord Temple, who had effected 
 the defeat of the India Bill by the use of the King's name ; but 
 Lord Temple wanted to be paid. He had great borough con- 
 nections, which gave him permanent claims on every govern- 
 ment ; he had just turned out the old government, which gave 
 him a peculiar claim upon the favour of the new. He asked 
 for a dukedom, and was refused. The King thought he had 
 asked too much, and perhaps believed that it would be most 
 dangerous at that critical moment to give the highest of hono- 
 rary rewards to the principal agent in an alarming act of royal 
 influence. At any rate, the application was declined, and Lord 
 Temple resigned. Mr. Pitt was thus left almost alone. His 
 cabinet consisted but of seven persons, and he himself was 
 the only member of the House of Commons among those seven. 
 Everybody expected that Parliament would be immediately 
 dissolved. As Mr. Pitt was evidently in a minority in the House 
 of Commons which then existed, it was confidently believed that 
 he would at once see whether he would not have a majority in
 
 William Pitt. 
 
 a new House of Commons. He was too wary, however, to do 
 so. In that age, public opinion formed itself slowly and declared 
 itself slowly. The nation, as far as it had an opinion, was in 
 favour of the new administration ; but in many parts of the 
 country there was no opinion. Delay was in favour of the side 
 which had the advantage in telling argument ; and so strong 
 were the objections of reasonable and moderate men to the 
 coalition between Fox and Lord North so entirely was their 
 India Bill interpreted by the help of that connection, and 
 regarded in its relation to it that every day's discussion made 
 converts. The members for close boroughs, and for counties 
 in which individual interest predominated, were, it is true, a 
 majority in the House of Commons, and they adhered for the 
 most part to the Coalition. But the strength so obtained was 
 always weak at a trying crisis. The same influences acted on 
 the borough proprietors which acted upon others, and they 
 never liked to be opposed to the national will when it was 
 distinctly declared. Nor had the extreme partizans of either 
 party ever liked the coalition of the two parties. The warmest 
 Whigs were alienated from Fox, and the strongest Tories were 
 alienated from Lord North. The majority of Fox began to 
 waver, and the minority of Pitt began to augment. Every 
 division showed a tendency in the same direction. Pitt main- 
 tained the struggle with dauntless courage, and unbounded 
 dialectical dexterity, against all the orators, in the House of 
 Commons. The event began to be doubtful. In the unre- 
 forrned Parliament no more was necessary. A large section of 
 every part was attached to it by the hope of patronage ; it had 
 been bought by promises of that patronage. As the present 
 writer has elsewhere explained, the strength so obtained was 
 unstable. 
 
 It especially failed at the moment at which it was especially 
 wanted. A majority in Parliament which is united by a sincere 
 opinion, and is combined to carry out that opinion, is in some sense 
 secure. As long as that opinion is unchanged, it will remain ; it can
 
 Pitt. 139 
 
 only be destroyed by weakening the conviction which, binds it to- 
 gether. A majority which is obtained by the employment of patron- 
 age is very different ; it is combined mainly by an expectation. Sir 
 Kobert "Walpole, the great master in the art of dispensing patronage, 
 denned gratitude as an anticipation of future favours ; he meant that 
 the majority which maintained his administration was collected, not 
 by recollection, but by hope ; they thought not so much of favours 
 which were past as of favours which were to come. At a critical 
 moment this bond of union was ordinarily weak. 1 
 
 As soon as it seemed likely that Mr. Pitt would be victorious, 
 the selfish part of the followers of the Coalition a very large 
 part began to go over to Mr. Pitt. The last motion of Mr. Fox 
 was carried by a majority of one. 
 
 Mr. Pitt then saw that his time had come; he dissolved 
 Parliament, and his triumph was complete. The popular feeling 
 was overwhelming. It prevailed even in the strongholds of the 
 Whig aristocracy. * Thus in Norfolk,' says Lord Stanhope, ' the 
 late member had been Mr. Coke, lord of the vast domains of 
 Holkham, a gentleman who, according to his own opinion, as 
 stated in his address to the county, had played " a distinguished 
 part " in opposing the American war. But notwithstanding his 
 alleged claims of distinction, and his much more certain claims 
 of property, Mr. Coke found it necessary to decline the contest.' 
 But of all the contests of this period, the most important in 
 that/ point of view was for the county of York. That great 
 county, not yet at election times severed into Hidings, had 
 been under the sway of the Whig Houses. Bolton Abbey, 
 Castle Howard, and Wentworth Park had claimed the right to 
 dictate at the hustings. It was not till 1780 that the spirit 
 of the country rose. ' Hitherto ' so in that year spoke Sir 
 George Savile ' I have been elected in Lord Rockingham's 
 dining-room. Now I am returned by my constituents.' And 
 in 1784 the spirit of the country rose higher still. In 1784 the 
 independent freeholders of Yorkshire boldly confronted the 
 great houses, and insisted on returning, in conjunction with 
 1 History of the Unreformed Parliament, and its Lezxons, p. 29.
 
 140 William Pitt. 
 
 the heir of Buncombe Park, a banker's son, of lew years and 
 of scarcely tried abilities, though destined to a high place in 
 his country's annals Mr. Wilberforce. With the help of the 
 country gentlemen, they raised the vast sum of 18,662. for the 
 expense of the election ; and so great was their show of num- 
 bers and of resolution, that the candidates upon the other side 
 did not venture to stand a contest. Wilberforce was also 
 returned at the head of the poll by his former constituents at 
 Hull. * I can never congratulate you enough on such glorious 
 success,' wrote the Prime Minister to his young friend. One 
 hundred and sixty followers of Mr. Fox lost their seats, and 
 were called * Fox's martyrs.' The majority for Pitt in the new 
 Parliament was complete, overwhelming, and enthusiastic. 
 
 The constitutional aspect of the events of 1784 has been 
 much discussed, and well merits discussion. It is certain that 
 George III. did much that was, according to the good notions 
 now fixedly established, thoroughly unconstitutional ; it is cer- 
 tain that scarcely anyone will, upon any constitutional doctrines, 
 new or old, defend the ' card ' displayed by Lord Temple. But, 
 if we had room to argue the subject, we think it might be shown 
 that it would have been inexpedient to apply, in the year 1784, 
 the strict constitutional maxims on which we should act in the 
 year 1861 ; that the beneficial relations, and that the inevitable 
 relations of the Parliament and the Crown, were different then 
 from what they are now ; that, under such an aristocratic legis- 
 lature as the unreformed Parliament principally was, it was 
 needful that the Crown should sometimes intervene, when the 
 opinion of Parliament was opposed to the opinion of the people ; 
 that, in times when public opinion was formed but slowly, it 
 was advisable that the Crown should do so, not by an instant 
 dissolution of the House of Commons, as we should now exact, 
 but by a deferred dissolution, which would enable the thinking 
 part of the community to reflect, and give the whole country, 
 far and near, time to form a real judgment. 
 
 But, at present, we have to deal with the events of 1784,
 
 William Pitt 141 
 
 not in their relation to the constitution of England, but in 
 their relation to the life of Mr. Pitt. They were the completion 
 of his opportunity. But a short time previously the political 
 isolation of Lord Shelburne had made him Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer at a boyish age ; the isolation of George III. now 
 made him prime minister while still very young. The first 
 good fortune would have been a marvel in the life of any other 
 man, but was nothing to the marvel of the second. By a 
 strange course of great incidents, he was in the most command- 
 ing position which an English subject has ever occupied since 
 parliamentary government was thoroughly established in the 
 country. The victory was so complete, that the mercenaries of 
 the enemy had deserted to his standard. The Crown was ne- 
 cessarily on his side, for he alone stood between Greorge III. 
 and the hated Coalition, which he had discarded and insulted ; 
 the people were on his side, from a hatred of the official cor- 
 ruption of which they considered his opponents to be the 
 representatives and the embodiments, from a firm belief in his 
 true integrity, from a proud admiration of his single-handed 
 courage and audacious self-reliance. He had the power to do 
 what he would. 
 
 Nor was this all. The opportunity was not only a great 
 opportunity, but was an opportunity in the hands of a young 
 man. Half of our greatest statesmen would have been wholly 
 unprepared for it. When Lord Palmerston was in office in the 
 spring of 1857 with a large majority, a shrewd observer, now 
 no longer among us, siid, ' Well, it is a large majority ; but 
 what is he to do with it ? ' He did not know himself ; by 
 paltry errors and frivolous haughtiness he frittered it away 
 immediately. An old man of the world has no great objects, 
 no telling enthusiasm, no large proposals, no noble reforms ; 
 his advice is that of the old banker, ' Live, sir, from day to day, 
 and don't trouble yourself ! ' Years of acquiescing in proposals 
 as to which he has not been consulted, of voting for measures 
 which hs did not frame, and in the wisdom of which he often
 
 142 William Pitt. 
 
 did not believe, of arguing for proposals from half of which he 
 dissents usually de-intellectualise a parliamentary statesman 
 before he comes to half his power. From all this Pitt was 
 exempt. He came to great power with a fresh mind. And 
 not only so ; he came into power with the cultivated thought 
 of a new generation. Too many of us scarcely remember how 
 young a man he was. He was born in 1759, and might have 
 well been in the vigour of life in 1830. Lord Sidmouth, his 
 contemporary, did not die till after 1840 ; he was younger 
 than his cousin, Mr. Thomas Grrenville, who long represented 
 in London society the traditions of the past, and who died in 
 1846. He governed men of the generation before him. Alone 
 among English statesmen, while yet a youth he was governing 
 middle-aged men. He had the power of applying the eager 
 thought of five and twenty, of making it rule over the petty 
 knowledge and trained acquiescence of five and fifty. Alone 
 as yet, and alone perhaps for ever in our parliamentary his- 
 tory, while his own mind was still original, while his own 
 spirit was still unbroken, he was able to impose an absolute 
 yoke on acquiescent spirits whom the world had broken for 
 him. 
 
 We have expanded so much space on a delineation of the 
 peculiar opportunities which Mr. Pitt enjoyed, that we must be 
 very concise in showing how he used them. Three subjects 
 then needed the attention of a great statesman, though none of 
 them were so pressing as to force themselves on the attention 
 of a little statesman. These were, our economical and financial 
 legislation, the imperfection of our parliamentary representa- 
 tion, and the unhappy condition of Ireland. Pitt dealt with 
 all three. 
 
 Our economical legislation was partly in an uncared-for 
 state, and partly in an ill-cared-for state. Our custom laws 
 were a chaos of confusion. Innumerable Acts of Parliament 
 had been passed on temporary occasions and for temporary 
 purposes ; blunders had been discovered in them ; other Acts
 
 William Pitt. 143 
 
 were passed to amend those blunders ; those other Acts con- 
 tained other blunders ; new corrective legislation was required, 
 and here too there were errors, omissions, and imperfections. 
 And in so far as our economical legislation was based upon a 
 theory, that theory was a very mistaken one ; it was the theory 
 of Protection. The first duty of the English Legislature, it 
 was believed, was to develop English industry and to injure 
 foreign industry. Our manufactures, it was thought, could be 
 made better by Acts of Parliament ; the manufactures of our 
 rivals, it was believed, could be made worse. The industry of 
 the nation worked in a complicated network of fetters and 
 bonds. 
 
 Mr. Pitt applied himself vigorously to this chaos. He 
 brought in a series of resolutions consolidating our customs 
 laws, of which the inevitable complexity may be estimated by 
 their number. They amounted to 133, and the number of 
 Acts of Parliament which they restrained or completed was 
 much greater. He attempted, and successfully, to apply the 
 principles of Free Trade, the principles which he was the first 
 of English statesmen to learn from Adam Smith, to the actual 
 commerce of the country, and to the part of our commerce 
 which afforded the greatest temptations to a philosophic states- 
 men, and presented the greatest accumulation of irritable and 
 stupid prejudice. France and England were near one another, 
 but had no trade with one another; no such trade at least as 
 two countries so different in soil, in climate, and in natural 
 aptitude, ought to have. So far from either nation much wish- 
 ing to trade with the other, neither wished to depend on the 
 other for anything. The national dignity was supposed to 
 be compromised by buying from an ancient rival. Mr. Pitt, 
 however, framed a treaty which, if its consequences had not 
 been swept away with so much else, both good and evil, in 
 the European storm of the French Kevolution, would have 
 been quoted as the true commencement of free-trade legisla- 
 tion ; would havg been referred to as we now refer to the ten-
 
 144 William Pitt. 
 
 tative reforms of Huskisson, and to the earlier budgets of Sir 
 Robert Peel. So little was the subject then understood, even 
 by those most likely to understand it, that both Fox and Burke 
 opposed the treaty with virulence and vehemence ; declaring 
 that France was our natural enemy, and that it was unworthy 
 of anyone who pretended to be a statesman to create a 
 'peddling traffic,' and maintain 'huckstering' relations with 
 her. 
 
 The financial reputation of Pitt has greatly suffered from 
 the absurd praise which was once lavished on the worst part 
 of it. The dread of national ruin from the augmentation of 
 the national debt was a sort of nightmare in that age ; the 
 evil was apparent, and the counteracting force was not seen. 
 No one perceived that English industry was yearly growing 
 with an accelerating rapidity ; no one foresaw that in a few 
 years it would be aided by a hundred wonderful inventions 
 by the innumerable results of applied science ; no one com- 
 prehended that the national estate was augmenting far faster 
 than the national burden. The popular mind was appre- 
 hensive, and wished to see some remedy applied to what 
 seemed to be an evident and dangerous evil. Mr. Pitt sym- 
 pathised with the general apprehension, and created the well- 
 known ' Sinking Fund.' He proposed to apply annually a cer- 
 tain fixed sum to the payment of the debt, which was in itself 
 excellent, but he omitted to provide real money to be so paid. 
 The only source out of which debt can be defrayed, as every- 
 one now understands, is a surplus revenue ; out of an empty 
 exchequer no claims can ever be liquidated by possibility : an 
 excess of income over outlay is a prerequisite of a true repay- 
 ment. Mr. Pitt, however, not only did not see this, but per- 
 suaded a whole generation that it was not so. He proposed to 
 borrow the money to pay off the debt, and fancied that he 
 thus diminished it. He had framed a puzzle in compound 
 interest, which deceived himself, and everyone who was en- 
 trusted with the national finances, for very many years.
 
 William Pitt. 145 
 
 The exposure of this financial juggle, for though not in- 
 tended to be so, such in fact it was, has reacted very unfavour- 
 ably upon Mr. Pitt's deserved fame. It was so long said ' that 
 he was a great financier because he invented the Sinking 
 Fund,' that it came at last to be believed that he could not be 
 a great financier inasmuch as he had invented it. So much 
 merit had been claimed for something bad, that no search was 
 made for anything good. But an accurate study of these times 
 will prove that Pitt was really one of the greatest financiers in 
 our history, that he repaired the great disorders of the Ameri- 
 can war, that he restored a surplus revenue, that he understood 
 the true principles of taxation, that he even knew that the 
 best way to increase a revenue from the consumption of the 
 masses is to lower the rate of duty and develop their consuming 
 power. 
 
 The subject of parliamentary reform is the one with which, 
 in Mr. Pitt's early days, the public most connected his name, 
 and is also that with which we are now least apt to connect it. 
 We have so long and so often heard him treated as the great 
 Conservative minister, that we can hardly realise to ourselves 
 that he was an unsparing and ardent reformer. Yet such is 
 the indisputable fact. He proposed the abolition of the worst 
 of the rotten boroughs fifty years before Lord Grey accomplished 
 it. The period was a favourable one for reform. The failure 
 of the American War had left behind it a bitter irritation and 
 an anxious self-reproach. Why had we, with our great wealth, 
 our great valour, our long experience, failed in what seemed a 
 trivial enterprise ? Why had we been put to shame in the face 
 of Europe ? Why had we been forced to humble ourselves in 
 the face of Europe ? Why had we been compelled to make an 
 ignominious peace ? Why had we, as one of the greatest of 
 civilised states, failed to conquer a raw and unknown colony ? 
 The popular answer was that our arms had been unsuccessful 
 because our Government was corrupt. The practical working 
 of our unreformed constitution has been tersely described as 
 
 L
 
 146 William Pitt. 
 
 the barter of patronage for power; the parliamentary majori- 
 ties of that age were kept by an incessant commerce between 
 the proprietors of seats who sold and the Secretary of the 
 Treasury who bought. In the present day refined arguments 
 are often brought forward to justify or to palliate the system of 
 government. But whatever may be the abstract worth of those 
 arguments, their practical worth is not great. They will never 
 convince the mass of men ; they will never satisfy the unso- 
 phisticated instinct of ordinary men ; they will not remove 
 their natural distrust of what l.hey believe to be unpatriotic 
 selfishness ; they will not lessen their conscientious repugnance 
 to that which they call corruption. After the disasters of the 
 American War, this feeling was very strong and very diffused. 
 An unpopular tree was judged of by unpopular fruits ; 
 our calamities were evident, and our corruption was con- 
 spicuous. A most distinct association of the two was formed 
 in the popular mind. Of this Mr. Pitt took advantage. If 
 the strong counteracting influence of the French Revolution 
 had not changed the national opinion, he would unquestion- 
 ably have amended our parliamentary representation. Even 
 after the French Revolution he never changed his own opinion ; 
 he considered that the time was not favourable for what we 
 now call organic changes; and he judged wisely, for the mass 
 of the nation was wildly and frantically Conservative ; but 
 he did not abandon his early principles : he never became a 
 * Pittite.' 
 
 The state of Ireland was a more pressing difficulty than our 
 financial confusion, our economical errors, or our parliamentary 
 corruption. It had an independent legislature, which might 
 at any time take a dangerously different view of national in- 
 terests, of the expediency of a peace, or the expediency of a 
 war from the English Parliament. That legislature was a 
 Protestant legislature in the midst of a Catholic people ; it was 
 the legislature of a small and hated minority in the midst of 
 an excitable, tumultuous, oppressed psople. The mass of the
 
 William Pitt. 147 
 
 Irish Catholics believed that the mass of the property, which 
 belonged in fact to the Protestants, was in strict right theirs ; 
 they believed that they were the true owners of the soil, and 
 that the Protestants were intruders ; they believed that they 
 had a right to govern the country, and that the Protestants 
 were usurpers ; they believed that the Church which the State 
 supported was a heretic Church ; that the Church which the 
 State did not support was the true Church the only true 
 Church in Christendom. In every parish the distinction be- 
 tween Protestant and Catholic was periodically ruled by the 
 most critical of tests the pecuniary test. The collection of 
 the tithe in detail over the country, from the Catholic popula- 
 tion for the Protestant Church, was the source of chronic con- 
 fusion and incessant bloodshed. Mr. Pitt proposed to remedy 
 &11 these evils in turn, and effectually. He proposed to remedy 
 the most immediate and pressing cause of trouble throughout 
 the country by changing as has since been done the period- 
 ical extortion of the Irish tithe from the hostile farmer into 
 an equivalent payment by a rent-charge, which could be easily 
 collected and could give rise to no disgraceful scenes. He pro- 
 posed to put the Catholic majority and the Protestant minority 
 upon a perfect equality so far as civil rights were concerned; 
 He was desirous that Catholics should be eligible to all offices, 
 and be electors for all offices. He was ready likewise to 
 destroy the prevalent religious agitation at its very root, by 
 paying the ministers of the Church of the poor as well as the 
 ministers of the Church of the rich. He proposed at once to 
 remedy the national danger of having two Parliaments, and to 
 remove the incredible corruption of the old Irish Parliament, 
 by uniting the three kingdoms in a single representative sys- 
 tem, of which the Parliament should sit in England. He 
 framed, in a word, a scheme which would have cured the in- 
 ternal divisions of Ireland, which would have united her effect- 
 ually to the empire without impairing her real liberty. 
 
 Of these great reforms he was only permitted to carry a 
 
 r.2
 
 148 William Pitt. 
 
 few inlo execution. His power, as we have described it, was 
 great when his reign commenced, and very greit it continued 
 to be for very many years ; but the tima bseame unfavourable 
 for all forward-looking statesmanship for everything which 
 could be called innovation. The French Revolution and the 
 French War destroyed for many years our national taste for 
 political improvement. But, notwithstanding these calamities, 
 Pitt achieved some part of all his cherished schemes save one. 
 No opportunity would have enabled Pitt to effect these 
 great reform, no peculiar situation would have suggested 
 them to him, if he had not had certain more than ordinary 
 tendencies and abilities the tendencies and abilities of a great 
 administrator. Contrary to what might at first sight be sup- 
 posed, using the word ' administrator ' in its most enlarged sense 
 in the sense in which we used it at the commencement of 
 this article the first qualification of the highest administrator 
 is, that he should think of something which he need not think 
 of of something which is not the pressing difficulty of th? 
 hour. For inferior men no rule could be so dangerous. Ambi- 
 tious mediocrity is dangerous mediocrity ; ordinary men find 
 what they must do amply enough for them to do ; the exacting 
 difficulty of the hour, which will not be stayed, which must bj 
 met, absorbs their whole time and all their energies. But the 
 ideal administrator has time, has mind for that is the diffi- 
 culty for something more ; hs can do what he must, and he 
 will do what he wishes. This is Mr. Pitt's peculiarity among 
 the great English statesmen of the eighteenth century. As a 
 rule, the spirit of Sir Robert Walpole ruled over all these 
 statesmen. They respected his favourite maxim, quieta non 
 movere ; to deal shrewdly and adroitly with what must be 
 dealt with ; to leave alone whatever might be left alone ; 
 to accumulate every possible resource against the inevitable 
 difficulties of the present moment, and never to think or 
 dream or treat of what was not inevitable ; these were then, 
 as always, the justifiable aims of commonplace men. They
 
 William Pitt. 149 
 
 did their possible ; they did all that they could with their 
 strength and their faculties in their day and generation. The 
 philosophy of the time, with its definite problems and its un- 
 aspiring tendencies, encouraged them ; it made them unalive 
 to the higher possibilities they were forgetting, to the higher 
 duties they were half-consciously, half-unconsciously passing 
 over. It was with reference to this oblivious neglect of the 
 future, this short-sighted absorption in the present, that Dr. 
 Arnold called this century the 'misused trial-time of modern 
 Europe.' It is the distinctive characteristic of Pitt that, 
 having a great opportunity, having power such as no par- 
 liamentary statesman has ever had, having in his mind a 
 fresh stock of youthful thought such as no similar statesman 
 has ever possessed he applied that power steadily and per- 
 severingly to embody that thought. To persons who think 
 but slightly, this may seem only a very slight merit. The first 
 remark of many a commonplace man would be, ' If I had 
 great power, I would carry out my own ideas.' A modern 
 Socrates, if there were such a person, would answer, ' But, 
 my good friend, what are your ideas ? ' When explained to an 
 exact and scrutinising questioner, still more when confronted 
 with the awful facts the inevitable necessities of the real 
 world these ' ideas ' would melt away ; after a little while 
 the commonplace person, who was at first so proud of them, 
 would cease to believe that he ever entertained them ; he would 
 say, 'Men of business do not indulge in those speculations.' 
 The characteristic merit of Pitt is, that in the midst of harass- 
 ing details, in the midst of obvious cares, in the face of most 
 keen, most able, and most stimulated opposition, he applied 
 his whole power to the accomplishment of great but practicable 
 schemes. 
 
 The marvel, or at any rate the merit, is greater. Pitt was 
 by no means an excited visionary. He had by no means one 
 of those minds upon which great ideas fasten as a fanaticism. 
 There was among his contemporaries a great man, who was in
 
 1 50 William Pitt. 
 
 the highest gifts of abstract genius, in the best acquisitions 
 of political culture, far superior to him. But in the mind of 
 Burke great ideas were a supernatural burden, a superincum- 
 bent inspiration. He saw a great truth, and he saw nothing 
 else. At all times, with the intense irritability of genius, in 
 later years with the extreme one-sideness of insanity, he was 
 content in season and out of season, with the great visions 
 which had been revealed to him, with the great lessons which 
 he had to teach, and which he could but very rarely induce 
 anyone to hear. But Pitt's mind was an absolute contrast to 
 this. He had an extreme discretion, tested at the most trying 
 conjunctures. In 1784, when he had no power, when there 
 was a hostile majority in the House of Commons, when he had 
 no sure majority in the House of Lords, when the support 
 of the King, which he undeniably had, was an undeniable 
 difficulty ; for he did not intend to be a second Lord North ; 
 he did not intend to be a servitor of the Palace ; he would not 
 have stooped to carry out measures which he disapproved of; 
 he would not have been willing to enunciate measures as to 
 which he had not been consulted ; at this very moment with 
 most of the constitutional powers against him, with the very 
 greatest greatly against him, with no useful part of it truly for 
 him he never made a false step ; he guided the most feeble 
 administration of modern times so ably and so dexterously that 
 in a few months it became the strongest. A mind with so de- 
 licate a tact as this is entitled to some merit for adhering to 
 distant principles. It is those who understand the present that 
 feel the temptation of the present ; it is those who comprehend 
 the hour that feel the truly arduous, though upon paper it may 
 seem the petty, difficulty of thinking beyond the hour. It is 
 no merit in those who cannot have the present to attempt to 
 act for posterity. There is nothing else left to them ; they 
 have no other occupation open to them. But it is a great merit 
 in those whe can have what is plain, apparent, and immediate, 
 to think of the unseen, unasking, impalpable future.
 
 William Pitt. 151 
 
 It is this singular discretion which is Mr. Pitt's peculiar 
 merit, because he belongs to the class of statesmen who are 
 most apt to be defective in that discretion. He was an ora- 
 torical statesman ; and an oratorical statesman means, ex vi 
 termini, an excitable statesman. His art consists in the power 
 of giving successfully in a more than ordinary manner the true 
 feelings and sentiments of ordinary men ; not their superficial 
 notions, nor their coarser sentiments, for with these any infe- 
 rior man may deal, but their most intimate nature, that which 
 in their highest moments is most truly themselves. How is 
 the exercise of this art to be reconciled with terrestrial discre- 
 tion ? Is the preacher to come down from his pedestal ? is he 
 who can deal worthily with great thoughts to be asked also to 
 deal fittingly with small details ? is it possible that the same 
 mind which can touch the hearts of all men can also be alive 
 to the petty interests of itself? is the microscopic power to 
 be added to the telescopic power? is the capacity for careful 
 management to be added to the power of creating unbounded 
 enthusiasm ? Yet this is the perpetual difficulty of parliament- 
 ary statesmen. A dry man can do the necessary business ; an 
 excitable man can give to the popular House of Parliament 
 the necessary excitement. Mr. Pitt was able, with surpassing 
 ability and. surpassing ease, to do both ; scarcely anyone else 
 has been so. 
 
 This great parliamentary position he owed to a combinatiou 
 of parliamentary abilities, of which only one or two can be, 
 within our necessary limits, distinctly specified, but one or two 
 of which are very prominent. 
 
 First, his singular oratorical power. He was, Lord Macaulay 
 tells us, * at once the one man who could explain a budget with- 
 out notes, and who could speak that most unmeaningly evasive of 
 human compositions, a Queen's speech, offhand.' He had the 
 eloquence of business both in its expressive and its inexpressive 
 forms, and he had likewise the eloquence of character; that 
 is, he had the singular power, which not half a dozen men in a
 
 152 William Pitt. 
 
 generation possess, of imparting to a large audience the exact 
 copy of the feelings, the exact impress of the determination, 
 with which they are themselves possessed. On a matter of 
 figures, 'Pitt said so,' was enough ; on a question of legislative 
 improvement, an apathetic Parliament caught some interest 
 from his example ; in the deepest moments of national despair, 
 an anxious nation could show some remains of their characteris- 
 tic courage, from his bold audacity, and unwearied, inflexible, 
 and augmenting determination. 
 
 No man could have achieved this without a sanguine tem- 
 perament, and accordingly good observers pronounced Mr. Pitt 
 the most sanguine man they had ever known. In no stage of 
 national despondency, in no epoch of national despair, was his 
 capacity of hope, one of the important capacities for great men 
 in anxious affairs, ever shaken. At the crisis of his early life, 
 Lord Temple's resignation, which seemed the last possible addi- 
 tion to the coalition of difficulties under which he was labouring, 
 is said to have deprived him of sleep ; but nothing else ever 
 did so alter his power attained its maturity, and while his body 
 retained its strength. 
 
 Over the House of Commons, too, his anxious love of detail 
 had an influence which will not surprise those who know how 
 sensitive that critical assembly is to every soit of genuineness, 
 and how keenly watchful it is for every kind of falsity. The 
 labour bestowed on his reform of the Customs Acts, on his 
 Indian measures, on his financial proposals from year to year, 
 is matter of history ; no one can look with an instructed eye at 
 these measures without instantly being conscious of it. In 
 addition to his other great powers, Mr. Pitt added the rare one 
 of an intense capacity for work, in an age when that capacity 
 was rarer than it is now, and in a Parliament where the element 
 of dandies and idlers was far more dominant than it has since 
 become. 
 
 Nor would this enumeration of Pitt's great parliamentary 
 qualities be complete ; it would want, perhaps, the most strik-
 
 William Pitt. 153 
 
 ing and obvious characteristic, if we omitted to mention Pitt's 
 well-managed shyness and his surpassing pride. 
 
 In all descriptions of Pitt's appearance in the House cf 
 Commons, a certain aloofness fills an odd space. He is a * thing 
 apart,' different somehow from other members. Fox was the 
 exact opposite. He was a good fellow ; he rolled into the Houes, 
 fat, good-humoured, and popular. Pitt was spare, dignified, 
 and reserved. When he entered the House, he walked to the 
 place of the Premier, without looking to the right or to the left, 
 and he sat at the same place. He was ready to discuss impor- 
 tant business with all proper persons, upon all necessary occa- 
 sions ; but he was not ready to discuss business unnecessarily 
 with anyone, nor did he discuss anything but business with any 
 save a very few intimate friends, with whom his reserve at once 
 vanished, and his wit and humour at once expanded, and his 
 genuine interest in all really great subjects was at once displayed. 
 In a popular assembly this sort of reserve rightly manipulated 
 is a power. It is analogous to the manner which the accom- 
 plished author of ' Eothen ' recommends in dealing with Orien- 
 tals : ' it excites terror and inspires respect.' A recent book of 
 memoirs illustrates it. During Addington's administration, a 
 certain rather obscure ' Mr. Gr. ' was made a privy-councillor, 
 and the question was raised in Pitt's presence as to the mode 
 in which he could have obtained that honour. Some one said, 
 * I suppose he was always talking to the Premier, and bothering 
 him.' Mr. Pitt quietly observed, ' In my time I would much 
 rather have made him a privy-councillor than have spoken to 
 him.' It is easy to conceive the mental exhaustion which this 
 well-managed reserve spared him, the number of trivial conver- 
 sations which it economised, the number of imperfect ambitions 
 which it quelled before they were uttered. An ordinary man 
 could not of course make use of it. But Pitt at the earliest 
 period imparted to the House of Concmons the two most impor- 
 tant convictions for a member in his position: he convinced 
 them that he would rot be the King's creature, and that he 
 
 i
 
 154 William Pitt. 
 
 desired no pecuniary profit for himself. As he despised royal 
 favour and desired real money, the House of Commons thought 
 he might well despise them. 
 
 We have left ourselves no room to speak of Mr. Pitt's 
 policy at the time of the French Ee volution. It would 
 require an essay of considerable length to do it substantial 
 justice. But we may observe, that the crisis which that revo- 
 lution presented to an English statesman was one rather 
 for a great dictator than for a great administrator. The 
 English people were at first in general pleased with the 
 commencement of the French Revolution. ' Anglo-manic, 3 
 it seemed, had been prevalent on the Continent ; the English 
 constitution it was hoped would be transplanted; the funda- 
 mental principles of the English Revolution it was, at any 
 rate, hoped, would be imitated. The essay of Burke by its 
 arguments, the progress of events by an evident experience, 
 proved that such would not be the history. What was to come 
 was uncertain. There was no precedent on the English file ; 
 the English people did not know what they ought to think ; 
 they were ready to submit to anyone who would think for them. 
 The only point upon which their opinion was decided was, that 
 the French Revolution was very dangerous ; that it had pro- 
 duced awful results in France ; that it was no model for imita- 
 tion for sober men in a sober country. They were ready to 
 concede anything to a statesman who allowed this, who acted on 
 this, who embodied this in appropriate action. 
 
 Mr. Pitt saw little further than the rest of the nation ; what 
 the French Revolution was he did not understand ; what forces 
 it would develop he did not foresee ; what sort of opposition it 
 would require he did not apprehend. He was, indeed, on one 
 point much in advance of his contemporaries. The instinct of 
 uncultivated persons is always towards an intemperate inter- 
 ference with anything of which they do not approve. A most 
 worthy police-magistrate in our own time said, that ' he in- 
 tended to put down suicide.' The English people, in the very
 
 William Pitt. 155 
 
 same spirit of uncultured benevolence, wished to ' put down the 
 French Kevolution.' They were irritated at its excess ; they 
 were alarmed at its example ; they conceived that such impiety 
 should be punished for the past and prohibited for the future. 
 Mr. Pitt's natural instinct, however, was certainly in an en- 
 tirely opposite direction. He was by inclination and by tem- 
 perament opposed to all war ; he was very humane, and all war 
 is inhuman ; he was a great financier, and all war is opposed to 
 well-regulated finance. He postponed a French war as long as 
 he could ; he consented to it with reluctance, and continued it 
 from necessity. 
 
 Of the great powers which the sudden excitement of demo- 
 cratic revolution which stimulate in a nation seemingly ex- 
 hausted, Mr. Pitt knew no more than those who were, around 
 him. Burke said that, as a military power, France was 
 ' blotted from the map of Europe;' and though Pitt, with cha- 
 racteristic discretion, did not advance any sentiment which 
 would be so extreme, or any phrase which would adhere so 
 fixedly to everyone's memory, it is undeniable that he did 
 not anticipate the martial power which the new France, as by 
 magic, displayed ; that he fancied she would be an effete 
 country ; that he fancied he was making war with certain 
 scanty vestiges of the ancien regime, instead of contending 
 against the renewed, excited, and intensified energies of a 
 united people. He did not know that, for temporary purposes, 
 a revolutionary government was the most powerful of all go- 
 vernments ; for it does not care for the future, and has the 
 entire legacy of the past. He forgot that it was possible, that 
 from a brief period of tumultuous disorder, there might issue 
 a military despotism more compact, more disciplined, and more 
 overpowering than any which had preceded it, or any which 
 has followed it. 
 
 But, as we have said, the conclusion of a prolonged article 
 is no place for discussing the precise nature of Mr. Pitt's anti- 
 revolutionary policy. Undoubtedly, he did not comprehend
 
 156 William Pitt. 
 
 the Revolution in France ; as Lord Macaulay has explained, 
 with his habiutal power, he over-rated the danger of a revo- 
 lution in this country ; he entirely over-estimated the power 
 of the democratic assailants, arid he entirely under-estimated 
 the force of the conservative, maintaining, restraining, and, 
 if need were, reactionary, influence. He saw his enemy ; 
 he did not see his allies. But it is not given to many men to 
 conquer such difficulties ; it is not given to the greatest of 
 administrators to apprehend entirely new phenomena. A 
 highly imaginative statesman, a man of great moments and 
 great visions, a greater Lord Chatham, might have done so, 
 but the educated sense, and equable dexterity of Mr. Pitt 
 failed. All that he could do he did. He burnt the memory 
 of his own name into the Continental mind. After sixty years, 
 the French people still half belive that it was the gold of 
 Pitt which caused many of their misfortunes ; after half a 
 century it is still certain that it was Pitt's indomitable spirit 
 and Pitt's hopeful temper which was the soul of every conti- 
 nental coalition, and the animating life of every anti-revolu- 
 tionary movement. He showed most distinctly how potent is 
 the influence of a commanding character just when he most 
 exhibited the characteristic limitation of even the best ad- 
 ministrative intellect.
 
 157 
 
 BOLINGBROKE AS A STATESMAN* 
 
 [1863.] 
 
 WHO now reads Bolingbroke ? was asked sixty years ago. 
 Who knows anything about him ? we may ask now. Pro- 
 fessed students of our history or of our literature may have 
 special knowledge ; but out of the general mass of educated 
 men, how many could give an intelligible account of his career ? 
 How many could describe even vaguely his character as a 
 statesman ? Our grandfathers and their fathers quarrelled for 
 two generations as to the peace of Utrecht, but only an odd 
 person here and there could now give an account of its pro- 
 visions. The most cultivated lady would not mind asking, 
 ' The peace of Utrecht ! yes what was that ? ' Whether Mr. 
 St. John was right to make that peace ; whether Queen Ann 
 was right to create him a peer for making it ; whether the 
 Whigs were right in impeaching him for making it the mass 
 of men have forgotten. So is history unmade. Evan now, the 
 dust of forgetfulness is falling over the Congress of Vienna and 
 the peace of Paris ; we are forgetting the last great pacification 
 as we have wholly forgotten the pacification before that ; in 
 another fifty years ' Vienna ' will be as ' Utrecht,' and Welling- 
 ton to be no more than Marlborough. 
 
 In the meantime, however, Mr. Macknight has done well to 
 collect for those who wish to know them the principal events of 
 Bolingbroke's career. There was no tolerable outline of them 
 before, and in some respects this is a good one. Mr. Mac- 
 
 1 The Life of Henry St. John Viscount Bolingbroke, Secretary of State in 
 t 1 c reign of Queen Anne. By Thomas Macknight, axithor of the History of the 
 Life and Times of Edmund Burlte.
 
 158 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 knight's style is clear, though often ponderous ; his remarks 
 are sensible, and he has the great merit of not being imposed 
 on by great names and traditional reputations. The defect of 
 the book is, that he takes too literary a view of politics and 
 politicians ; that he has not looked closely and for himself at 
 real political life ; that he therefore misses the guiding traits 
 which show what in Queen Anne's time was so like our present 
 politics, and what so wholly unlike. We shall venture in the 
 course of this article to supply some general outline of the 
 controverses that were to be then decided, and of the political 
 forces which decided them ; for unless these are distinctly 
 imagined, a reader of the present day cannot comprehend why 
 such a man as Bolingbroke was at one moment the most con- 
 spicuous and influential of English statesmen, and then for 
 years an exile and a wanderer. 
 
 We must own, however, that is not the intrinsic interest 
 even of events once so very important as the war of the Grand 
 Alliauce and the peace of Utrecht which tempts us to write 
 this article. It is the interest of Bolingbroke's own character 
 He tried a great experiment. There lurks about the fancies of 
 many men and women an imaginary conception of an ideal 
 statesman, resembling the character of which Alcibiades has 
 been the recognised type for centuries. There is a sort of 
 intellectual, luxury in the idea which fascinates the human 
 mind. We like to fancy a young man, in the first vigour of 
 body and in the first vigour of mind, who is full of bounding 
 enjoyment, who is fond of irregular luxury, who is the favourite 
 of society, who excels all rivals at masculine feats, who gains 
 the love of women by a magic attraction, but who is also a 
 powerful statesman, who regulates great events, who settles 
 gre.it measures, who guides a great nation. We seem to outstep 
 the mccnia mundi, the recognised limits of human nature, 
 when we conceive a man in the pride of youth to have domi- 
 nion over the pursuits of 'age, to rule both the light things of 
 women and the grave things of men. Human imagination so
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 159 
 
 much love to surpass human power, that we shall never be 
 able to extirpate the conception. But we may examine the 
 approximations to it in life. We see in Bolingbrke's case 
 that a life of brilliant license is really compatible with a life 
 of brilliant statesmanship ; that license itself may even be 
 thought to quicken the imagination for oratorical efforts ; that 
 an intellect similarly aroused may, at exciting conjunctures, 
 perceive possibilities which are hidden from duller men ; that 
 the favourite of society will be able to use his companionship 
 with men and his power over women so as much to aid his strokes 
 of policy, but, on the other hand, that these secondary aids and 
 occasional advantages are purchased by the total sacrifice of a 
 primary necessity; that a life of great excitement is incom- 
 patible with the calm circumspection and the sound estimate 
 of probability essential to great affairs ; that though the excited 
 hero may perceive distant things which others overlook, he will 
 overlook near things that others see ; that though he may be 
 stimulated to great speeches which others could not make, he 
 will also be irritated to petty speeches which others would not ; 
 that he will attract enmities, but not confidence ; that he will 
 not observe how few and plain are the alternatives of common 
 business, and how little even genius can enlarge them; that 
 his prosperity will be a wild dream of unattainable possibilities, 
 and his adversity a long regret that those possibilities have 
 departed. At any rate, such was Bolingbroke's career. We 
 have better evidence about him than about any similar states- 
 man, for the events in which he was concerned were large, and 
 he has given us a narrative of them from his own hand. A 
 summary retrospect of his career will not be worthless, if 
 it show what sudden brilliancy and what incurable ruin such 
 a life as his, with such a genius as his, was calculated to 
 ensure. 
 
 Bolingbroke's father was a type of his generation. He was 
 a rake of the Restoration. Charles II. is the only king of 
 England who has had both the social qualities which fitted him
 
 160 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 to be the head of society, and the immoral qualities which 
 fitted him to corrupt society. His easy talk, his good anec- 
 dotes, his happy manners, his conversancy with various life, 
 made Whitehall the ' best club ' of that time. What sort of 
 life he encouraged men to lead there we all know. Boling- 
 broke's father learned of him all the evil which he could learn. 
 It was not singular that he committed excesses of dissipation, 
 but it was rather singular that he committed what was thought 
 to be murder. He stabbed a man in a drunken broil and, if 
 Burnet can be trusted, only escaped from the gallows by a 
 great bribe. He dawdled on at the coffee-houses far into Queen 
 Anne's time, a monument of extinct profligacy, and a spectacle 
 and a wonder to a graver generation. 
 
 Bolingbroke's mother was a daughter of the Earl of War- 
 wick ; but she died early, and his father married again, so that 
 we hear very little about her. If the silence of his biographers 
 may be trusted as evidence, she exercised but little influence 
 upon his infancy or upon his life. 
 
 The most influential .preceptors of Bolingbroke's boyhood 
 were his grandfather and grandmother, who also were not un- 
 usual characters in their generation. The former was a serious 
 and moderate Royalist, the latter was a serious but moderate 
 Puritan. Bolingbroke's father apparently did not much like 
 keeping house: it must have interfeied with his pleasures 
 and marred the life of coffee-houses. The whole direction of 
 Bolingbroke's mind was given to his grave grandfather and 
 grandmother, In after-times, when ho was a prominent Tory 
 and a professed high-churchman, satirists used to say that he 
 was brought up among ' Dissenters.' And it is probable that 
 his grandmother, who was the daughter of the celebrated 
 Oliver St. John, the great parliamentary lawyer and chief 
 justice, was far from being in opinion what a high Anglican 
 divine would term a ' Church woman.' Bolingbroke himself 
 usei to relate terrible stories of having been compelled to read 
 the sermons of Puritan divines. But, as far as our slight
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 161 
 
 information goes, he did not suffer more than in any moder- 
 ately ' serious ' family of our own time. All serious families were 
 then thought to have a little taint of Dissent, and Bolingbroke 
 was probably very sensitive to the partial dulness of a semi- 
 puritanical religion. 
 
 At any rate, we have no doubt it was said (and that his elder 
 relatives much grived at it) that * the boy was gone wrong, 
 like his father.' When he came out into the world he aston- 
 ished his associates by his license. He had been at Eton and 
 Oxford, but he had not learnt, what is often learned there, a 
 decorum in profligacy. To what precise enormities his license 
 extended is immaterial, and cannot now be known. Goldsmith 
 had talked to an old gentleman who related that Bolir.gbroke 
 and his companions, in a drunken frolic, ran ' naked through 
 the Park.' But this is hardly credible ; and probably Gold- 
 smith's informant was one of the many old people who believe 
 that the more wonderful the stories they tell, the more won- 
 derful they themselves become. But at any rate his outrages 
 attracted censure. He did not, like his father, belong to his 
 generation. The age of King William tolerated much that we 
 tolerate no longer, but it was not like the first years of Charles 
 II. There was no longer a headlong recoil from Puritan strict- 
 ness, and the Crown was on the side of at least apparent 
 morality. As is usual in England, grave decorum and obvious 
 morals had a substantial influence, and against these Boling- 
 broke offended. 
 
 He wrote poetry too, and the sort of poetry can only be ap- 
 preciated by reading Locke's celebrated warning against that 
 art, and the connections which it occasions. Bolingbroke's 
 verses are addressed to a Clara A , an orange-girl, who pre- 
 tended to sell that fruit near the Court of Eequests, but who 
 really had other objects. She was a lady of what may be called 
 mutable connections ; and the object of Bolingbroke's verses is 
 to induce her to give them up and adhere to him only. He 
 says : 
 
 H
 
 1 62 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 No, Clara, no ; that person and that mind 
 
 Were formed by Xature, and by Heaven designed 
 
 For nobler ends : to these return, though late : 
 
 Keturn to these, and so avert thy fate. 
 
 Think, Clara, think ; nor will that thought be vain ; 
 
 Thy slave, thy Harry, doom'd to drag his chain 
 
 Of love ill-treated and abused, that he 
 
 From more inglorious chains might rescue thee : 
 
 Thy drooping health restored by his fond care, 
 
 Once more thy beauty its full lustre wear ; 
 
 Moved by his love, by his example taught, 
 
 Soon shall thy soul, once more with virtue fraught, 
 
 With kind and generous truth thy bosom warm, 
 
 And thy fair mind, like thy fair person, charm. 
 
 To virtue thus and to thyself restored, 
 
 By all admired, by one alone adored, 
 
 Be to thy Harry ever kind and true, 
 
 And live for him who more than dies for you. 
 
 One would like to know what the orange-girl thought of all 
 this, but it would seem he was lavish of money as well as of 
 verses. 
 
 At twenty-two he married. We do not know much about 
 his money matters ; and, as his father and grandfather were 
 both alive, his means could not have been at all large, especially 
 as his expenses had been great. Bat his wife had certainly a 
 considerable fortune. She was descended from a clothier called 
 Jack of Newbury, who had made a fortune several generations 
 before, and was one of the coheiresses of Sir Henry Winches- 
 comb, who had large property. What sort of person she was 
 does not very clearly appear. But it does appear that the 
 match was an unhappy one. He said she had a bad temper, 
 with what truth we cannot ascertain now ; and she said he was 
 a bad husband, which was unquestionably true. He had been 
 a rake before marriage, and did not cease afterwards. He could 
 drink more wine than anyone in London, and continued that 
 habit too. A kind of connection was kept up betwen them for 
 many years, but it was a dubious and unhappy connection.
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 163 
 
 We may suppose, however, that when he was a great statesman 
 she derived some glory, if little happiness, from him ; and he 
 certainly received a large income from her property during very 
 many years. 
 
 At the age of twenty-eight Bolingbroke entered the House 
 of Commons. Before that time he had done nothing to prove 
 himself a man of great ability. At school and college he had 
 done well, and had laid up perhaps a greater store of classical 
 knowledge than those around him knew of. When abroad for 
 a year or so, he had learned to speak French unusually well 
 and unusually easily. But since he had been of age and in the 
 world, his vices had been great, and he had not done much 
 to compensate for them. Probably his boon companions con- 
 sidered him very clever ; but then sober men rated very low 
 the judgment of those companions. His skill in writing poetry 
 had not been greater than most people's, and his choice of 
 subjects had been worse. Until now he had had no opportu- 
 nity of showing great talents, and much opportunity of showing 
 considerable vices. 
 
 In the House of Commons it was otherwise. His handsome 
 person, long descent, and aristocratic mien set off a very 
 remarkable eloquence, which seems to have been very ready 
 even at the first. Years afterwards he was the model to whom 
 Lord Chesterfield pointed in all the arts of manner and expres- 
 sion. ' Lord Bolingbroke,' he tells us, * without the least 
 trouble, talked all day long full as elegantly as he wrote. He 
 adorned whatever subject he either spoke or wrote upon by the 
 most splendid eloquence ; not a studied and laboured eloquence, 
 but by such a flowing happiness of diction which (from care 
 perhaps at first) was become so habitual to him, that even his 
 most familiar conversations, if taken down in writing, would 
 have borne the press without the least correction either as to 
 method or style.' ' He had the most elegant politeness and 
 good-breeding which ever any courtier or man of the world 
 was blessed with.'
 
 164 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 Nor did he neglect matter in the pursuit of manner. In 
 later life he wrote some characters of the two great orators of 
 antiquity, which showed how acutely he had studied them. He 
 turned aside from the commonplace topics, from their language 
 and their manner, to comment on their acquaintance with all 
 the topics of their time, and on the practical style in which 
 they discuss practical questions. No one can read those de- 
 lineations without perceiving that the writer is speaking of an 
 art which he has himself practised. Those who knew how little 
 studious Bolingbroke's habits were, appear to have been sur- 
 prised at the information he displayed. But his excitable life 
 rather promoted than forbad brief crises of keen study. His 
 parts were quick, his language vague, though imposing, and he 
 could always talk very happily on subjects of which he only 
 knew a very little. 
 
 The time was favourable to a great orator. The Tory party 
 was exactly in the state in which it has been in our own time. 
 It had many votes and no tongue. Our county system tends 
 to prevent our county magnates from ruling England. Stringent 
 limitations are laid down which narrow the electoral choice, 
 and tend to exclude available talent. It is wise and natural that 
 the landed interest should choose to be represented by landed 
 gentlemen ; a community of nature between it and its repre- 
 sentatives is desirable and inevitable. But our counties are more 
 exacting than this : each county requires that the member shall 
 have land within the country, and as in each the number of 
 candidates thus limited is but small, unsuitable ones must be 
 chosen. We have left oft' expecting eloquence from a county 
 member. Grave files of speechless men have always represented 
 the land of England. In Queen Anne's time too, as in our 
 own time, a lingering prejudice haunted rural minds, and in- 
 clined them to prefer stupid magnates who shared it to clever 
 ones who were emancipated from it. Bolingbroke, like Mr. 
 Disraeli, found the Tory party in a state of dumb power ; like 
 him, too, he became its spokesman and obtained its power.
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 165 
 
 Bolingbroke came into Parliament just at the end of King 
 William's reign, and was at once forced into contact with the two 
 subjects which were to occupy almost exclusively his active life. 
 The reign of King William, which was about to end, and that 
 of Queen Anne, which was just about to begin, were filled by 
 two of the greatest topics which can occupy a period. The first 
 of these was a question of dynasty. Our revolution has been 
 called the ' minimum of a revolution,' and in the eyes of a poli- 
 tical philosopher so it is. It altered but little in the substance 
 of our institutions and in our positive law. But to common 
 people, when it happened, the change was great. Even now the 
 detail of our parliamentary system is not much understood by 
 the poorer part of the public, and they care for it but little ; the 
 Queen and her family, and the Prince of Wales and the Princess 
 Alexandra, mainly interest them. The person of the sovereign 
 embodies to them constitution, law, power. But our revolution 
 changed the sovereign. The only political name and idea 
 known to rural hamlets were taken away, and another name and 
 idea were substituted in their stead. Jacobites went about say- 
 ing that there was one king whom God had made, and another 
 king whom Parliament had made. At this moment, though the 
 dogma of hereditary right has been confuted for ages, though 
 it has been laughed at for ages, though parliaments have con- 
 demned it, though divines have been impeached for preaching 
 it, though it is a misdemeanour to maintain it, the tenet still 
 lives in ordinary minds. In Somersetshire and half the quiet 
 counties the inhabitants would say that Queen Victoria ruled 
 by the right of birth and the grace of God, and not by virtue 
 of an Act of Parliament. They still think that she has a divine 
 right to the crown, and not a right by statute only. If the old 
 creed of the Jacobites is still so powerful, what must have been 
 its force in Queen's Anne's time ? That generation had seen the 
 change from ' God's king ' to ' man's king,' and very many of 
 them did not like it. Shrewd men said that England was 
 prosperous under the revolutionary government ; common sense
 
 1 66 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 said that an ill-born king who governed well was better than 
 a well-born king who governed ill ; Whigs said that England 
 was free after the revolution, and would have been enslaved 
 but for the revolution ; yet on the simple superstition of many 
 natural minds the force of these arguments was lost. They 
 admitted the advantage of liberty and of prosperty, but they 
 would not renounce ' the Lord's anointed for a mess of pottage.' 
 Happily this political feeling was counteracted by a religious 
 feeling. The hatred to Popery supported the successful and 
 rebellious king, who was a Protestant, against the unsuccessful 
 and legitimate king, who was a Papist. But the strength so 
 obtained was precarious ; it might cease at any time. The 
 ' Pretender ' might change his religion, and reports were 
 continually circulated that he had done so, or was to do so. 
 The existing dynasty could not be strong by its best support 
 in the most natural minds was the continued profession of one 
 religion by a person who had very strong motives to profess 
 another. 
 
 The question of dynasty was the prominent question in 
 Bolingbroke's age ; such a question must always be the first 
 where it exists. The question, who shall be king, can never be 
 secondary. But it had a formidable rival. All through King 
 William's and all through Queen Anne's time, the English mind 
 was occupied with almost the only question which could compete 
 with the question who should be king of England the question 
 whether there ought or ought not to be war with France. 
 Frequent battles, daily hopes of battles, daily arguments 
 whether there should be battles or not, kept even the greatest 
 domestic question out of our thoughts. 
 
 On both these subjects Bolingbroke was compelled to criti- 
 cal action in his first parliament. The question of dynasty was 
 in a very odd and very English state of complexity. It might 
 have been thought to be a question of bare alternatives, and to 
 have been susceptible of no compromise. Either Parliament had 
 no power to choose a sovereign upon grounds of expediency, or it.
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 167 
 
 might choose any sovereign who was expedient. If King James 
 might be expelled at all, it could only be because he was a bad 
 king, and in order to put in a better king. On principle, Parlia- 
 ment was either powerless or omnipotent. But this clear deci- 
 sive logic has never suited Englishmen. As for King William, 
 indeed, no one could say he was any sort of king except a par- 
 liamentary king, but his heir was the Princess Anne. ' Surely, 
 it was thought, she and her children had some divine right a 
 little, if not much ? She had no right by birth certainly, for 
 her father and her brother came before her ; she was not the 
 nearest heir, but she was the nearest Protestant heir ; she was 
 not the eldest son of the last king, but she was his eldest 
 daughter that was living.' These facts do not seem to be 
 very material to us now, but at the time they were critically 
 material. Half the population probably believed that it would 
 be right not merely expedient, but right in some high mystic 
 sense to obey Anne and her children. They were not only 
 ready, but were anxious, to take her for the root of a new 
 dynasty. But the Fates seemed capriciously determined to 
 defeat their wishes. Anne had thirteen children, and all the 
 thirteen died. At the death of the Duke of Gloucester, who was 
 the last of them, some further settlement was necessary, and 
 what it should be was decided in Bolingbroke's first parliament. 
 On this subject he ought to have been a Whig of the Whigs. 
 His writings are full of such expressions as the ' chimera of 
 prerogative ; ' ' the slavish principles of passive obedience and 
 non-resistance which had skulked ' in old books till the reign of 
 James I. And he has stated the Whig conception of the revo- 
 lution as well as anyone, if not better. ' If,' he says, ' a divine, 
 indefeasible, hereditary right to govern a community be once 
 acknowledged ; a right independent of the community, and 
 which vests in every successive prince immediately on the 
 death of his predecessor, and previously to any engagement 
 taken on his part towards the people ; if the people once 
 acknowledge themselves bound to such princes by the ties of
 
 1 68 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 passive obedience and non-resistance, by an allegiance uncon- 
 ditional, and not reciprocal to protection : if a kind of oral lave, 
 or mysterious cabbala, which pharisees of the black gown and 
 the long robe are always at hand to report and interpret as a 
 prince desires, be once added, like a supplemental code, to the 
 known laws of the land : then, I say, such princes have the 
 power, if not the right, given them of commencing tyrants ; 
 and princes who have the power, are prone to think that they 
 have the right. Such was the state of king and people before 
 the revolution.' He could have no horror of Popery, for he re- 
 garded all the historical forms of Christianity with an impartial 
 scepticism ; he probably thought it more gentlemanly than 
 Presbyterianism, and not more absurd than Anglicanism. He 
 ought to have been ready to obey whatever king was most 
 eligible upon grounds of rational expediency. 
 
 The proposal of the Whigs, too, was as moderate as it was 
 possible for it to be. As public opinion required, they selected 
 the next Protestant heir. They passed over all the children of 
 Jarnes II., who were Catholics, the descendants of Henrietta, 
 daughter of Charles I., who were Catholics, the elder descendants 
 of Elizabeth, the daughter of James I., who were Catholics, and 
 found the Princess Sophia, a younger daughter of Elizabeth, who 
 was a very clever and accomplished lady, and who, if she had any 
 religion, was a Protestant. All the reasonable and prudent part 
 of the nation was in favour of this scheme. The Whigs were 
 of course in favour of it, for it was their scheme. Harley, at the 
 head of the moderate Tories, strenuously supported it. But 
 it was not popular with the unthinking masses, and perhaps 
 could not be. Half or more than half the believers in divine 
 right were ready, as we have explained, to pay obedience to 
 Queen Anne as a sort of consecrated queen ; she was at any 
 rate a princess born of a real king and queen in real England J 
 we had always been used to her. But a search in Germany for 
 the sort of Protestants we were likely to find there was not 
 pleasant to the mass of Englishmen ; and of the strong-minded
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 169 
 
 old lady who had been discovered nothing whatever was 
 commonly known. After all, too, there was no certainty that 
 in future we should be obeying the nearest Protestant heir. 
 We were passing over several Catholic families ; and if here- 
 after any one of them were to become a Protestant according 
 to principle, or what was called such, we must obey him as our 
 king. 
 
 Though the choice of the Hanoverian family as heirs to the 
 crown was prudent, wise and statesmanlike, there was no strong 
 popular sentiment on which it was firmly based, and no neat 
 popular phrase by which it could in argument be precisely sup- 
 ported. In a word, unthinking people of the common sort did 
 not much like the House of Hanover, and a mass of ill-defined 
 prejudice accumulated against it. Of this prejudice Boling- 
 broke made himself the organ. He did not share it or try to 
 share it. But, finding a large and speechless party, he thought 
 he could become at once politically important by saying for 
 them that which they could not say for themselves. The 
 scheme was successful. He became at once important in Par- 
 liament, because he was the eloquent spokesman of many 
 inaudible persons. 
 
 In foreign policy, Bolingbroke's tactics were the same. The 
 aggression of France was the natural terror of lovers of liberty 
 at that time. Louis XIV. was as ready to use his power with- 
 out scruple against free nations as Napoleon ; and his power, 
 though not equal to that of Napoleon at his zenith, was greater 
 than that of Napoleon at most times, and than that of any other 
 French sovereign at any time. The King of Spain, too, was 
 about to die ; it was to be feared that he would name as his 
 heir Philip, the grandson of Louis, and few doubted but that 
 Louis, notwithstanding an express renunciation of all such claims 
 by treaty, would permit his grandson to accept the throne. 
 Nor was the Spain of 1700 merely the Spain of our time. She 
 was much more powerful. She possessed the 'California' of 
 that age, a vase empire in South America, producing gold and
 
 170 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 silver, which were then thought to be magically potent sub- 
 stances, for the whole civilised world. She possessed, too, 
 Sicily, and Naples, and Milan, and Belgium ; and the popular 
 imagination, which ever clings to decaying grandeur, still 
 believed that Spain itself was a nation of great power was still 
 able, as in former generations, to obtain ascendancy in Europe. 
 The terror, for such it was, of liberal politicians then was, that 
 that vast inheritance would practically fall into the dominion of 
 Louis XIV. that it would belong to a Bourbon prince brought 
 up under his eye, and slavishly in subjection to him. The 
 Whigs contended that this calamity should be prevented, if. 
 possible, by an amicable partition of Spain, by giving France 
 as little as possible, and that little in places as little important 
 as possible. If no such amicable arrangement were possible,, 
 they said, it must be prevented by a war. The Tories did not 
 like war, did not like partition treaties. They did not love 
 France, but they were not anxious to oppose France. In that 
 age we were uneducated in foreign policy ; the mass of men 
 had no distinct conception of continental transactions, nor 
 was reason reinforced very distinctly by antipathy. We hated 
 France, it is true, but we hated Holland also ; she was our 
 rival in commerce, and our enemy sometimes our successful 
 enemy in naval warfare ; and to vanish the French by the 
 aid of the Dutch did not greatly gratify our animosity. The 
 anti-revolutionary part of the nation did not care for liberty, 
 for that was the code of the Whigs and the basis of the revolu- 
 tion. In a word, though there was little distinct or rational 
 opinion opposed to a war with France, there was much indis- 
 tinct and crude prejudice. Of this too Bolingbroke became the 
 organ. 
 
 In the later part of his life he did not attempt to defend his 
 first notion of foreign policy. He says : ' I have sometimes 
 considered, in reflecting on these passages, what I should have 
 done if I had sat in parliament at that time ; and have been 
 forced to own myself that I should have voted for disbanding
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 171 
 
 the army then, as I voted in the following parliament for cen- 
 suring the partition treaties. I am forced to own this, because 
 I remember how imperfect my notions were of the situation of 
 Europe in that extraordinary crisis, and how much I saw the 
 true interest of my own country in a half light. But, my lords, 
 I own it with some shame, because in truth nothing could be 
 more absurd than the conduct we held. What ! because we 
 had not reduced the power of France by the war, nor excluded 
 the house of Bourbon from the Spanish succession, nor com- 
 pounded with her upon it by the peace ; and because the house 
 of Austria had not helped herself, nor put it into our power to 
 help her with more advantage and better prospect of success 
 were we to leave that whole succession open to the invasions of 
 France, and to suffer even the contingency to subsist of seeing 
 those monarchies united ? What ! because it was become 
 extravagant, after the trials so lately made, to think ourselves 
 any longer engaged by treaty, or obliged by good policy, to 
 put the house of Austria in possession of the whole Spanish 
 monarchy, and to defend her in this possession by force of 
 arms, were we to leave the whole at the mercy of France ? If 
 we were not to do so, if we were not to do one of the three 
 things that I said above remained to be done, and if the Em- 
 peror put it out of our power to do another of them with ad- 
 vantage ; were we to put it still more out of our power, and to 
 wait unarmed for the death of the king of Spain ? In fine, if 
 we had not the prospect of disputing with France, so success- 
 fully as we might have had it, the Spanish succession when- 
 ever it should be open ; were we not only to show by disarm- 
 ing, that we would not dispute it at all, but to censure 
 likewise the second of the three things mentioned above, and 
 which King William put in practice, the compounding with 
 France, to prevent if possible a war, in which we were averse 
 to engage ? ' The truth, doubtless is, that Bolingbroke never 
 believed, or much believed, these absurdities. As he was the 
 spokesman of the Tories, he advocated, and was compelled to
 
 172 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 advocate, the vague notions which they not unnaturally held, 
 and these were prejudices imbibed by habit, not opinions 
 elaborated by effort. 
 
 That his mode of advocacy was very skilful, we may easily 
 believe. His speeches have perished, but their merit may be 
 conjectured. He is in his writings a great master of specious 
 statement. Accessory arguments and subordinate facts seem of 
 themselves to fall precisely where they should fall. He has the 
 knack of never making a case; the 'case always seems made 
 for him ; he seems to be giving it its most suitable expression, 
 but to be doing no more. In the greater part of his writings 
 which were written late in life, except when he defends the 
 peace of Utrecht, he had no tenet to defend in which he took 
 a keen interest. He had not the habits suitable to abstract 
 thought, nor the genius for it. He is apt, therefore, to embody 
 meagre thoughts in excellent words, to develop long argu- 
 ments from sparse facts. He Lad a pleasure in writing, and he 
 had little to say. But when his passions were eager, when his 
 interest was vivid, when the very dissipation of his life quick- 
 ened his excitability, when the topic of discussion was critically 
 important to himself we may well believe his advocacy to 
 have been effective. He could ever say what he pleased, and 
 in early life he had much to say which he well knew and for 
 which he much cared. 
 
 A blunder of Louis' for several years simplified English 
 politics. At the death of James II. he acknowledged his son, 
 the 'Pretender,' as king of England, and he could have done 
 him no greater harm. The English people were not very sure 
 of abstract rights, but they were very sure of practical applica- 
 tions. Whether they had a right to choose a king for them- 
 selves might be doubtful, but it was clear that the king of 
 France had no such right. Whoever might be our king, it 
 certainly should not be his protege. War with France be- 
 came popular. The king of Spain was dead ; as was feared, 
 he had left the vast inheritance of Spain to Louis' grandson,
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 173 
 
 and war with France became expedient. It was declared 
 accordingly. 
 
 The death of William simplified politics still further. Bol- 
 ingbroke himself may explain this. ' The alliances,' he tells 
 us, ' were concluded, the quotas were settled, and the season 
 for taking the field approached, when King William died. The 
 event could not fail to occasion some consternation on one side, 
 and to give some hopes on the other ; for, notwithstanding the 
 ill success with which he made war generally, he was looked 
 upon as the sole centre of union that could keep together the 
 great confederacy then forming; and how much the French 
 feared from his life had appeared a few years before, in the 
 extravagant and indecent joy they expressed on a false report 
 of his death. A short time showed how vain the fears of some, 
 and the hopes of others, were. By his death, the Duke of 
 Marlborough was raised to the head of the army, and indeed 
 of the confederacy ; where he, a new, a private man, a subject, 
 acquired by merit and by management a more deciding in- 
 fluence than high birth, confirmed authority, and even the 
 crown of Great Britain, had given to King William. Not only 
 all the parts of that vast machine, the grand alliance, were 
 kept more compact and entire, but a more rapid and vigorous 
 motion was given to the whole ; and, instead of languishing or 
 disastrous campaigns, we saw every scene of the war full of 
 action. All those wherein he appeared, and many of those 
 wherein he was not then an actor but abettor, however, of 
 their action were crowned with the most triumphant success. 
 I take with pleasure this opportunity of doing justice to that 
 great man, whose faults I knew, whose virtues I admired, and 
 whose memory, as the greatest general and as the greatest 
 minister that our country or perhaps any other has produced, 1 
 honour.' The war absorbed England for several years. For 
 the first time in our history we were the centre of a great 
 confederacy, and our general was the victorious leader, in great 
 battles, of miscsllaneous armies. It was then that we first
 
 174 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 acquired that great name as a military people, which, notwith- 
 standing our small numbers and small armies, we have since 
 supported, and that a great foresight, a minute diligence, and 
 a splendid courage in modern war, were first combined in an 
 Englishman. Maryborough was in one respect more fortunate 
 than Wellington. Napoleon must always be the first military 
 figure of his generation, but throughout the last century the 
 whole Continent talked of the wars of Marlborough, for he 
 was the most fascinating as well as the most successful general 
 in them. 
 
 During the first eight years of Maryborough's wars, the 
 English nation was nearly united. A war always unites a 
 people ; the objector to it becomes a kind of traitor to his 
 country ; he seems to be a favourer of the enemy, even though 
 he is not. Not only Harley, a moderate Tory, but Bolingbroke, 
 an extreme Tory, took office in the war ministry. It is true 
 there was no dereliction of party principle in their doing so, 
 either as such principle was then understood, or as it is un- 
 derstood now. Marlborough himself had never been a Whig; 
 and Godolphin, the head of the treasury and first minister for 
 the home administration, had ever been a Tory. But though 
 plain party ties might not be violated by a Tory support of 
 Marlborough's wars, a sort of sentiment was violated. The 
 war was a Whig war, and could only be carried on by Whig 
 support. Ere long Godolphin and Marlborough were compelled 
 to give the Whigs a large share in the actual administration. 
 The ministry became a composite one. Though many Tories 
 remained in it, yet its essence and its spirit were Whig. It 
 was carrying on the sort of war which one party in the State 
 had extolled for years, and which the antagonist party had 
 deprecated for years. It has been called after its cause. It 
 has been called the Whig Ministry of Godolphin and Marl- 
 borough, the two leading Tories of the age. 
 
 The place which Bolingbroke accepted was that of Secre- 
 tary at War, which brought him into contact with the best
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 175 
 
 business of the time, with that sort of business upon which 
 most depended. As far as appears, he did it well, and the offi- 
 cial experience he then acquired must have been inestimable 
 to him afterwards. There is much which no statesman can in 
 truth know, and much more which he will not be thought to 
 know, unless he has gone through a certain necessary official 
 education, and learned to use certain conventional official 
 expressions. This sort of knowledge Bolingbroke now acquired. 
 But it was not by success or failure in office desk-work that the 
 movements of his life were to be regulated. 
 
 The Whigs naturally did not quite like the subordinate posi- 
 tion which they occupied in a ministry which was carrying out 
 a Whig policy. They thought it hard that Tories should be paid 
 for Whig measures ; that the glory of delivering Europe should 
 be given, not to W T higs, who had striven to deliver her, but to 
 Tories, who would have liked not to deliver her. Their support 
 was necessary to Grodolphin and to Marlborough, and they gradu- 
 ally raised the price of that support. Early in 1708 most of the 
 remaining Tories were turned out, and Bolingbroke among 
 them. Except the two chiefs, Grodolphin and Marlborough, the 
 ministry became a Whig ministry almost exclusively. 
 
 That Bolingbroke did not like to be turned out is probable, 
 but he professed to like it. He sought refuge in retirement ; 
 he professed to study philosophy, and passed much of his time 
 in the country, and in reading. Such professions from a man of 
 great ambition and lax life were ridiculed. A friend suggested 
 that he should write this motto over his favourite rural retreat : 
 
 From business and the noisy world retired, 
 Nor vexed by love, nor by ambition fired, 
 Gently I wait the call of Charon's boat, 
 Still drinking like a fish, and amorous like a goat. 
 
 And Swift says he could hardly bear the jest, for he was a man 
 rather sensitive to ridicule. And though satirists might laugh 
 at his meditations and his studies, and though he permitted 
 them to derange very little his pleasure or his vices, there is no
 
 176 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 doubt but that they were real, and that they were valuable. 
 Doubtless, too, though he was only twenty-eight, he was a 
 little tired of subordinate office. His disposition was very im- 
 patient, and his sense of personal dignity very considerable. 
 Even so patient a pattern or routine diligence as Sir Robert 
 Peel rejoiced as a young man to be for a year or so out of 
 office. His mind, he acknowledged, widened, and his capacity 
 to think for himself improved. If Peel, who was made to toil 
 in the furrow, felt this, Bolingbroke, who was made to exult 
 in the desert, might well feel it. During three years he really 
 read much and thought much. 
 
 But a great change was at hand. The war with France 
 wau still successful and still popular, but it might be doubted if 
 it was still necessary. We had weakened France so much, that 
 it might be questionable if she wanted weakening more. Our 
 victories had destroyed her prestige, and the results of these 
 victories had weakened her vigour. Sensible men began to 
 inquire what was to be the time, what the occasion, and what 
 the terms of peace. 
 
 The ministry, indeed, appeared to be firm, but it was firm 
 in appearance only. The conditions of ministerial continuance 
 differed in that age in a most material respect from the present 
 conditions. Now the House of Commons, in almost all cases, 
 prescribes imperatively not only what measures shall be taken, 
 but what men shall take them : it chooses both policy and 
 ministers. In Queen Anne's time Parliament had acquired an 
 almost complete ascendency in policy ; it could fix precisely 
 whether there should be war or no war, peace or no peace ; it 
 had acquired a perfect control upon legislation, and a nearly 
 perfect- control upon internal administration. But it had no 
 choice, or but little, in the selection of persons. What was to 
 be done Parliament settled, but who was to do it the Queen 
 settled. 
 
 Queen Anne had done so at her occasion. Though she 
 was engaged in a Whig war, she removed the Whig ministers
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 177 
 
 whom she found in office. She appointed as supreme general- 
 issimo over the war abroad, and real prime minister over mat- 
 ters of state at home, the Duke of Maryborough, not because of 
 his discretion or his acquaintance with business, or his military 
 genius, but. because his wife was her early friend and her special 
 favourite. As the Duke of Wellington justly observed, the 
 Duke of Marlborough was the English government ; he was not 
 liable to be thwarted, or misconstrued, or neglected ; his opera- 
 tions in Flanders were never cramped by the home govern- 
 ment, as the operations of the Duke of Wellington in Spain were 
 cramped. He appointed the lord high treasurer Grodolphin ; 
 he placed the treasury, then even more than now the supreme 
 internal office, in Grodolphin's hands, because he was connected 
 with him by domestic ties, because they had long acted together, 
 because he had great confidence in his financial ability. The 
 Duke of Marlborough was not only great because of his wife, 
 but absolutely because of his wife. 
 
 By a kind of compensation the source of his power was the- 
 cause also of his downfall. The Queen and the duchess quar- 
 relled, as was natural. The duchess was virulent and obtrusive, 
 and the Queen was sensitive and sullen. The Queen had a 
 strong sense of personal dignity, which the duchess used to out- 
 rage. The duchess, who was clever, thought the Queen a fool, 
 and scarcely forbode to look and say so. From early habit the 
 friendship lasted much longer than could have been thought 
 likely, but it could not last for ever. As it was breaking up 
 a small force produced a large effect. The Queen, Swift says, 
 had not a ' stock of amity ' for more than one person at a time : 
 she commonly cared 'but little for anybody save one; but she 
 required one. The duchess had placed at court a poor relative, 
 of her own, a Miss Hill, whom both she and the Queen regarded 
 as a petty dependant, a real maid, who would be useful and lie 
 on the floor when peeresses and young ladies of quality were 
 useless and went to bed. As she was humble and artful, she 
 acquired influence : she was never in the way and never out
 
 178 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 of the way. She was always pleasant to the Queen, and the 
 duchess was commonly unpleasant. The consequence was cer- 
 tain. The abject new favourite soon supplanted the querulous 
 old favourite. 
 
 A very curious man took advantage of this. Wits and 
 satirists have been fond of describing Robert Harley, but 
 perhaps they have not described him very well. They have 
 made a heap of incongruities of him. They have told us that, 
 being bred a Puritan, and retaining till his death much of the 
 Puritan phraseology, he yet became the favourite leader of high 
 churchmen and Tories ; that being a muddle-headed dawdler, he 
 gained a great reputation for the transaction of business ; that 
 having an incapacity for intelligible speech, he became an in- 
 fluential orator in Parliament ; that being a puzzle-headed man, 
 of less than average ability, and less than average activity, he 
 long ruled a great party, for years ruled the court, and was at 
 last prime minister of England. 
 
 It is very natural that brilliant and vehement men should 
 depreciate Harley, for he had nothing which they possess, but 
 had everything which they commonly do not possess. He was 
 by nature a moderate man. In that age they called such a man 
 a trimmer, but they called him ill. Such a man does not con- 
 sciously shift or purposely trim his course. He firmly believes 
 that he is substantially consistent. ' I do not wish in this house,' 
 he would say in our age, ' to be a party to any extreme course. 
 Mr. Gladstone brings forward a great many things which I 
 cannot understand ; I assure you he does. There is more in 
 that bill of his about tobacco than he thinks ; I am confident 
 there is. Money is a serious thing, a very serious thing. And 
 I am sorry to say Mr. Disraeli commits the party very much. 
 He avows sentiments which are injudicious. I cannot go along 
 with him,Eor can Sir John. He was not taught the Catechism ; 
 I know he was not. There is a want in him of sound and sober 
 religion and Sir John agrees with me which would keep him 
 from distressing the clergy, who are very important. Great
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 179 
 
 orators are very well ; but, as I said, how is the revenue ? And 
 the point is, not to be led away and to be moderate, and not 
 to go to an extreme. As soon as it seems very clear, then I 
 begin to doubt. I have been many years in Parliament, and 
 that is my experience.' We may laugh at such speeches, but 
 there have been plenty of them in every English Parliament. 
 A great English divine has been described as always leaving 
 out the principle upon which his arguments rested ; even if it 
 was stated to him, he regarded it as far-fetched and extravagant. 
 Any politician who has this temper of mind will always have 
 many followers ; and he may be nearly sure that all great 
 measures will be passed more nearly as he wishes them to be 
 passed than as great orators wish. Harley had this temper, 
 and he enjoyed its results. He always had a certain influence 
 over moderate Whigs when he was a Tory, and over moderate 
 Tories when he was a Whig. Nine-tenths of mankind are 
 more afraid of violence than of anything else ; and inconsistent 
 moderation is always popular, because of all qualities it is most 
 opposite to violence most likely to preserve the present safe 
 existence. 
 
 Harley's moderation, which was influential because it was 
 unaffected, was assisted by two powers which brilliant people 
 despise, because in general they do not share them. Harley ex- 
 celled in the forms of business. There is distinct evidence that 
 official persons preferred his management of the treasury to that 
 of Lord Grodolphin, who preceded him, or Sir K. Walpole, who 
 succeeded him. In real judgment and substantial knowledge of 
 affairs, there was doubtless no comparison. Grodolphin was the 
 best financier of his generation, and Walpole was the best not 
 only of his own but of many which came after him. But the 
 ultimate issue of business is not the part of it which most im- 
 presses the officials of a department. They understand how 
 business is conducted better than what comes of it. The 
 statesman who gives them no trouble who coincides with that 
 which they recommend who thinks of the things which they
 
 180 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 , o 
 
 think of, is more satisfactory to his mere subordinates than a 
 real ruler, who has plans which others do not share, and whose 
 mind is occupied by large considerations, which only a few can 
 appreciate, and only experience can test. In his own time, both 
 with the Tory party and with moderate Whigs, Harley's reputa- 
 tion as a man of business was a means of influence which, on the 
 same scene and in our own day, could hardly be surpassed. 
 
 But it was surpassed in his own day. In personal questions, 
 as we have explained, the Parliament in Queen Anne's time 
 was only a subordinate power; the court was the principal and 
 the determining power. Now the faculty of business is but 
 secondary in all courts ; the faculty of intrigue is the main 
 source of real influence. To be able to manage men, to know 
 with whom to be silent, to know with whom to say how much, 
 to be able to drop casual observations, to have a sense of that 
 which others mean, though they do not say to be aware what 
 Lady A. is in secret planning, though she says the very oppo- 
 site to know that Lord B. has no influence, though he seems 
 most potent to know that little C. is a wire-puller, and can 
 get you anything, though he looks mean and though no one 
 knows ; in a word, to understand, to feel, to be unable to help 
 feeling, the by-play of life, is the principal necessity for success 
 in courts. It is the instinct of management which is not to be 
 shown even in conversation, far less in writing or speculation, 
 but yet which rules all small societies. Harley possessed it, 
 and the obscure but potent talents of business also ; and we 
 need seek no farther explanation why he was one of the most 
 successful men in his own time. 
 
 Harley was some sort of relative to Miss Hill (or Mrs. 
 Masham, for she married), the rising favourite of Queen 
 Anne's time. He was the favourite leader of all moderate 
 Tories ; and, on the whole, though not without grumblings from 
 extreme men, the most important leader of the Tory party. He 
 had been turned out when Bolingbroke was turned out, and he 
 wished to return. The fly was brought to the spider. Mi>.
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 181 
 
 Masham, the new favourite, asked Harley what counsel she 
 should give the Queen. He said, ' Turn out the Whigs ; ' and 
 meant, ' Bring me in.' 
 
 The Queen was inert, for that was her nature ; and the 
 evident popularity and the glorious success of the Whig war 
 naturally staggered her. But the Whigs made an error. 
 The high-church and semi-high-church party had enormous 
 power in the nation ; they had always advocated non-resistance 
 before the revolution, and though they had taken the oaths to 
 King William's government, they did not like to think that 
 they were supporting a government which was conspicuously 
 rebellious, which began in resistance to legitimate authority. 
 Of course the fact was so. King William invaded England 
 with Dutch troops, and was joined by English rebels ; but the 
 divine right of princes, and the duty of unconditional obedience, 
 retained much influence over most of the clergy and over many 
 of tlie laity. If the Whigs had been wise, they would have 
 offended this powerful sentiment as little as possible. High 
 churchmen were certainly powerful, but were necessarily inert ; 
 they had no distinct course to recommend; they ivould have 
 done much, but they could do nothing. They had assented to 
 the existing government, and though th'eir assent might be un- 
 willing and ungracious, the existing government should have let 
 them alone. The Whigs adopted the reverse course. A foolish 
 parson expressed with unusual folly the sentiments of the great 
 majority of his order. The Commons, at the instigation of the 
 Whigs, actually impeached him at the bar of the Lords. In 
 their folly they used against a pious and innocuous fool the 
 extreme remedy which the constitution provides for the final 
 punishment of impious and dangerous traitors. The country 
 was in a ferment ; the Tory party were active ; the moderate 
 classes were alarmed ; the clergy were incensed ; the W T higs 
 became unpopular. 
 
 Harley seized the opportunity. He persuaded Mrs. Masham 
 to persuade the Queen that now was the moment to gratify
 
 1 82 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 her new antipathy to her old favourite ; that now she should 
 punish the Duchess of Marlborough ; that now she should dis- 
 miss the Whig ministry. She did so. He came in himself, 
 and made Bolingbroke a secretary of state, and the first mem- 
 ber in the House of Commons. 
 
 It has been said, and is very likely, that Harley would have 
 preferred to retain in office the quiet and moderate Whigs, and 
 not to bring in Bolingbroke, an extreme and unquiet Tory. 
 The Whig party, however, was compact, and held together ; it 
 must be expelled as a whole, or retained as a whole. If it had 
 been wholly retained, Harley could not have come in, and he 
 was therefore obliged to ally himself with the aggravated Tories 
 and with Bolingbroke, who had made himself their mouthpiece. 
 It only completes the mingled character of Bolingbroke to re- 
 peat the legend of the time, that his acceptance of office was 
 heard with gladness, not only in grave manor-houses, and by 
 severe high-churchmen, but in more unmentionable places and 
 by more questionable persons. Some ladies of much beauty and 
 little virtue, so runs the legend, were heard to say, ' Boling- 
 broke is minister. He has six thousand guineas a year. Six 
 thousand guineas, and all for us.' The auspices of such a 
 ministry were not good. 
 
 The public aspect of affairs was, however, in the most critical 
 particular very favourable. While the French War lasted, 
 indeed, the new ministry must be perplexed. They must either 
 retain the Duke of Marlborough as general-in-chief, which was 
 not pleasant, as he was the chief of the party opposed to them, 
 and since probably Mrs. Masham did not wish it ; or they must 
 dismiss the duke in the midst of victory, and find a new general, 
 who might be defeated. But this painful alternative was tem- 
 porary only. The English nation had been sated with sieges and 
 victories, and more than sated with taxes and with debt ; it was 
 disposed to peace. The new ministry came therefore into the 
 enjoyment of a great inheritance, the greatest that has ever 
 fallen to a new ministry. France had been so reduced by
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 183 
 
 Maryborough's victories that she was ready to consent to a peace 
 which a few years before she would have thought most shameful, 
 which a few years before we should have thought most honour- 
 able. The new ministry were to make that peace. 
 
 The preliminary difficulty soon assumed its worst shape. 
 It became necessary to dismiss the Duke of Marlborough ; and, 
 as might be expected, the Duke of Ormond, who succeeded 
 him, was much less successful. There was happily no great 
 defeat, but there were minor disasters, which were magnified 
 by the contrast with past glories. We had been used to a 
 great exploit every year, and we were now asked to be thank- 
 ful for not being defeated very much. The contrast was pain- 
 ful, and the necessity of making peace became greater than 
 ever. 
 
 Up to this time Bolingbroke had been the most successful 
 politician of his age, and almost of any age, in England. He 
 had, it is true, no influence at court. Queen Anne distrusted 
 him ; she liked decorous men of regulated life. But, though 
 little over thirty, he was the leader of the house of Commons ; 
 the first orator there ; the second minister in the cabinet ; the 
 favourite minister of the most ardent section of his party a 
 section just strengthened by an election. The fame of his 
 oratory filled London, and the fame of his genius filled the 
 country. Mr. Pitt excepted, no Englishman has risen so high 
 and so rapidly under our parliamentary system. It was at 
 this crisis that his eager nature and his life of excitement 
 began to prepare his downfall, as they had prepared his 
 rise. 
 
 The official management of the foreign negotiations was in 
 the hands of Bolingbroke. Lord Dartmouth, the other secre- 
 tary of state, could speak no French, and Harley, the prime 
 minister, could speak but little ; but Bolingbroke spoke it well. 
 Harley, too, had no directing ability. He had the defects of the 
 late Lord Aberdeen : he was moderate and useful and judicious. 
 But he could not upon the spur of the moment strike out a
 
 1 84 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 distinct policy. Other statesmen must create before he could 
 decide on their creations. Bolingbroke was to devise how a 
 peace should be made. 
 
 A plain and strongheaded statesman such a statesman as 
 Walpole or as Palmerston would have had little difficulty. 
 France was most anxious to make peace, and it mattered but 
 little for England or for Europe what were the precise conditions 
 of it. There are occasions when a war itself does its own work, 
 and does it better than any pacification. The Crimean War was 
 an instance of this. That war thoroughly destroyed the prestige 
 of Russia and the pernicious predominance of Russia. At the 
 end of it, what were to be the conditions of peace was almost 
 immaterial. The wars of Marlborough had done their work also. 
 We had gone to war to prevent the acquisition of overbearing 
 power by Louis XIV. If a grandson who was devoted to him 
 had succeeded to Spain and the Spanish empire while France 
 was unexhausted he would have been a despot in Europe ; he 
 would have been terrible to us as Napoleon was terrible. But 
 nine years of continuous defeat had exhausted France, and 
 Louis XIV. was now a vanquished and decayed old man. At 
 his death the crown of France would pass to Louis XV., who 
 was an infant ; it was not much to be feared that the policy of 
 France and the policy of Spain would be dangerously connected 
 because their kings were second cousins. Possibly, indeed, 
 Louis XV. might die, and the King of Spain might come to 
 the throne of France. But this was a remote and contingent 
 danger ; it would have been unwise in our ancestors to lavish 
 blood and spend treasure because a prince might have died 
 young who really lived to be extremely old. The true object 
 of the war had been accomplished by the war itself, and the 
 substantial task of making a peace was therefore very easy. 
 
 The accessories of the task, too, it would seem, were easy 
 also. As we had been victorious in a first-rate war, it was 
 right that we should be dignified in the final pacification. It 
 was right that we should be ready, that we should even be
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 185 
 
 anxious to make peace ; but, at any rate, France, who was 
 vanquished, ought to seem equally anxious. Since, in part, 
 the war was a war to reduce her influence over the European 
 imagination, the manner of making peace was at least as mate- 
 rial as the terms of it. We were principal members of a great 
 league, and we had stirred up a part of Spain to resist the 
 French king of Spain. We were bound to keep clear faith 
 with our allies, and bound not to desert brave provinces who 
 had relied principally on our protection. 
 
 Bolingbroke was too eager to perceive these plain considera- 
 tions. He sent a man to Paris to ask for peace ; and the French 
 minister was so astounded that he would hardly believe the man. 
 He owned afterwards that, when he was asked the preliminary 
 question, ' Do you want a peace ? ' it seemed to him like asking 
 a lingering invalid whether he wanted to recover. He could 
 hardly bring himself to believe that Bolingbroke's messenger 
 was duly authorised. 
 
 The previous life of that messenger certainly was not such 
 as to gain him credit. He was a French abbe named Gaultier, 
 who had been a French spy, and perhaps still was so, in 
 England. He was an acute, plausible person, very fat, and not 
 very respectable, and altogether as unlikely a person to be 
 sent from a victorious nation to a defeated nation as could be 
 imagined. 
 
 Nevertheless the Abbe Gaultier was so sent. He said to 
 Torcy, the French minister, ' Do you want a peace ? I bring 
 you the means of treating independently of the Dutch, who are 
 unworthy of his Majesty's kindness and the honour he has done 
 them in addressing himself to them so many times to restore 
 peace to Europe.' In an ordinary alliance, such a clandes- 
 tine reconciliation with the enemy, and such a secret desertion 
 of allies, would have been plainly dishonest. There would 
 have been little to say for it, and very few would have been 
 willing to say that little. But the Grand Alliance was not an 
 ordinary one. Its acute framers had perceived the difficulty
 
 1 86 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 of their task. They had foreseen the difficulty of retaining in 
 firm cohesion a miscellaneous league of scattered states. They 
 had adopted the best expedient at their disposal : they had 
 prohibited the very commencement of exclusive negotiation by 
 individual states. Their words are as clear as words can be. 
 They are these : * Neutri partium fas sit, Bello semel suscepto, 
 de Pace cum Hoste tractare nisi conjunction et communicatis 
 conciliis cum altera Parte.' These words expressly forbid such 
 secret missions as those of Gaultier, and were inserted expressly 
 to forbid them. 
 
 The separate treaty with Holland was even more express : 
 it said that ' no negotiation shall be set on foot by one of the 
 allies without the concurrence of the other ; and that each ally 
 shall continually, and from time to time, impart to the other 
 everything which passes in the said negotiation.' And yet it 
 was especially from Holland that Bolingbroke was anxious, by 
 every secret disguise, and every diplomatic artifice, to conceal 
 his negotiation. He hoped, by a separate and secret peace, to 
 obtain commercial advantages for the English, in which the 
 Dutch should have no share. 
 
 Even after the first mission of Gaultier had terminated, there 
 was an intricate series of secret negotiations, in which he and 
 Prior were employed for us, and Mesnager for the French. 
 Prior expressly required on our behalf ' that the secret should 
 be inviolably kept till allowed by both parties to be divulged : ' 
 and the French minister wrote to Bolingbroke : ' It wholly de- 
 pends upon the secrecy and good use you will make of the 
 entire confidence he testifies to the Queen of Great Britain ; and 
 the King of France extols the firmness of the Queen, and sees 
 with great pleasure the new marks of resolution she shows.' It 
 was impossible to desert our allies more absolutely or more 
 dishonourably. It was impossible to violate an express treaty 
 more audaciously or more corruptly. 
 
 Nor was the secret negotiation a mere crime ; it was also a 
 miserable blunder. Diplomacy could hardly commit a greater.
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 187 
 
 There was a splendid, a nearly unexampled power of compel- 
 ling France to make a good peace. There was a great coalition 
 against her, which had always been victorious under Eugene 
 and Marlborough ; which had obtained such successes as no 
 Englishman had imagined; which had reduced France to a 
 pitch of shame, degradation, and weakness, that surprised her 
 most sanguine enemies, and depressed her most sanguine 
 friends. So long as the coalition was compact, the coalition 
 was all powerful. But by the mere act of commencing a 
 separate negotiation, Bolingbroke dissolved the coalition. 
 There could be no mutual trust after that. The principal 
 member of the league deserted the league, and its bond was 
 immediately disunited. We all know what would have been 
 the consequences if England had acted thus in the great war. 
 Suppose Lords Grey and Crrenville had come in before the 
 campaign of 1814 ; suppose that they had sent a secret emissary 
 to Napoleon ; suppose that they had offered a separate peace 
 without Spain, or Austria, or Eussia. We know that Napoleon 
 would again have been a principal potentate in Europe, for 
 the coalition which alone could extirpate him would have been 
 dissolved. 
 
 The truth of these remarks is written on the very face of 
 the treaty of Utrecht, and is obvious in every part of the nego- 
 tiation of it. A few months before Louis had been willing to 
 abandon Spain and to abandon his grandson. He had said, ' If 
 you can take Spain from him, take it ; I will not help him.' 
 But the allies were not content. They required that Louis 
 should compel his grandson to resign, and this he considered 
 dishonourable. But at Utrecht it was not even proposed that 
 Philip should abandon Spain ; that the House of Bourbon 
 should possess Spain, was a conceded and admitted principle. 
 We had dissolved the European confederacy, and we could not 
 hope to attain its objects. 
 
 Nor was the desertion of the other powers combined with 
 us in the Grand Alliance our only desertion, or our worst. All
 
 1 88 Bolingbroke as a 'Statesman. 
 
 these powers were states of some magnitude, and some were 
 states of great magnitude. They would be able to go on as they 
 had always gone on to shift for themselves, as they had 
 always shifted. Bat we also deserted others who were not so 
 independent. We had incited the Catalans in the north-east 
 of Spain to resist the French King of Spain ; we had promised 
 them in express terms our support and aid ; for a long time we 
 had given them that aid. But at the peace of Utrecht we 
 deserted them. The Catalans made a brave resistance, but a 
 small province could do nothing against a great nation. The 
 Catalans were soon overcome, and deprived of all their liberties. 
 Throughout Europe, and doubtless throughout England also, 
 there were many murmurs against our policy. We had en- 
 couraged a brave people to rebel ; we had even threatened them 
 if they did not rebel ; and when they did rebel, we deserted 
 them. If, at present, France and England were to incite the 
 Poles to rebel against Russia, they hardly could desert them : 
 the public opinion of the world is now so powerful ; in Queen 
 Anne's time public opinion could only murmur, but it did 
 murmur. The peace of Utrecht, men said, was a base crime as 
 well as a gross blunder. 
 
 But why, it will be asked, did Bolingbroke commit so gross 
 a blunder ? What reasons could have rendered it plausible to 
 him. The principal answer is the principal key to his charac- 
 ter. With many splendid gifts, he was exceedingly defective 
 in cool and plain judgment. He failed where in all ages such 
 men as Alcibiades have failed. Whether by nature he was 
 much gifted with judgment we cannot tell ; the probability is 
 that he was about as well gifted with other men. But his life 
 was such as to render a cool judgment impossible. ' His fine 
 imagination,' says Lord Chesterfield, ' was often heated and ex- 
 hausted with his body in celebrating and almost deifying the 
 prostitute of the night ; and his convivial joys were pushed to 
 all the extravagancy of frantic bacchanals.' Swift tells graphic 
 stories of his drinking till his associates could drink no longer
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 189 
 
 and his being left at three in the morning calling for * t'other 
 flask.' Many men may lead gross lives and keep cool heads, 
 but such are not men of Bolingbroke's temperament. A man 
 like Walpole, or a man like Louis Napoleon, is protected by an 
 unsensitive nature from intellectual destruction. But such a 
 man as Bolingbroke, whose nature is warm and whose imagina- 
 tion is excitable, imbibes the eager poison into the very heart 
 of his mind. Such is our protection against the possibilities 
 of an Alcibiades. No one who has not a vivid imagination can 
 succeed in such a career ; and any man of vivid imagination 
 that career would burn away and destroy. Cold men may be 
 wild in life and not wild in mind. But warm and eager men, 
 fit to be the favourites of society, and fib to be great orators, 
 will be erratic not only in conduct but in judgment. They 
 will see men ( like trees walking.' 
 
 Bolingbroke's excitement did not prevent his working. He 
 laboured many hours and wrote many letters. He often com- 
 plains of the number of hours he has been at his desk, and of 
 the labours which were thrown upon him. But his work pro- 
 bably only excited him the more ; for a time vires acquirit eundo 
 is the law of such wild strength. In the course of the negotia- 
 tions he went to Paris, became the idol of society there, and 
 used his social advantages efficiently for political purposes. To 
 dazzle people more, he learned or pretended to learn, the Spanish 
 language, to read such diplomatic documents as were written 
 in it. But such minor excellences could not mend the incur- 
 able badness of a peace commenced by a surrender of the best 
 we had to surrender, by a dissolution of our alliance. A plain 
 strong-headed man would have left alone the accessory ad- 
 vantages, and succeeded in the main point. Without Spanish 
 and without French, Walpole would have made a good peace ; 
 Bolingbroke could not do so with both. 
 
 Bolingbroke, too, had a scheme, as imaginative and excited 
 men will have. He knew that in relinquishing Spain to the 
 house of Bourbon, he was giving the opponents of peace a
 
 190 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 great argumentative advantage. The mass of mankind, who 
 judge by visible symbols, considered that a peace by which the 
 king whom we had opposed should reign in Spain, and by 
 which the king whom we had proposed did not reign there, 
 was a gross failure. In sound argument, it was probably right 
 for us to concede. As we have explained, the war had accom- 
 plished its own work ; France was excessively weakened, and 
 there was little fear of present danger from her. If, by a pos- 
 sible death, the crown of France should fall to the king of 
 Spain, it would be time enough then to prevent the same per- 
 son from reigning in the two kingdoms. The treaty of Utrecht 
 provides that the same prince shall not reign in both ; and, 
 if necessary, we could go to war to enforce the treaty. The 
 Bourbon king was popular in Spain, and was preferred by the 
 Spaniards to anyone else. It would have been hard to dis- 
 lodge him. But Bolingbroke did not like to rely on these 
 plain arguments. He hoped to make the peace popular by an 
 appeal to our commercial jealousy, by gaining mercantile ad- 
 vantages for ourselves which our rivals the Dutch did not 
 share. He obtained for us the celebrated Assiento contract, 
 giving us the right of carrying Negro slaves to the West Indies, 
 and also certain privileges which would have given our manu- 
 facturers great advantage in the French markets. He hoped 
 this commercial bribe would silence the national conscience 
 that it would induce us to forget our treachery to our allies, our 
 desertion of the Catalans, and the establishment of the House 
 of Bourbon in Spain. He hoped it would make the peace 
 popular. 
 
 He was disappointed. The reception of that peace by the 
 nation, and especially by the Tory party, was very like the recep- 
 tion of Mr. Disraeli's great budget of 1 852. A great secret had 
 been long paraded of something which was to please everybody : 
 it was divulged, and it pleased nobody. Bolingbroke may him- 
 self describe the effect that his work produced on the more 
 moderate portion of his party :
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 191 
 
 The whimsical or the Hanover Tories continued zealous in ap- 
 pearance with us till the peace was signed. I saw no people so eager 
 for the conclusion of it. Some of them were in such haste, that 
 they thought any peace preferable to the least delay, and omitted no 
 instances to quicken their friends who were actors in it. As soon as 
 the treaties were perfected and laid before Parliament, the scheme 
 of these gentlemen began to disclose itself entirely. Their love of the 
 peace, like other passions, cooled by enjoyment. They grew nice 
 about the construction of the articles, could come up to no direct 
 approbation, and, being let into the secret of what was to happen, 
 would not preclude themselves from the glorious advantage of rising 
 on the ruins of their friends and of their party. 
 
 Nothing could be more natural than their conduct. The 
 moderate Tory party, and most sensible men, wished for a satis- 
 factory peace made in a satisfactory manner : they wished for 
 dignity in diplomacy, and desirable results. They were disap- 
 pointed. After a war which everyone was proud of, we con- 
 cluded a peace which nobody was proud of, in a manner that 
 everyone was ashamed of. 
 
 The commercial treaties on which Bolingbroke relied, so far 
 from helping him, were a hindrance to him. The right of taking 
 slaves to the West Indies was indeed popular : the day for anti- 
 slavery scruples had not commenced. But, in return for the 
 privileges which the French gave to our manufacturers, we 
 had given many privileges to them. We had established an 
 approximation to free trade, and everyone was aghast. The 
 English producer clamoured for protection, and he has seldom 
 clamoured in vain. The commercial treaties required the con- 
 sent of Parliament, and were rejected. If Bolingbroke had 
 been a free-trader upon principle, his convictions might have 
 consoled him. But he professed to know nothing of commerce, 
 and did know nothing. His books are full of nonsense on 
 such topics : he hated the City because they were Whigs, and 
 he hated the Dutch because he had deserted them ; and these 
 were his cardinal sentiments on mercantile affairs. He speaks 
 of ' matters, such as that of commerce, which the negotiators of
 
 192 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 the peace of Utrecht could not be supposed to understand.' 
 Certainly he did not understand them. He only directed his 
 subordinates to get out of the French as much for ourselves, 
 and as little for the Dutch, as possible. 
 
 Instead of gathering strength (says Bolingbroke), either as a 
 ministry or as a party, we grew weaker every day. The peace had 
 been judged with reason to be the only solid foundation whereupon 
 we could erect a Tory system ; and yet when it was made, we found 
 ourselves at a full stand. Nay, the very work, which ought to have 
 been the basis of our strength, was in part demolished before our eyes 
 and we were stoned with the ruins of it. 
 
 In our time he would have been really stoned. The fierce 
 warlike disposition of the English people would not have en- 
 dured such dishonour. We may doubt if it would have endured 
 any peace. It certainly would not have endured the best peace, 
 unless it were made with dignity and with honesty. We should 
 have been wildly elated by Marlborough's victories, and little in 
 a mood to bear shame and to be guilty of desertion. The Eng- 
 lish people has been much the same for centuries. In country 
 manor-houses, where a son had been killed for the cause which 
 was sacrificed in alehouses, where men were used to hear of 
 glorious victories in large towns, where the wrongs of injured 
 races like the Catalans were understood through a whole na- 
 tion, which has ever been proud, brave, and honourable, a mean 
 peace, effected by desertion, must have been abhorred. It was 
 merely endured because it was made, and because in those da} r s, 
 when communication was slow, public opinion, as in America 
 now, did not distinctly form itself till the crisis for action was 
 over. But though for the moment endured, it was long ab- 
 horred. For very many years half our political talk was 
 coloured by it. It was to the Tories what the coalition between 
 Lord North and Fox was to the Whigs- a principal operating 
 cause in excluding them from offica during fifty years. 
 
 And, what for the time was worse, the Tory ministry of the 
 moment was disunited. ' Whilst this was doing,' says Boling-
 
 Bvlingbroke as a Statesman. 193 
 
 broke, ' Harley looked on, as if he had not been a party to all 
 which had passed ; broke now and then a jest, which savoured 
 of the Inns of Court, and the bad company in which he had been 
 bred ; and on those occasions where his station obliged him to 
 speak of business, was absolutely unintelligible.' In reality 
 Harley disliked his position. He had always been a moderate 
 man, respected by moderate men ; he had the reputation of a 
 man of care and judgment, and he had thriven by that reputa- 
 tion. On a sudden he became a party to disreputable peace, 
 at which even moderate Whigs were frantic, for which even 
 moderate Tories could not vote. That the negotiations had 
 commenced by artifice and deceit did not horrify him much, 
 for he was a man much given to stratagem. But he knew also 
 that the negotiation had ended in conspicuous meanness and 
 unpopular concessions ; he felt that his reputation for judgment 
 was weakened. All shrewd observers knew that there would 
 soon be disunion between Harley, the old head of the moderate 
 Tories, and Boliugbroke, the present head of the extreme Tories. 
 Swift, who was a very shrewd observer, and who was close at 
 hand, knew that here was already disunion. 
 
 Before the treaties had been discussed by, and the commer- 
 cial part of them rejected in, the House of Commons, Boling- 
 broke made another error. He left the House of Commons. 
 Harley had been created Earl of Oxford, and he could not en- 
 dure to be inferior to him. There was much delay in conferring 
 the peerage, and he was very angry at it. He was, Oxford 
 says, * in the utmost rage against the Treasurer, Lady Masham, 
 and without sparing the greatest,' and made 'outrageous 
 speeches.' A wise friend would have observed to him that no 
 greater kindness could have been done him than to refuse him 
 a peerage altogether. The great but gradual revolution which 
 was consummated in the time of Walpole was then beginning 
 to be apparent. Before Queen Anne's time our most conspicu- 
 ous statesmen had been, during the most important part of their 
 lives, members of the House of Lords; since Queen Anne's 
 
 o
 
 194 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 time they have at similar periods been usually members of 
 the House of Commons. There are several causes for this, but 
 the principle is one on which Bolingbroke has often commented. 
 From time immemorial the Commons have been the guardians 
 of the public purse ; and whenever the public purse was to be 
 touched, they have always been the first body in the State. But 
 before the revolution they were seldom wanted. They granted 
 the king, at the commencement of his reign, an estimated reve- 
 nue, which was supposed to be adequate to the estimated expen- 
 diture in time of peace. As our wealth was rapidly increasing, 
 it was often more than sufficient. In time of war the House of 
 Commons must be applied to ; new money was needful for new 
 expenses ; but the ordinary expenditure went on every year 
 without their being consulted or required. The expense of 
 William's wars and Queen Anne's wars made a great change : 
 taxation became larger than it had ever been, though very small 
 as it seems to us now. Since that time the estimated revenue 
 which the crown yearly enjoyed, without additional parlia- 
 mentary aid, has scarcely ever been adequate to the estimated 
 expenditure. There has yearly been a budget, and yearly a re- 
 course to the House of Commons. The position of a minister 
 in the House of Commons has therefore greatly risen. Nine 
 years out of ten the nation could at present dispense with a 
 House of Lords though a useful it is an auxiliary power ; but 
 every year we want a House of Commons, for it has to grant 
 funds of primary necessity. The minister who can manage the 
 Commons, and extract from them the necessary moneys, has 
 then become our most necessary minister. 
 
 The change was just beginning ; for Walpole, Bolingbroke's 
 schoolfellow and parliamentary rival, ruled his generation by 
 his parliamentary and financial abilities. But Bolingbroke was 
 too eager and impetuous to foresee the action of this powerful 
 but obscure cause. The tradition had been, that the Peers were 
 superior to the Commons, and he adhered to this tradition. He 
 was angry till he obtained his peerage
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 195 
 
 Nor was he satisfied when he did obtain it. He was made a 
 Viscount only, and Harley had been made an Earl. He could 
 not bear to be inferior to him in anything, especially as there 
 was an extinct earldom in his own family. He was vexed, angry, 
 and dissatisfied. Once he went out of town, and would attend 
 to no business for days. He was angry too with the press. The 
 peace of Utrecht was attacked and assailed, and it was his peace. 
 It is true that Bolingbroke should have been able to bear 
 literary comments, even when rather bitter. He was himself 
 through life an unscrupulous writer, using the press without 
 reluctance and without cessation. He was then employing 
 Swift, the most bitter writer of libels, both political and per- 
 sonal, that can be conceived. He lived with Swift in intimacy > 
 and printed his libels. He gave hirn political information and 
 ideas, and praised him when he used them so as most to hurt 
 his adversaries. He ought to have been able to bear any- 
 thing, yet he could bear nothing. He prosecuted many more 
 persons than it was usual to prosecute then, and far more than 
 have been prosecuted since. He thought, with a continental 
 wit, that ' a press is free when government newspapers are 
 licentious.' He thought that everything should be said for 
 him, and that nothing should be said against him. The copyists 
 of Alcibiades are commonly irritable, for neither their nature 
 nor their habits teach them forbearance. 
 
 But neither Bolingbroke' s disunion with his principal col- 
 league, nor the attacks of the press, were his greatest danger. 
 He was in the worst political position which can be imagined. 
 As we have explained, the principal question of the age was a 
 question of dynasty : after the peace with France it was the sole 
 great question ; it is in the nature of a topic so absorbing to 
 swallow up every subject of minor interest. There were only 
 two solutions of the problem possible. The law prescribed one, 
 and a sort of superstition prescribed another. The Act of Set- 
 tlement said that the House of Hanover was to succeed Queen 
 Anne ; the doctrine of non-resistance said that the Pretender 
 
 02
 
 196 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 was to succeed her. The Jacobites adhered to the doctrine of 
 non-resistance. The Whigs adhered to the Act of Parliament. 
 Both these parties had a definite solution of the principal topic 
 of the hour. But between these fluctuated the great mass of the 
 Tory party, who did not like the House of Hanover because it 
 had no hereditary right, who did not like the Pretender because 
 he was a Eoman Catholic. This party objected to both possible 
 solutions ; they lived in he vague hope that the Pretender 
 might turn Protestant that some unforeseen circumstance 
 would intervene that Queen Anne would last their time. For 
 persons in a private station such a state of mind was very pos- 
 sible and very natural. But it was of this very party that 
 Bolingbroke was the spokesman and the leader, and he was a 
 minister. He could not well remain without a distinct policy. 
 Queen Anne, though not old, was often ill. She was suspected 
 to be, and we now know she was, very near her death. He 
 must make a choice. 
 
 Yet which king was Bolingbroke to choose ? If he chose 
 the House of Hanover, he himself ought not to be minister. 
 This was the Whig candidate, this was the candidate whom his 
 party disliked at whom they murmured whom they declined 
 to support. A Tory ministry which should bring in the House 
 of Hanover was like a Derbyite ministry that should propose 
 free-trade or reform of Parliament. It was a ministry which 
 tried to maintain its existence hy denying its party tenets. 
 Probably in those times a Tory ministry could not have done 
 what we have seen them do in our own time. Party spirit ran 
 much stronger in Queen Anne's time than in ours. The politi- 
 cal contentions of London were like the contests at a borough 
 election now. At three o'clock on the polling day it is very 
 difficult to change your politics and keep your character. So it 
 was in London then. A fierce strife raged. Whig society and 
 Tory society were separated like two hostile camps, and a 
 deserter from one to the other was sure of contemptuous hatred 
 from those he left, and of contemptuous patronage from those
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 197 
 
 to whom he came. Bolingbroke could not do even once that 
 which Mr. Disraeli has done twice. 
 
 Bolingbroke's enemies have been very anxious to fix on him 
 a formed design to bring in the Pretender. He would doubt- 
 less have been very glad to do so, if he could have formed a 
 coherent scheme. But he could not. Oxford was far too 
 moderate and timid a man to break the law, or to plan to break 
 it. He had himself supported the Act of Settlement. He 
 knew that the Hanoverian succession, though not popular to 
 the imagination of any class, was acceptable to the reason of 
 the most thinking class. He knew that the aristocracy, the 
 large towns, and all the cultivated part of the community, were 
 in favour of it. He knew that, as the aristocratic classes had the 
 command of the House of Lords, of the small boroughs, and of 
 very many counties, as the great towns were of themselves 
 favourable, the House of Hanover was sure of a majority in 
 Parliament. He knew that the general vulgar, and especially 
 the rural vulgar, who were favourable to the House of Stuart, 
 though numerically strong, were but weak in parliamentary 
 representation. He was probably a party to some covert 
 intrigues, for intrigue was intrinsically agreeable to him ; but, 
 in reality, he was too timid to abandon the plain and legal 
 coarse for a tortuous and illegal one. Bolingbroke had, on the 
 other hand, a constitutional predilection for violent courses, 
 and no particular objection to an illegal course. If he could 
 have turned out Oxford if he could have carried his party 
 with him, he would certainly have contrived some scheme for 
 proclaiming the Pretender at Queen Anne's death. But even 
 he was not mad enough to commit himself to a definite plan 
 before he knew that he should have the power to execute it. 
 In the meantime ' Tom Harley,' the prime minister's brother, 
 exactly expressed the position of the ministry. ' We ought,' 
 he said, 'to be better or worse with Hanover than we are.' 
 The case, as men saw it then, was simple. The Queen was 
 daily approaching the grave. The ministry in power were
 
 1 98 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 uncertain what to do in the event of her death. They had * no 
 settled intention ' of breaking the law, Bolingbroke tells us ; 
 but he does not venture to contend that they had a settled 
 intention of obeying it. They were drifting to a crisis without 
 a plan. 
 
 Nor was Bolingbroke comfortable while the Queen lived. 
 She herself did not like him. A smaller person has uever 
 been placed by the caprices of fate amid great affairs than the 
 ' good Queen Anne.' She had not, Swift says, ' a sufficient 
 stock of amity ' for more than one person at a time ; she was 
 always choosing a favourite upon whom to concentrate her 
 affections exclusively. . Her comprehension was as limited as 
 her affections. She seriously objected, it is said, to one min- 
 ister for appearing before her in a tie-wig instead of a full- 
 bottom ; and even if this anecdote has been exaggerated by 
 continual narration, it expresses the sort of objections which 
 ruled her mind and determined her conduct. She had a strong 
 objection to all license ; decorum was a sort of morality to her, 
 as to most great ladies ; she would have been much puzzled to 
 fix where manners ended and where morals began. Bolingbroke 
 was license personified ; and therefore she distrusted and dis- 
 liked him. She did not altogether approve, either, of the peace 
 of Utrecht. She probably did not understand the details, but 
 she evidently understood that it was a perplexing matter,' and 
 'not the sort of thing to which she had been accustomed under 
 Lord Marlborough.' The original strength of the Tory minis- 
 try had been in the Queen's predilection for Miss Hill, after- 
 wards Lady Masham ; Harley ruled Miss Hill, and Miss Hill 
 ruled the Queen. But the Queen was not quite sure about 
 Miss Hill. One of her tastes was a taste for aristocracy ; and 
 she was half ashamed of having taken a great liking to a wait- 
 ing-maid who had been placed about her. She had an old pre- 
 dilection also for the Duchess of Somerset, by birth the last of 
 the Percies, whose husband was a Whig. Swift was never easy 
 as to the effect of this friendship. He said, the * Duchess of
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 199 
 
 Somerset is a proud woman, but I will pull her down ;' so he 
 libelled her, which did not make her more propitious to him or 
 his masters. There was always a danger that the ex-waiting- 
 maid, on whom all depended, should be discarded, as the 
 Duchess of Marlborough had been discarded ; that the Duchess 
 of Somerset might become prime favourite in her stead ; that 
 the policy of the government, and all the persons of our rulers, 
 should be again changed by the inexplicable caprice of a quiet 
 old lady. 
 
 And Bolingbroke had another difficulty. The distrust of 
 him was not confined to Queen Anne. It extended through 
 his party, and was an inevitable result of his peculiar position. 
 He vas an eloquent man without prejudices, speaking the pre- 
 judices of men who could not speak. But the speechless client 
 and the eloquent advocate differ in nature so much that they 
 can never much like or well understand the other. The Tory 
 party knew that when Bolingbroke expressed their favourable 
 conviction, he did not himself believe a word of what he was 
 saying. And they could not tell what he did believe. And, 
 being for the most part regular men of middle life from the 
 agricultuial counties, they did not much like to trust as their 
 leader a young man of loose life about town. After the peace 
 of Utrech; especially, he could not tell what they would think, 
 and they could not tell what he would do. They could never 
 have, anticipated his doing anything so mean as that, and he 
 could never understand what disgrace there was in so obvious a 
 diplomatic stratagem as breach of faith. In our own time, it is 
 easy to vex Tories. You have only to ask, ' What is Dizzy's 
 next move ? ' Such short words would not have suited our 
 formal ancestors. But many a courteous Whig, doubtless, 
 asked maiy a Tory, ' What is to be my Lord Bolingbroke's 
 next fine stroke of policy ? ' and the Tory could not have known 
 what to say. So long as Oxford was at the head of affairs 
 common nen felt that there was still something ordinary about 
 the government. But if Bolingbroke were to become sole
 
 2co Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 minister, or chief minister, we should be subjected to the bold 
 schemes of undiluted genius. 
 
 In this difficult position Bolingbroke showed great ability. 
 He could not, indeed, remove its irremovable defects. He could 
 not declare for the House of Hanover ; and he could not decJare 
 for the House of Stuart. He could not remove the dislike 
 which a dull queen, and a dull party, felt for a brilliant man. 
 But what could be done he did. He showed great parlia- 
 mentary ability, and was ever ready with wonderful eloquence. 
 He pleased his party by a schism bill, agreeable to High 
 Churchmen, and disagreeable to Dissenters. He obtained the 
 favour of the waiting-maid, if he could not obtain that of the 
 Queen, her mistress. Miss Hill (or Lady Masham, as she now 
 was) was a sort of relation of Oxford's ; and this had first 
 brought them together. For a long time the union was firm ; 
 he gave her much counsel and some money, and she gare him 
 much power. But Oxford had a conscience, or vestiges of a 
 conscience, in the use of public money. He was not ready to 
 give Miss Hill, or Miss Hill's brother, all that they wanted. 
 Swift puts it that he was too careful of the public interest for 
 the corruption of the time ; or, as we should put it, he vould not 
 bribe without limit against the public interest out of the public 
 treasury. But Bolingbroke had no scruples : he bid higher ; 
 he gave Miss Hill and 'Jack Hill' all he could, and promised 
 that they should have more if they would make him* first 
 minister and maintain him as such. He himself mty tell the 
 result : ' The Earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday ; the 
 Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this, anc how our 
 fortune banters us ! ' Such was the close of three years of 
 intrigue. He had bribed the waiting-maid just when the 
 mistress was no more. 
 
 Nor at the moment was this the worst. The Queen's dis- 
 trust of Bolingbroke had lasted till her death. The vhite staff 
 the ' magic wand,' as Bolingbroke calls it, long disused in 
 English politics, but then the symbol of the lord high treasurer
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 201 
 
 and of the prime minister had been taken from Oxford, but 
 it had not been given to anyone. Bolingbroke could not gain 
 it for himself. It was arranged that the treasury should be put 
 into commission, as it had been in King William's time, and as 
 it always now is. Bolingbroke was to continue secretary of 
 state, and be in fact principal minister ; yet he was not to have 
 the indefinite power of the lord treasurer the mystic power of 
 the white staff. But on her death-bed Queen Anne felt that 
 Bolingbroke could not be trusted even so far. She was dying, 
 and knew that she was dying. She doubtless felt it was her 
 duty to place the administration in the hands of some one 
 who would obey the law on her death. She did not like the 
 family of Hanover; she had the most keen repugnance to the 
 presence of any of them in England during her life. She could 
 not endure to see her successor close at hand, and it probably 
 never struck her as a matter of duty to save the country from 
 a possible convulsion of civil war. She was a very little- 
 minded woman, but at the same time she was a decorous woman, 
 and a well-meaning woman. She would not have planned or 
 dared or wished to break the law which she had passed. As 
 death was coming upon her, she knew that the practical pre- 
 miership of Bolingbroke would endanger the security of the 
 Act of Settlement. Of all statesmen he was least likely to obey 
 it, and therefore most unfit to be prime minister when it was 
 of critical importance to obey it. Obscurely, perhaps, but 
 effectually, Queen Anne felt this. She gave the white staff to 
 Shrewsbury, and Bolingbroke's three days of premiership were 
 at an end. 
 
 Probably Bolingbroke felt the disaster the more that he was 
 obliged to seem to assent to it. Shrewsbury had been acting 
 as confidential adviser to the Queen for some time, to Boling- 
 broke's dismay. He knew, he said, how he stood with Oxford 
 that was open war ; but how he stood with Shrewsbury, he 
 did not know. As soon as the Queen was despaired of, the 
 privy council was summoned, and by ordinary rule only those
 
 202 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 summoned should attend ; a ministry thus secures a privy 
 council of chosen friends. But at this meeting two Whig 
 dukes, the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of Argyle, attended, 
 though not summoned, and by their influence the council was 
 induced to ask the Queen to make Shrewsbury high treasurer ; 
 and Bolingbroke was obliged to assent. Neither in the nation, 
 nor at the court, had he substantial influence or effectual 
 power. 
 
 He had in truth no alternative. A frantic bishop, Atter- 
 bury, bishop of Rochester, wanted him to proclaim the Pre- 
 tender. But Bolingbroke, though a hot -headed statesman, had 
 a- notion of law and a perception of obvious consequences. He 
 was not a hot-headed divine : he knew that by law George I. 
 must be proclaimed at once ; he knew that Shrewsbury, who 
 wielded the white staff, which everyone would obey, would at 
 once, proclaim George I. He knew that he could not himself 
 command the obedience of a watchman. All the force of 
 government had at once passed from him, and he acquiesced 
 in the new order of things. He assisted at the proclamation 
 of George I. 
 
 The law had indicated the steps which should be taken in 
 case of the Queen's death, and before her successor could be 
 brought over from Germany. A document was produced by 
 the Hanoverian minister, naming Lords Justices, who were to 
 administer the government until the arrival of George I. Of 
 these Lords Justices, Bolingbroke, of course, was not one. 
 They were all sound Whigs, and steady friends to the House 
 of Hanover. As Bolingbroke had for four years been wielding 
 the force of government so as to give pain to them, they imme- 
 diately began to exercise it so as to give pain to him. They 
 appointed Addison as their secretary ; desired all documents to 
 be addressed to him ; and, though Bolingbroke was still in high 
 office, and had at the last moment been real prime minister, 
 they kept him waiting at their door with studied circumstances
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 203 
 
 of indignity, which were much remarked on then, and which 
 much tried his philosophy. 
 
 It would, however, have been well for Bolingbroke if mere 
 indignities like these had been all which was in store for him, 
 or all which he deserved. When Parliament met, zealous 
 Whigs naturally began to murmur a good deal as to the past. 
 Bolingbroke had ruled them hardly during his reign. His 
 ministry had removed Marlborough from his appointments ; 
 his ministry had expelled Walpole from the House of Commons. 
 Walpole would most likely have said that the Whig ' innings ' 
 had arrived, and that the actions of their predecessors must be 
 scrutinised. Bolingbroke for a time affected to fear nothing. 
 Oxford went to and fro in London, and Bolingbroke followed 
 his example. All at once he changed his policy. He appeared 
 at the theatre in state, and took pains while there to attract 
 attention ; went home, changed his dress, and fled to France. 
 
 In truth, he was thoroughly frightened. He declared that 
 ' his blood was,' he understood, * to have been the cement of a 
 new alliance,' between the moderate Tories and the Whigs. 
 Some have traced this notion to the hints of Marlborough, but 
 it was most likely due as much to Bolingbroke's own conscience. 
 He knew well that the secret negotiations prior to the peace of 
 Utrecht would not bear even fair scrutiny. He knew that they 
 were now to be subjected to hostile scrutiny. Even from 
 impartial judges he could only expect condemnation, and his 
 case would now be tried by his enemies. His life, indeed, was 
 in no danger. Neither the nation, nor the party opposed to him, 
 were inclined to bloodshed; but he felt he was in danger of 
 something. His guilty conscience magnified the possibilities of 
 punishment ; to escape them, he did exactly what was worst for 
 his reputation. Though it was as much as pleading guilty, he fled. 
 He was attainted as a traitor in his absence, and there may 
 be legal doubt as to whether the attainder was deserved. That 
 a minister who advises his sovereign to violate a treaty, and 
 who violates it accordingly, is worthy of severe punishment,
 
 204 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 
 
 will be admitted by everyone ; and that Bolingbroke had done 
 this is beyond question or dispute. But this offence does not 
 amount to high treason, and the details of an incidental trans- 
 action as to the town of Tournay had to be pressed into the 
 service ; and it required much stretching to make these amount 
 even to a constructive treason. But whatever might be the 
 legal correctness or the incorrectness of the precise punish- 
 ment inflicted on Bolingbroke is scarcely material now. He 
 well deserved a bill of ' Pains and Penalties ; ' and whether he 
 was or was not visited with the very penalty that was most 
 suitable, does not matter much. 
 
 On Bolingbroke's arrival in France, he looked about him for 
 awhile. He was at once solicited by the emissaries of the 
 Pretender, but he deliberated for some time, and it would have 
 been wiser for him to have deliberated longer. He well knew 
 that, though there was much latent Jacobite sentiment in Eng- 
 land, there was no good material for a Jacobite rebellion. Many 
 squires and rectors and peasants would have been glad to see 
 the legitimate king restored ; but their zeal was not very active ; 
 it belonged to the region of traditional sentiment and vague 
 prejudice rather than to that of practical and vigorous life. The 
 House of Hanover had the force of the government and the 
 sense of the country in its favour. It was in possession, and 
 Bolingbroke was aware that the Jacobites could not expel it 
 from possession. He knew all this well, but his passions were 
 too strong for his judgment ; from excitability, restlessness, 
 and rage, he joined the Pretender. He could not help being 
 busy, and hoped, or half-hoped, to be revenged on his 
 enemies. 
 
 He could not, however, long agree with his new associate?. 
 The descent from actual office to imaginary office was too sudden ; 
 to many men it was pleasing to be secretary of state to a mock 
 king, but it was very painful to one who had just been secretary 
 to a real queen. His contempt, too, for the Irish associates of 
 the Pretender was unbounded. He saw that they were hot-
 
 Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 205 
 
 _ ^_ * 
 
 headed and ignorant men who knew nothing of the country 
 which they hoped to rule whom that country would not 
 endure for a day. He knew that the Roman Catholics in 
 England were a small and unpopular body, and their aid more 
 dangerous than their enmity. The genuine Jacobites distrusted 
 him also. He said that they were untrustworthy because they 
 were fools, and they said that he was untrustworthy because he 
 was a traitor. This could not last; after a brief interval, he left 
 the Pretender and his court : they began to slander him, and he 
 began to speak much evil of them. 
 
 With his secession from the Jacobites Bolingbroke's active 
 career ends. He was afterwards only an aspirant for a career. 
 He was, after several years, permitted to return to England, and 
 to enjoy his estate though he was an attainted traitor; but the 
 attainder was not reversed, and while it was in force he could 
 not take his seat in the House of Lords, or hold any office what- 
 ever. He wrote much against Walpole, but he did not turn out 
 Walpole. On one occasion he was much mortified because Pul- 
 teney and the practical opponents of Walpole said that the sup- 
 port of his name rather weakened than strengthened them. He 
 gave in a long memorial of suggestions to George I. ; but the 
 King said they were ' bagatelles.' He then fancied that he 
 should become minister because of the support of Lady Suffolk, 
 George II.'s mistress ; but Lady Suffolk had no influence, and 
 Queen Caroline, who had predominant influence, supported 
 Walpole. He then hoped to be minister under the Prince of 
 Wales, George II.'s son, and wrote a treatise on a 'Patriot 
 King ' for that prince's use. But George II. outlived his son ; 
 and he was saved the mortification of seeing how little that 
 small prince would have carried out his great ideas. Though 
 he survived Queen Anne more than thirty years, he never after 
 her death attained to a day's power in England. Three years 
 of eager unwise power, and thirty-five of sickly longing and im- 
 potent regret such, or something like it, will ever be in this 
 cold modern world the fate of an Alcibiades.
 
 2O6 
 
 SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS. 1 
 [1863.] 
 
 FEW more curious sights were, not long since, to be seen in Lon- 
 don than that of Sir G. C. Lewis at the War Office. What is now 
 a melancholy recollection was, when we used to see it, an odd 
 mixture of amusing anomalies. The accidental and bit-by- 
 bit way in which all minor business is managed in England 
 has drifted our public offices into scattered, strange, and miscel- 
 laneous places. It has drifted the war minister into the large 
 drawing-room of an old mansion, which is splendid enough to 
 receive fashionable people, and large enough to receive a hun- 
 dred people. In this great and gorgeous apartment sat, a few 
 months since, a homely scholar in spectacles, whose face bore 
 traces of sedentary labour, and whose figure was bent into the 
 student-stoop. Such a plain man looked odd enough in such a 
 splendid place. But it was much more odd to think that that 
 man in that place supremely regulated the War Department of 
 England. The place should have been a pacific drawing-room, 
 and the man was a pacific student. He looked like a convey- 
 ancer over deeds, like a scholar among treatises, like a jurist 
 making a code ; he looked like the last man to preside over 
 martial pomp and military expeditions. 
 
 So unique a man as Sir George Lewis has, in truth, rarely 
 been lost to this country. Most men, most politicians espe- 
 cially, fall easily into some ready-made classification ; belong to 
 one of the recognised groups of ordinary character. Political 
 
 1 A Dialogue on the Beat Form of Government. By the Eight Hon. Sir 
 G. C. Le-wis, Bart., M.P. London, 1863.
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 207 
 
 life has gone on so long that we have ascertained the principal 
 species of statesmen, and have a fixed name ready for each. But 
 Sir George Lewis, as all who knew him in the least well will tes- 
 tify, did not belong exactly to any received type. People were 
 puzzled how to classify a man who wrote on the Astronomy of 
 the Ancients, the Fables of Babrius, and Roman History before 
 there was history, and who was yet able to fill three difficult 
 cabinet offices in quick succession. He wrote what most cabinet 
 ministers would think it too much and too hard to read. No 
 German professor, from the smoke and study of many silent 
 years, has ever put forth books more bristling with recondite 
 references, more exact in every technicality of scholarship, more 
 rich in matured reflection, than Sir George Lewis found time, 
 mind, and scholarlike curiosity, to write in the very thick of 
 eager English life. And yet he was never very busy, or never 
 seemed so. In the extremity of the Trent difficulty, when, as 
 he was inclined to think, a war with America was impending, 
 when a war minister might be pardoned for having no time for 
 general reflection, Sir George Lewis found time, at three o'clock 
 on a busy parliamentary day, to discuss with the writer of these 
 lines, for some twenty minutes, the comparative certainty, or 
 rather imcertainty, of the physical and moral sciences. It was 
 difficult to know what to make of such a man. 
 
 The difficulty was the greater because he made no pretence 
 to be a marvel of versatile ability. When Lord Brougham was 
 chancellor, he was always doing his enemies said for display, 
 his friends said from a certain overflow of miscellaneous activity 
 many out-of-the-way matters. According to one legend, he 
 even wrote a treatise on hydrostatics for the Society of Useful 
 Knowledge which was so full of blunders that it could not be 
 published. Many statesmen have had the vanity of variety. 
 But if ever there was a plain man, an unpretending man, a man 
 who in matters of business affected to be par negotiis neque 
 supra, that man was Sir George Lewis. The objection to him 
 was that he was too prosaic, too anxiously safe, too suspicious
 
 208 Sir George Cornewall Lewis, 
 
 of everything showy. It was not possible for an enemy or for 
 an opponent for he had no enemies to hint that Sir George 
 Lewis's miscellaneous books were written from a love of dis- 
 play. They were written from a bent of nature from the born 
 love of dry truth. 
 
 To those, however, who had an opportunity of accurately 
 observing Sir George Lewis there was no difficulty in making him 
 out. He was so simple and natural that he explained himself. 
 His principal qualities were all of a plain and homely species, 
 and though it may not be possible to give a likeness of them, 
 yet a brief description may easily give an idea and an approxi- 
 mation. 
 
 The specialty of his mind was a strong simplicity. He 
 took a plain, obvious view of every subject which came before 
 him. Ingenuities, refinements, and specious fallacies might be 
 suggested around him in any number or in any variety, but his 
 mind was complication-proof. He went steadily through each 
 new ambiguity, each new distinction, as it presented itself. He 
 said, in unadorned but apt English, ' The facts are these and 
 these : the new theory concerning them is so and so : it ac- 
 counts for facts Nos. 1, 2, and 3, but fails to account for facts 
 Nos. 4, 6, and 6.' Of course he was not uniformly right. We 
 shall show that there were some kinds of facts, and some sort s 
 of events which he was by mental constitution not able wholly 
 to appreciate. But his view of every subject, though it might 
 not be adequate, though it might be limited, was always lucid. 
 His mind was like a registering machine with a patent index. 
 It took in all the data, specified, enumerated them, and then 
 indicated with unmistakable precision what their sum-total of 
 effect precisely was. The index might be wrong, though it 
 pretty generally was right ; but nobody could ever mistake for 
 a moment what it meant and where it was. 
 
 Few men ever kept apart, in civil matters, so well what, in 
 medical matters, would be called the diagnosis and the prescrip- 
 tion. Most men mix, even to themselves, their view of what
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 2 09 
 
 is with their suggestion of what should be. You could not 
 have made Sir Greorge Lewis mix the two. His mind on such 
 points was almost a tedious formality. He would say, ' The 
 facts proved are so and so ; from these there are the following 
 probable inferences. If you wish to alter the present circum- 
 stances and to produce others you must do so and so.' When 
 a man came to him with a plan he asked, ' What is your ob- 
 ject ? ' Until he got a plain answer to that, and a proof that 
 the object was good, he never looked at the plan. All this in 
 theory may seem very obvious and very trite. Nothing is so 
 easy as to be sensible on paper. The only true theory of trans- 
 acting business is a simple matter which has been known for 
 hundreds of years. Any part of that theory in print looks 
 stupid and not worth saying. Yet in real life, especially in 
 political life, how few great actors are there ! In politics the 
 issues to be determined are for the most part plain and simple ; 
 but they are exciting, are embedded in rhetoric, and overlaid 
 with irrelevant matter. A certain strong simplicity sweeps 
 away all these outside matters. Talking to Sir Greorge Lewis 
 on a pending political matter was like reading a chapter of 
 Aristotle's Politics you might think the view incomplete, but 
 there were the same pregnant strength and matter-of-fact 
 simplicity. 
 
 One great advantage of this sort of mind Sir Greorge Lewis 
 noted in an article in the ' Edinburgh Eeview,' which, though 
 when published anonymous, may now be quoted as his : ' When 
 Demosthenes was asked what was the first and second and third 
 qualification of an orator, he answered, " Delivery ; " in like man- 
 ner, if we were asked what is the first and second and third 
 qualification of an English statesman, we would answer, In- 
 telligibility." As in oratory the most eloquent words and the 
 wisest counsels will avail but little if they are not impressed by 
 voice and manner upon the minds of an audience : so integrity 
 and public spirit will fail to command confidence, if the course 
 
 P
 
 2io Sir George Cor new all Lewis. 
 
 adopted is intricate or inextricable.' Sir George Lewis could 
 not have described his own sort of mind better if he had been 
 trying to do so ; he could not be intricate or perplexed. On 
 those rare occasions in politics when it is useful to be ambigu- 
 ous he failed. When he was Home Secretary he could not 
 diffuse that useful mist over delicate difficulties which was now 
 and then desirable, and in which Sir George Grey has succeeded. 
 An unbroken fluency in indefinite half-truths was simply im- 
 possible to Sir George Lewis. He could not be said to fail in 
 it, for he did not attempt it. His mind was unsuitei to 
 ambiguity, whether artful or natural. But on those all but 
 universal occasions when only a plain intelligible statement of 
 an important proposition was required, his solid vigour was 
 appropriate. He could never have appealed to the people by 
 the felicitous attraction of his words, but he had an even surer 
 source of popularity in the certain intelligibility of his plans. 
 
 The last words of his last book show the sort of grave mode- 
 ration with which he regarded politics, as wise as any of which 
 he ever made use. They are the judgment in which the reflec- 
 tive man of the world sums up the arguments of the advocates 
 of different forms of government. 
 
 Each one of you, in to-day's discussion, has been able to show 
 specious, perhaps strong, grounds in favour of his opinion. Monar- 
 chicus can say with truth that the testimony of experience is in his 
 favour; that the vast majority of nations, now and at all former 
 periods of time, have been governed by monarchs ; and that a plural 
 or republican government is an intricate machine, difficult to work, 
 and constantly tending to relapse into monarchy. Aristocraticus 
 can argue that aristocracy is the government of intelligence and 
 virtue ; and that it is a just medium between the two extremes of 
 monarchy and democracy ; while Democraticus can dwell upon the 
 splendid vision of a community bound together by the ties of frater- 
 nity, liberty, and equality, exempt from hereditary privilege, giving 
 all things to merit, and presided over by a government in which all the 
 national interests are faithfully represented. But even if I were to 
 decide in favour of one of these forms, and against the two others, I 
 should not find myself nearer the solution of the practical problem.
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 2 1 1 
 
 A nation does not change the form, of its government with the same 
 facility that a man changes his coat. A nation in general only 
 changes the form of its government by means of a violent revolution- 
 This is not a moment when reason is in the ascendent, and when the 
 claims of force can be safely disregarded. The party which is upper- 
 most in the revolution dictates the form of government, and pays 
 little attention to abstract theories, unless it be those which coincide 
 with its own views. The past history of a nation, its present interests, 
 its present passions and antipathies, the advice of favourite leaders, 
 the intervention of foreign governments, all exercise a powerful influ- 
 ence at such a crisis in determining the national decision. Such is 
 the rude process by which one form of government is actually con- 
 verted into another ; very unlike the gentle and rational method 
 which is assumed by the constructors of Utopias. Besides, the 
 political preferences of a people are in general determined by habit 
 and mental association ; and though the newly introduced con- 
 stitution may be intrinsically better than its predecessor, yet the 
 people may dislike it, and refuse it the benefit of a fair trial. It 
 may therefore fail, not from its own defectivcness, but through the 
 ill-will and reluctance of those by whom it is worked. 
 
 There are some rare cases in which a nation has profited by a 
 revolution. Such was the English revolution of 1688, in which the 
 form of the government underwent no alteration, and the person of 
 the king was alone changed. It was the very minimum of a revolu- 
 tion ; it was remarkable for the absence of those accompaniments 
 which make a revolution perilous, and which subsequently draw 
 upon it a vindictive reactionary movement. The late Italian revolu- 
 tion has likewise been successful ; by it the Italian people have 
 gained a better government, and have improved their political con- 
 dition. It was brought about by foreign intervention ; but its success 
 has been mainly owing to the moderation of the leaders in whom the 
 people had the wisdom to confide, and who have steadily refrained 
 from all revolutionary excesses. 
 
 The history of forcible attempts to improve governments is not, 
 however, cheering. Looking back upon the course of revolutionary 
 movements, and upon the character of their consequences, the practical 
 conclusion which I draw is, that it is the part of wisdom and prudence 
 to acquiesce in any form of government which is tolerably well 
 administered, and affords tolerable security to person and property. 
 I would not, indeed, yield to apathetic despair, or acquiesce in the 
 persuasion that a merely tolerable government is incapable of im-
 
 212 Sir George Cor new all Lewis. 
 
 provemeut. I would form an individual model, suited to the 
 character, disposition, wants, and circumstances of the country, and 
 I would make all exertions, whether by action or by writing, within 
 the limits of the existing law, for ameliorating its existing condition, 
 and bringing it nearer to the model selected for imitation ; but I 
 should consider the problem of the best form of Government as purely 
 ideal, and as unconnected with practice ; and should abstain from 
 taking a ticket in the lottery of revolution, unless there was a well- 
 founded expectation that it would come out a prize. 
 
 This sober simplicity is not to the taste of many people. 
 Many wish to find in politics a sort of excitement. They wish 
 that public affairs should be managed in a rather theatrical way, 
 in order that they themselves may have the pleasure of reading 
 a stimulating series of brilliant events. People who went to 
 Sir George Lewis for excitement were very likely to be disap- 
 pointed. He was sure to knock the gloss off things. ' People,' 
 he would observe, * who know how things are managed, know 
 that the often er cabinets meet the better. Ignorant persons 
 fancy that when cabinets meet often there is something wrong ; 
 but that is a mistake. It is in the long vacation and in the 
 country that some ministers do something brilliant and extra- 
 ordinary that is much objected to. When ministers get 
 together, they can agree on something plain and satisfactory.* 
 He always talked of the cabinet as if it were a homely sort of 
 committee. 
 
 At bottom, perhaps, he did not much object to be thought 
 a little commonplace. * In my opinion,' he said (and perhaps 
 there is no harm in adding that it was in reference to the Suez 
 canal), * in nine cases out of ten, cure is better than prevention. 
 If it be ever necessary to bold Egypt, then fight for Egypt. 
 By looking forward to all possible evils, we waste the strength 
 that had best be concentrated in curing the one evil which 
 happens.' Those who wish that the foreign affairs of England 
 should be managed according to a far-seeing and elaborate 
 policy will not like such voluntary shortsightedness ; but the
 
 Sir George Lornewall Lewis. 213 
 
 English people themselves rather like to have the national 
 course fixed by evident, palpable, and temporary circumstances. 
 Some people thought Sir George Lewis obstinate, and in one 
 sense he was so. No one was a better colleague ; no one, after 
 full discussion, was readier to take a share in the responsibility 
 for measures of which he did not entirely approve the whole. 
 But though he gave up his proposals, he did not alter his opinion. 
 It may be said of him that he could not alter it. Most men's 
 conclusions are framed upon fluctuating considerations, some of 
 which are very indistinctly present to their minds, and most of 
 which it would puzzle them to state shortly. Sir Greorge Lewis 
 knew exactly what were the facts upon which he grounded his 
 opinion, and what his inference from those facts. Unless you 
 gave him new facts, he could not help drawing the same in- 
 ference. This was one of the comforts of dealing with him. 
 You always knew exactly where you would find his mind. 
 Unless the data had altered, you might be sure his inference 
 from the data would be unchanged. 
 
 It may be added that his inference was almost sure to be 
 exactly sound. His data might be limited. As we shall show, 
 there were some kinds of facts which, from a limitation of 
 nature, he did not thoroughly appreciate. When such facts 
 were in question, his conclusion was likely enough to be 
 wrong : for he was arguing rightly on incomplete premisses. 
 But no one could gainsay the correctness of his inference from 
 what he did see. He was the soundest judge of probability we 
 have ever known. The facts being admitted to be so and so, 
 what will be the consequence of those facts ? Upon this ques- 
 tion few judgments, if any, in England were better than that 
 of Sir Greorge Lewis. 
 
 It is this judgment of probability which makes the man of 
 business. The data of life are accessible ; their inference un- 
 certain : a sound judgment on these data is the secret of success 
 to him who possesses it, and the reason why others trust him. 
 It is this that men call a sound understanding ; it is this that
 
 214 Si r George Cor new all Lewis. 
 
 Napoleon had in mind when he said that a man should be carre 
 a la base. 
 
 To this straightforward simplicity of understanding, Sir 
 George Lewis added the most complete education perhaps of 
 any man of his time. He did not believe in what has been called 
 speciality ; at least he confined it to the lower grades of practical 
 life and literary labour. He has observed : * The permanent 
 officers of a department are the depositories of the official tradi- 
 tions, they are generally referred to by the political head of the 
 office for information upon questions of official practice ; and 
 knowledge of this sort acquired in one department would be 
 useless in another. If, for example, the chief clerk of the 
 criminal department of the Home Office were to be transferred 
 to the Foreign Office or to the Admiralty, the special experience 
 which he has acquired in the Home Office, and which is in daily 
 and hourly requisition for the assistance of the Home Secretary, 
 would be utterly valueless to the Foreign Secretary or to the 
 
 First Lord of the Admiralty The same person may be 
 
 successively at the head of the Home Office, the Foreign Office, 
 the Colonial Office, and the Admiralty ; he may be successively 
 President of the Board of Trade and Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer ; but to transfer an experienced clerk from one office 
 to another would in general be like transferring a skilful naval 
 officer to the army, or appointing a military engineer officer to 
 command a ship of war. A similar distinction may be observed 
 in other branches of practical life; thus an architect may 
 direct the execution of different classes of buildings ; he may 
 give plans for palaces, churches, courts of justice, bridges, 
 private dwellings ; but the subordinate workmen whom he em- 
 ploys retain their separate functions unchanged a carpenter 
 does not become a mason, a painter or glazier does not become 
 an ironmonger or plasterer.' 
 
 He sincerely believed (and perhaps acted to excess on the 
 belief) that a well-educated man was competent to undertake 
 any office and to write on any subject. He would have acknow-
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 2 1 5 
 
 ledged the truth of the saying, that the end of education was 
 to make u good learner. He was at the day of his death 
 perhaps the best learner in England ; there was no sort of 
 definite information, whether relating to public business or to 
 books, which he did not know how to acquire and where to find. 
 Some public men may know where to find as much political 
 information ; some scholars may know where to find as much 
 learned information ; but what other men knows so precisely 
 the best sources of both kinds of knowledge ? 
 
 He had a nearly perfect mastery over the keys of know- 
 ledge. He derived from Eton and Oxford a perfect knowledge 
 of the classical languages, and he extended it to the day of his 
 death. An article published in ' Notes and Queries ' within a 
 week or two of that time showed that he had read Mr. Freeman's 
 history a rather formidable work, relating to the JEtolian and 
 other Greek leagues, which was only then just published, 
 and which is as much as many busy men read in ten years. 
 Many English statesmen have been good classical scholars, 
 and it is happily not difficult for those who have once well 
 learned the languages of antiquity to retain a familiarity with 
 its masterpieces. The very business of life, indeed, adds to 
 these masterpieces an additional charm, for it reveals touches 
 of discerning thought, and traits of external human know- 
 ledge, which the writers learned from experience, and which 
 no can can appreciate without it. Mr. Pitt, Mr. Canning, 
 Lord Ofrenville, the Marquis Wellesley, and many others of 
 our conspicuous statesmen, have had this sort of scholarship. 
 The knowledge of the Classics was to them an intellectual 
 luxury. But Sir George Lewis had a far more laborious 
 scholarship than this. He had read and knew, and only the 
 classical writers themselves, but also terrific German treatises, 
 in many volumes and upon the worst paper, about the 
 Classics, which no intellectual voluptuary would touch or 
 look at. 
 
 In addition to his Eton and Oxford scholarship, Sir George
 
 2i6 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 Lewis was excellently well acquainted with modern languages, 
 and had a fair knowledge of mathematics. But a mere enumera- 
 tion of this kind does not in the least give a notion of the sort 
 of knowledge he had a phrase, not of the purest English, 
 alone expresses it ; it was a knowledge which ' turned up ' 
 everywhere. Hardly a subject could be started on which he 
 could not throw an unexpected light, and to which he could 
 not add some new fact. The sort of way in which this 
 happened is aptly enough illustrated by Lord Stanhope's 
 * Miscellanies,' published last year : * Mr. Windham,' writes 
 Lord Stanhope, * in his speech of December 9, 1803, observes 
 of the Martello towers that they were so called from a place of 
 that name in Corsica ; and I have quoted that sentence from 
 him in my " Life of Pitt." Since my own publication, 
 however, there has been suggested to me, by a very high 
 authority upon all such subjects, a derivation far more probable 
 than Mr. Windham's, and certainly, as I conceive, the right 
 one. S. 
 
 Right Hon. Sir George C. Leivis to Earl Stanhope. 
 
 [Extract.] April 2, 1862. 
 
 The origin of Martello towers I believe to have been that when 
 piracy was common in the Mediterranean, and pirates like the Danes 
 made plundering descents upon the coasts, the Italians built towers 
 near the sea in order to keep watch and give warning if a pirate ship 
 was seen to approach the land. This warning was given by striking 
 on a bell with a hammer ; and hence these towers were called Ton-i 
 da Martello. 
 
 The same to tlie same. 
 
 May 7, 1862. 
 
 I think that I have discovered, with the assistance of a friend, the 
 origin of Windham's statement respecting Martello towers. An 
 attack was made on the tower of Mortella, in Corsica, by the British 
 forces both by sea and land, in February 1794. The tower was taken 
 after an obstinate defence, but the two attaching ships were beaten 
 off. The circumstance is likely to have given rise to the confusion 
 between Martello towers generally and this tower of Mortella.'
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 217 
 
 And Lord Stanhope adds some additional facts showing that 
 the derivation suggested by Sir Gfeorge C. Lewis was correct. 
 Again, in p. 40, Lord Stanhope gives an extract from a letter 
 of Sir Greorge Lewis : 
 
 ' Lord Grenville told my father that Pitt had formed a plan for 
 abolishing all Customs Duties, and that he would have carried it, 
 into effect, if the war of the French Revolution had not broken out, 
 which defeated all his financial and commercial schemes. Lord 
 Grenville said that the amount of the public expenditure of that time 
 rendered such a plan quite feasible.' 
 
 These are two instances casually occurring in one little 
 volume. But anyone who knew Sir George Lewis would know 
 that miscellaneous odd facts of this sort were accumulated 
 in his memory, to what seemed an infinite number, and were 
 at once brought out when they could be useful in illustrating 
 anything. 
 
 As a writer this great knowledge, especially when connected 
 with the strong love of bare truth which led him to acquire 
 that knowledge, was not advantageous to him. He gave a 
 mistaken credit to his readers ; he fancied they loved fact and 
 truth as much as he did. ' Woe to the writer,' goes a wise 
 saying, ' that exhausts his subject ; his readers are exhausted 
 first.' Sir Greorge Lewis always exhausted his subject if he 
 could, and you could not have persuaded him not to do so. In 
 proposing the dowry of the Princess Eoyal he amused the 
 House of Commons by an elaborate reference, not only to the 
 dowry of Gfeorge III.'s daughters, who seemed quite far enough 
 back for an impatient audience that wanted its dinner, but 
 also to a perfectly forgotten Princess Royal who was George 
 III.'s aunt. Most of his books are too full of citations and ex- 
 planations ; and to the last he would have been more read and 
 more influential if he had thought often of Sidney Smith's 
 precept, * Now, remember Noah, and be quick.' 
 
 But though a tendency to overlay a subject with super- 
 fluous erudition was one of Sir George Lewis's defects, the
 
 218 Sir George Cor new all Lewis. 
 
 possession of that available erudition was one of his greatest 
 powers. In the present day, the usefulness of a public man is 
 largely measured by the number of subjects which he can get 
 up Sir George Lewis could get up any subject. There was 
 no probable topic on which he could not form, from the very 
 best sources, with ease and pleasure, a clear, determinate, and 
 exact opinion. His memory helped him. It has been com- 
 pared to Macaulay's not that it was equal to such marvellous 
 displays, but that it contained as much, or nearly as much, 
 miscellaneous knowledge. And there was this peculiarity in 
 it. Macaulay's memory, like Niebuhr's, undoubtedly con- 
 founded not unfrequently inference and fact ; it exaggerated ; 
 it gave, not what was in the book, but what a vivid imagina- 
 tion inferred from the book. Sir Greorge Lewis had none of 
 this defect ; his memory was a dry memory, just as his mind 
 was a dry light; if he said a thing was at page 10, you might 
 be sure it was at page 10. Somebody called him a ' sagacious 
 dictionary,' and there was felicity in the expression. 
 
 Apart from this massive simplicity of understanding, and 
 this immense accumulation of exact knowledge, there was no- 
 thing very remarkable in Sir George Lewis. It would be the 
 greatest injustice to his memory, and be the very last thing 
 which he would have desired, to mar the picturesque outlines 
 of his character by concealing its limitations. He had, as we 
 explained, some geeat qualities in an extraordinary measure, 
 but in other respects he was no more than an ordinary man, 
 and in some he was even less than one. 
 
 There was a want of brisk Enthusiasm about him, both in 
 appearance and in reality, He looked like a scholar, a thinker, 
 and a man of business ; he did not look like he was not a 
 buoyant ruler or a popular orator. He was quite conscious of 
 this himself, and would sometimes allude to it. The late Mr. 
 Wilson a very vivacious and active man who was Secretary 
 of the Treasury when Sir George Lewis was Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, used to relate, that when he once was urging some-
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 219 
 
 thing rather strongly, Sir George answered : ' No ; I can't do 
 it. The fact is, Wilson, you are an animal, and I am a vege- 
 table.' Taken literally, this would have been a satire on him- 
 self, but it indicated his main defect. He had always, or nearly 
 always, sufficient judgment for a great statesman, but he had 
 not always sufficient impulse. 
 
 He was puzzled about the passions of mankind ; he had so 
 little passion himself that it seemed to him an unknown force 
 which might take men to a distance which it was impossible to 
 foresee, and in a direction that could not be calculated. ' When,' 
 we have heard him say, ' you know a man will act for his own 
 interest, you know how to deal with him ; but if he is likely to 
 be guided by feeling, it is impossible to predict his course.' 
 Such extreme calmness of mind is not favourable to a states- 
 man ; it is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be 
 without temptations. It would always have been a difficulty 
 to Sir Greorge Lewis, that he did not share the impetuous part 
 of human nature, whether for good or evil. He was ever liable 
 to impute to a settled design and intellectual self-interest what 
 was in fact owing to an impulse of philanthropy or a gust of 
 mere passion. He was apt to be thought cynical in opinion, 
 though good-natured in manner and action and in some sense 
 he was so. He took too external a view of human nature, 
 and ascribed to consistent selfishness what was really pro- 
 duced by mixed motives and a close combination of good and 
 evil. 
 
 He was so defective in the more conspicuous sorts of ima- 
 gination, that he was often thought to have no imagination. 
 But this was an error. He could conceive well the working of 
 a polity, the operation of a scheme, the details of a plan. His 
 criticism on the working, say of the American constitution, 
 would show great power of conceiving distant causes, and of 
 predicting and analysing strange effects. He had the business 
 imagination. But he had no other. He could not imagine 
 great passions, or overwhelming desires, or involved character;
 
 220 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 he knew that there were such things, but he had no image of 
 them in his mind and no picture. He was like a man on the 
 edge of a volcano, who dreaded an eruption, but had no vision 
 of the flames. He was thus apt to be out of sympathy with, 
 and even to be impatient of, some elements in ordinary men's 
 judgment. He was a little too critical of public opinion, too 
 critical, that is, for a parliamentary statesman, for one who 
 should try to sympathise with the master whom he must obey. 
 Sir George Lewis hated exaggeration as much as he could hate 
 anything and popular opinion is always exaggerated. * There 
 is,' said Sir Stafford Northcote, ' no quality for which Sir George 
 Lewis is more remarkable than for a quiet courage, which 
 emboldens him to give utterance from time to time, and some- 
 times without any apparent necessity for his doing so, to pro- 
 positions of the most alarmingly unpopular nature.' And such 
 courage is admirable. In this day it is much to have a states- 
 man who, on any occasion and for any object, will withstand 
 public opinion. But such opposition should be reserved for 
 great occasions, and too much must not be expected from the 
 mass of men. A vague tendency and loose approximation to 
 what is right is all we can hope for from miscellaneous popular 
 opinion ; and it is not wise in a statesman to criticise too 
 nicely, or to attempt to give to the rough practical judgment 
 of men a fine accuracy which it can never in fact possess. Sir 
 George Lewis was the antithesis of a demagogue ; he could not 
 take a test without a qualification ; he was sure to distrust, and 
 apt to despise, a popular dogma. 
 
 A slight survey and we have only space or powers for a 
 very slight one will show that these qualities were as con- 
 spicuous in Sir George Lewis's writings as in his political career. 
 Indeed, if there ever was a man whose mind was always and 
 everywhere one and the same, Sir George was that man. He 
 had not really a versatile mind, though his pursuits were varied. 
 He was far too modest and wise to aim at what was impossible 
 to him, and nature had given him shaip limitations. It was
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 221 
 
 said by the 'Times' of Lord Brougham, 'that he might have 
 been any one, of ten first-rate kinds of men, but that he had 
 tried to be all ten, and had failed.' Sir George Lewis had none 
 of this flexibility, and none of this vanity. He never tried to 
 be a great poet or a great orator, or to be anything else but what" 
 nature made him a shrewd and solid thinker. He had a great 
 faculty of research, but his matter is everywhere of the same 
 sort. It is the same imperturbable homely sense upon finance 
 in his Budgets, upon the Egyptology of Baron Bunsen in his 
 Ancient Astronomy. 
 
 Sir George Lewis's principal writings may be divided into two 
 classes, the historical and the speculative ; and it is hardly too 
 much to say that the whole of the historical are developments 
 in many forms of one central idea. He always devotes himself 
 to the refutation of an hypothesis : some previous writer has 
 elaborated a theory which, Sir George Lewis maintains, rests 
 on no basis of evidence, and which he wishes to dispel. Some 
 one has seen a mirage, and related it as a fact ; Sir George 
 Lewis wishes to dispel the mirage. 
 
 His earliest work of this sort was the ' Origin and Forma- 
 tion of the Komance Language.' M. Raynouard, a distinguished 
 French scholar, had expounded a very curious and remarkable 
 theory as to the breaking-up of the Latin language. It is cer- 
 tain that good Latin was once spoken at Rome ; it is certain 
 that the Romans conquered the rest of Italy, France, and Spain, 
 it is certain that in each of these countries a modern language 
 analogous to the Latin, and derived from the Latin, is now 
 spoken. How, then, did the Latin break up ? How, then, were 
 the new languages formed ? M. Raynouard maintained that 
 they were formed by means of an intermediate language. 
 He held that the Romance language, which was purely spoken 
 in the times of the Troubadours, and which is still corruptly 
 spoken in Provence, was a language once used in the same form 
 all over Europe ; that it was the same tongue in France, in 
 Portugal, in Italy, and in Spain ; and that as a person who
 
 222 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 spoke Latin would have been universally intelligible at one 
 time, so a person who spoke Komance would have been univer- 
 sally understood at a subsequent time. This idea of a single 
 diffused Middle Age language Sir George Lewis undertakes to 
 dispel ; he thinks it a dream and a theory. He says that the 
 Latin broke up under different circumstances, with different 
 velocities, and in different modifications, in the different states 
 of Europe. There was a certain general resemblance, he holds, 
 in the changes which were in progress, whether in Italy or 
 Spain, France or Portugal, because those changes in all these 
 countries were produced by the same causes. The invasion of 
 the barbarians, the fall of the Roman Empire, and the some- 
 what mysterious movement which tends to break up the old 
 rhetorical and synthetic languages, and replace them by analytic 
 and conversational languages, were common causes, operating 
 alike in all countries where Latin had been spoken. But 
 though the change in all the languages was in the same general 
 direction, it was not at the same rate, nor was it identical in 
 details. There has, according to Sir G. Lewis, never been a 
 single vernacular language spoken through Europe since Latin 
 was so spoken. The theory of Eaynouard is, according to Sir 
 George Lewis's characteristic language, an ' unsupported and 
 imaginary hypothesis.' 
 
 This essay on the Eomance language was republished by Sir 
 George within a few months of his death, and is worth reading 
 as an illustration of his mode of thought and argument. The 
 burden of proof is upon Raynouard. He says there was a com- 
 mon language at a certain date ; where, then, is that language ? 
 what were its parts of speech, its verbs, its pronouns, and its 
 substantives ? Let us look at them in the different countries 
 of Europe at the time in question, and prove that the language 
 was uniform by the identity of its forms. Accordingly, Sir 
 George Lewis goes through the earliest known forms of the 
 Italian, Spanish, Provencal, and French languages, and he 
 shows that at the earliest stage they were not identical. He
 
 Sir George Cor new all Lewis. 223 
 
 characteristically says, 'The importance and interest of the 
 philological problem which is treated in the following pages are 
 much increased by the fact that it lies entirely within the his- 
 torical period ; and that not only the original and the derivative 
 languages, but also the circumstances attending the transition, 
 are known by authentic evidence and by an unbroken tradition. 
 It is therefore a problem which admits of solution by demon- 
 strative arguments, and without recourse to a series of hypo- 
 theses and conjectures, weakening as the chain lengthens.' Sir 
 George Lewis revels, we may almost say, in the plentifulness 
 of the evidence. He has lists of the ' tenses and inflexions of 
 Romance nouns,' ' new Romance nouns formed by affixes,' of the 
 degrees of comparison, pronouns, and numerals, in the Romance 
 language, with endless similar information. He elaborately 
 compares the earliest stages of the Italian, Spanish, and French 
 languages with the earliest form of the Provencal ; and he 
 shows clearly and fully, what was probable enough in itself, 
 that the earliest forms of these languages differ; that they 
 have pursued a different history ; that the Provencal is only 
 one of the derived languages, with a history of its own ; that 
 there never was any one derived language generally diffused 
 through Europe ; that as soon as the use of Latin ended, dis- 
 tinctions of speech began. A very close political observer, 
 who did not himself easily relinquish anything, once described 
 Sir Greorge Lewis as the most pertinacious man he had ever 
 known: * He returns,' it was added, 'to the charge again and 
 again, and he hardly ever fails.' This was said by one who 
 seldom read anything, who had read very little of Sir George 
 Lewis's writing, who assuredly had never opened the treatise on 
 the Romance languages. But if he had studied the treatise, he 
 could not have described it better. Sir Greorge returns again and 
 again, with verbs and pronouns, to the charge, and he hardly 
 ever fails. A student who continued to believe Raynouard's 
 theory must be impervious to argument and detail-proof. 
 
 The largest of all Sir George Lewis's writings, and his
 
 224 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 acutest, strikes with the same tactics at a nobler game upon a 
 larger field. The reception of Niebuhr's ' History of Rome ' is 
 one of the most curious of recent literary phenomena. Though 
 he really is a bold theorist on Roman history, though his narrative 
 is by admission constructed by the imagination, he has obtained 
 something like the credit due to an almost contemporary 
 authority to a person who had some special information. He 
 believed he had acquired, by long study and brooding, a special 
 faculty, a peculiar divination. He tells us : 
 
 ' All my faculties were directed to a single object for sixteen months, 
 without any intermission except now and then for a few days. My 
 sight grew dim in its passionate efforts to pierce into the obscurity of 
 the subject, and unless I was to send forth an incomplete work, which 
 sooner or later would have had to be wholly remodelled, I was com- 
 pelled to wait for what Time might gradually bring forth. Xor has 
 he been niggardly, but, though slowly, has granted me one discovery 
 after another. . . . The true account, it must be owned, is not always 
 the most probable. But when an inquirer, after gazing for years 
 with ever renewed undeviating steadfastness, sees the history of 
 mistaken, misrepresented, and forgotten events rise out of mists and 
 darkness, and assume substance and shape, as the scarcely visible 
 aerial form of the nymph in the Sclavonic tale takes the body of 
 an earthly maiden beneath the yearning gaze of love when by un- 
 wearied and conscientious examination he is continually gaining a 
 clearer insight into the connexion of all its parts, and discerns that 
 immediate expression of reality which emanates from life he has a 
 right to demand that others, who merely throw their looks by the 
 way on the region where he lives and has taken up his home, 
 should not deny the correctness of his views, because they perceive 
 nothing of the kind. The learned naturalist, who has never left his 
 native town, will not recognise the animal's track, by which the 
 hunter is guided : and if any one, on going into Benvenuto's prison, 
 when his eyes had for months been accustomed to see the objects 
 around him, and asserted that Benvenuto like himself could not dis- 
 tinguish anything in the darkness, he would surely have been some- 
 what presumptuous.' 
 
 It is beautiful to see the heavy care and sluggish diligence 
 with which Sir George Lewis reckons all this poetry back into 
 mere prose.
 
 Sir George Cornew all Lewis. 225 
 
 ' The history of ^iebuhr ' (he tells us) ' has thus opened more ques- 
 tions than it has closed, and it has set in motion a large body of 
 combatants, whose mutual variances are not at present likely to be 
 settled by deference to a common authority, or by the recognition of 
 an}' common principle. 
 
 ' The main cause of the great multiplicity and wide divergence of 
 opinions, which characterise the recent researches into early Roman 
 history, is the defective method, which not only Xiebuhr and his 
 followers, but most of his opponents, have adopted. Instead of 
 employing those tests of credibility which are consistently applied to 
 modern history, they attempt to guide their judgment by the indica- 
 tions of internal evidence, and assume that the truth can be discovered 
 by an occult faculty of historical divination. Hence, the task which 
 they have undertaken resembles an inquiry into the internal structurj 
 of the earth, or into the question, whether the stars are inhabited. 
 It is an attempt to solve a problem, for the solution of which no 
 sufficient data exist. 
 
 ' The consequence is, that ingenuity and labour can produce 
 nothing but hypotheses and conjectures, which may be supported by 
 analogies, and may sometimes appear specious and attractive, but can 
 never rest on the solid foundation of proof. There will, therefore, be 
 a series of such conjectural histories ; each successive writer will 
 reject all or some of the guesses of his predecessors, and will propose 
 some new hypotheses of his own. But the treatment of early Roman 
 history, though it will be constantly moving, will not advance ; it 
 will not be stationary, but neither will it be progressive ; it will be 
 unfixed and changeable, but without receiving any improvement ; 
 and it will perpetually revolve in the same hopeless circle. Like the 
 search after the philosopher's stone, or the elixir of life, it will be 
 constantly varying its aspect, under the treatment of different pro- 
 fessors of the futile science ; but truth and certainty, the aim of all 
 rational employment of the intellect, will always be equally distant. 
 Each new system of the early Roman constitution will be only (to 
 ' use Paley's words) one guess among many ; whereas he alone discovers 
 who proves. There is indeed no doubt that long habit, combined 
 with a happy talent, may enable a person to discern the truth where 
 it is invisible to ordinary minds, possessing no peculiar advantages. 
 This-may be observed, not only in historical researches, but in every 
 other department of knowledge. In order, however, that the truth 
 so perceived should recommend itself to the convictions of others, 
 it is a necessary condition that it should admit of proof which they
 
 226 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 can understand. Newton might have perceived, by a rapid and in- 
 tuitive sagacity, the connexion between the fall of an apple and the 
 attraction of the earth to the sun ; but unless he could have demon- 
 strated that connexion by arguments which were intelligible and 
 satisfactory to the scientific world, his discovery would have been 
 useless, except as a mere suggestion. In like manner, we may re- 
 joice that the ingenuity and learning of Niebuhr should have enabled 
 him to advance many novel hypotheses and conjectures respecting 
 events in the early history, and respecting the form of the early con- 
 stitution, of ]lome. But unless he can support those hypotheses by 
 sufficient evidence, they are not entitled to our belief. It is not 
 enough for a historian to claim the possession of a retrospective 
 second-sight, which is denied to the rest of the world ; of a mysterious 
 doctrine, revealed only to the initiated. Unless he can prove as 
 well as guess ; unless he can produce evidence of the fact, after he 
 has intuitively perceived its existence, his historical system cannot be 
 received. The oases of truth which he discerns amidst the trackless 
 expanses of fiction and legend, may be real ; but until their existence 
 can be verified by positive testimony, we have no certainty that 
 these "green spots in memory's waste" may not be mere mirage and 
 optical delusion. It is an excellence in a historian of antiquity, who 
 has sufficient data to proceed upon, that he should form a vivid con- 
 ception of the events described ; that he should live as it were among 
 the persons whose acts he recounts ; and that he should carry 
 his reader back into the bygone times in which his drama is 
 placed. On the other hand, it is a fault in the modern writers who 
 first narrated Koman history that they should have related the events 
 as if they had never happened. But when there is a want of solid 
 evidence, we do not render the history true by treating the events as 
 if they were real.' 
 
 Almost the whole of Sir George Lewis's two volumes are an 
 expansion and development of this passage. He turns Niebuhr's 
 revelations into fancies, and his divinations into mere guesses. 
 Since Sir George Lewis's work on Koman history, no English 
 scholar at least has ventured to defend Niebuhr's essentially 
 arbitrary treatment of legendary history. A historian, it is now 
 agreed, cannot accept one legend because it suits a preconceived 
 hypothesis, and reject another because it is inconsistent with that 
 hypothesis. He must take both or must reject both. We may
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 227 
 
 not, and perhaps have not, attained to a complete and accepted 
 theory of the value of traditional evidence ; there are many 
 points on that subject which require much more delicate hand- 
 ling than they have received. But no one will ever revive 
 Niebuhr's notion of an occult tact. A long acquaintance and a 
 familiar meditation upon any sort of truth, does indeed give an 
 instinctive sense with respect to that truth. A constant habit 
 of comparing accurate truth with legendary versions of the same 
 truth, would really give a student a verified knowledge, and 
 even a quick instinctive idea to what sort of inventions popular 
 tradition is prone. But Niebuhr had studied legends as to- 
 times of which there are only legends ; he had not compared 
 truth with fiction, but fiction with fiction. He had not acquired 
 a test of truth by a contact with truth ; but his hot brain had 
 brooded so long on a favourite subject that he mistook its own 
 fancies for realities. Sir George Lewis did not mistake them. 
 
 It is sometimes said that Sir George Lewis would accept no 
 fact of which there was not contemporary evidence, and that he 
 set no value whatever upon any tradition in any case. But this 
 is a mischievous exaggeration. Sir George Lewis was not the 
 most exacting of historical critics. He considered Polybius as 
 too strict and sceptical. Polybius thought that a historian with- 
 out books, and with only oral information, could not be sure of 
 events more than twenty years before his own birth. Sir George 
 Lewis held that a sort of memory of leading events, accurate 
 in substance though probably inaccurate in detail, might be 
 preserved by tradition for about a hundred years, and that 
 special events from special circumstances might be remembered 
 longer ; but that, in such cases, it was only the general outline 
 which could be faintly traced, and only events of interest that 
 would be preserved. After about a hundred years after the 
 period about which a man could hear from his grandfather he 
 thought, for the most part, there was no reliable knowledge. 
 
 Sir George Lewis's Ancient Astronomy might seem a devia- 
 tion from his general studies. Astronomy is a physical science, 
 
 Q2
 
 228 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 and Sir George, though well enough acquainted with such 
 sciences, did not profess to have made them a special study. 
 He was often enough heard to say, half in jest but still with a 
 certain meaning, ' On matters of practical interest the physical 
 sciences are less certain than the moral : us long as you are 
 dealing with abstractions, with perfectly elastic beams and a 
 world without fiction, physical science is quite certain ; but as 
 soon as you introduce the actual conditions of life, and talk of 
 the real world in which we live, most physical sciences become 
 as uncertain as any moral science. Take, for example, physic. 
 If you will question your medical man, you will find that, if he 
 cures you, it will not be by the goodness of his arguments. A 
 great deal of what is set down upon that subject in grave 
 treatises appears to me to be inconsistent rubbish. And my 
 experience at the War Office shows me that scientific evidence 
 may be accumulated in almost any quantity for any given inven- 
 tion and against any given invention.' A man who talked in 
 this spirit was scarcely likely to devote many hours out of .the 
 scanty leisure of English public life to the history of physical 
 science. Nor was Sir George Lewis attracted to the subject by 
 its abstract scientific interest. He is at great pains to explain 
 that he makes no pretension to such abstract mathematical 
 knowledge as was possessed by Delambre and others, his prede- 
 cessors, and that astronomy is conversant with obvious realities 
 which have always excited human curiosity. In truth, he 
 encountered ancient astronomy in his investigations of ancient 
 history. He found many pretensions to ancient scientific 
 knowledge which it was much in his way to scrutinise and dis- 
 believe; he was in all his inquiries compelled to deal with 
 ancient chronology, which is not to be understood except with 
 reference to the astronomical notions of those who framed it. 
 Such questions a3, ' Was there a Roman year of ten months ? ' 
 met him at every step. He was thus led to write a clear, com- 
 pendious, and popular account of the rise of astronomical science 
 in ancient Greece. It is not exhaustive, as most of his treatises
 
 Sir George Corneiuall Leiuis. 229 
 
 are exhaustive ; it is not, like his other treatises, supported by 
 an available accumulation of all appropriate knowledge, for he 
 was in some places cramped by the deficiency of his mathe- 
 matics. It is not, therefore, one of the works on which his 
 fame as a great scholar will hereafter rest. But it is a very 
 clear, sensible, and interesting account of the interesting subject 
 to which it relates. 
 
 Bound up with the history of Ancient Astronomy, and 
 having but a very slender relation to it, are three essays : one 
 on the Early History and Chronology of the Egyptians ; another 
 on the Early History and Chronology of the Assyrians ; and a 
 third on the Navigation of the Phoenicians. Here Sir Greorge 
 Lewis is all himself, dealing with the subjects which he liked 
 best, and dealing with them as he liked best. Anybody who 
 wishes to know the sort of mind he had may read and it is not 
 unamusing reading his criticism on the Egyptian history of 
 Baron Bunsen. At the risk of tediousness we will condense a 
 little of it : 
 
 ' The principal manipulator ' (says Sir George Lewis) ' of the ancient 
 Egyptian chronology is Baron Bunsen, who, in his recent work on 
 Egypt, has avowedly applied the method of Niebuhr to Egyptian 
 antiquity. Now the method with which Niebuhr treated the early 
 history of Rome, was to reject the historical narrative handed down 
 by ancient, and generally received by modern writers ; and to sub- 
 stitute for it a new narrative reconstructed 011 an arbitrary hypothe- 
 tical basis of his own. Everything that is original and peculiar in 
 Niebuhr's historical method, and in its results, is indeed unsound. 
 But it possessed advantages, when employed in the transmutation of 
 Roman antiquity, which are wanting to it when applied to Egyptian 
 antiquity. The early Roman history, whatever may be its authen- 
 ticity, presents at least a full and continuous narrative, most parts of 
 which are related in discordant versions by different classical writers. 
 As not one of these versions rests on an ascertained foundation, or can 
 be traced to coeval attestation, great facility is afforded for ingenious 
 conjecture, for bold and startling combinations, for hypothetical re- 
 construction by means of specious analogies, and for the display of 
 imposing paradox and dazzling erudition. But the so-called history 
 of ancient Egypt consists of little more than chronology. It is, for
 
 230 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 the most part, merely a string of royal names. Xow this is a most 
 unattractive field for the hypothetical historian ; he is condemned to 
 make bricks without straw. Instead of demolishing and rebuilding 
 constitutions, instead of creating new states of society out of obscure 
 fragments of lost writers, he is reduced to a mere arithmetical 
 process. Accordingly, the operations of Bunsen and other modern 
 critics upon the ancient history of Egypt rather resemble the mani- 
 pulation of the balance-sheet of an insolvent company by a dexterous 
 accountant (who, by transfers of capital to income, by the. suppression 
 or transposition of items, and by the alteration of bad into good 
 debts, can convert a deficiency into a surplus), than the conjectures 
 of a speculative historian who undertakes to transmute legend into 
 history. 
 
 ' Egyptology has a historical method of its own. It recognises 
 none of the ordinary rules of evidence : the extent of its demands upon 
 our credulity is almost unbounded. Even the writers on ancient 
 Italian ethnology are modest and tame in their hypotheses, compared 
 with the Egyptologists. Under their potent logic all identity dis- 
 appears ; everything is subject to become anything but itself. Succes- 
 sive dynasties become contemporary dynasties ; one king becomes 
 another king, or several other kings, or a fraction of another king ; 
 one name becomes another name ; one number becomes another 
 number ; one place becomes another place. 
 
 ' In order to support and illustrate these remarks, it would be 
 necessary to analyse Bunsen's reconstruction of the scheme of Egyptian 
 chronology. Such an analysis would be inconsistent with the main 
 object of 'the present work ; but a few examples will serve to 
 characterise his method. 
 
 ' Sesostris is the great name of Egyptian antiquity. Even the 
 builders of the pyramids and of the lab}Tinth sink into insignificance 
 by the side of this mighty conqueror. Nevertheless, his historical 
 identity is not proof against the dissolving and rccompounding pro- 
 cesses of the Egyptological method. Bunsen distributes him into 
 portions, and identifies each portion with a different king. Sesostris, 
 as we have already stated, stands in Manetho's list as third king of 
 the twelfth dynasty, at 3320 B.C., and a notice is appended to his 
 name clearly identifying him with the Sesostris of Herodotus. 
 Bunsen first takes a portion of him, and identifies it with Tosorthrus 
 (written Sesorthus by Eusebius), the second king of the third dynasty, 
 whose date is 5119 B.C., being a difference in the dates of 1799 years 
 about the same interval as between Augustus Caesar and Napoleon ;
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 231 
 
 he then takes another portion, and identifies it with Sesonchosis. a 
 king of the twelfth dynasty ; a third portion of Sesostris is finally 
 assigned to himself. It seems that these three fragments make up 
 the entire Sesostris ; who, in this plural unity, belongs to the 
 Ancient Empire ; but it is added that the Greeks confound him with 
 Harnesses, or Ilamses, of the New Empire, a king of the nineteenth 
 dynasty, whose date is 1255 B.C. ; who, again, was confounded with 
 his father, Sethos, which name again was transmuted into Sethosis 
 and Sesosis. 
 
 ' Lepsius agrees with Bunsen that Sesostris in the Hanethonian 
 list, who stands in the twelfth dynasty, at 8320 u c., is not Sesostris ; 
 but, instead of elevating him to the third dynast}-, brings him down 
 to the nineteenth dynasty, and identifies him with Sethos, 1326 B.C. ; 
 chiefly on account of a statement of Manetho, preserved by Josephus, 
 that Sethos first subjugated Cyprus and Phoenicia, and afterwards 
 Assyria and Media, with other countries further to the east. Lepsius, 
 moreover, holds that Ilamses, the son of Sethos, was, like his father, a 
 great conqueror, but that the Greeks confounded both father and son 
 under the name of Sesostris. 
 
 ' We therefore see that the two leading Egyptologists, Bunsen and 
 Lepsius, differing in other respects, agree in thinking that Sesostris is 
 not Sesostris. The notice appended to his name in Manetho, which 
 identifies him with the Sesostris of Herodotus, Diodorus, and other 
 Greek writers, is regarded by Lepsius as spurious. But here their 
 agreement stops. One assigns Sesostris to what is called the Old, the 
 other to what is called the New Empire, separating his respective 
 dates by an interval of 3793 years. What should we think, if a new 
 school of writers on the history of France, entitling themselves Fran- 
 cologists, were to arise, in which one of the leading critics were to 
 deny that Louis XIV. lived in the seventeenth century, and were to 
 identify him with Hercules, or llomulus, or Cyrus, or Alexander the 
 Great, or Caesar or Charlemagne ; while another leading critic of the 
 same school, agreeing in the rejection of the received hypothesis as to 
 his being the successor of Louis XIII., were to identify him with 
 Napoleon I. and Louis Napoleon ? ' 
 
 It is well known that all these conjectures on Early Egyptian 
 history are supported by the recent discovery of the true mean- 
 ing of the long-unintelligible hieroglyphic inscriptions. But 
 Sir George Lewis does not believe they have discovered their 
 meaning. He states the problem certainly with formidable
 
 232 Sir George Cor new all Lewis. 
 
 force. It is something like this : * Here you have inscriptions 
 composed in a lost language, and written down in a character 
 which is also lost. Is it lo be believed that the imagination of 
 man can first guess rightly the system of written symbols, and 
 then guess the meaning too ? It is the old story ; you have 
 to interpret the dream without knowing what it is. Even sup- 
 posing that you have found out, as you think, one set of written 
 symbols, and made a language in these symbols which you can 
 read, who will assure us that some other person will not find 
 another set of symbols with, another set of meanings in a new 
 imaginary language ? ' ' The question,' says Sir George Lewis, 
 * as to the possibility of interpreting a language whose tradition 
 has been lost, is further confused by a deceptive analogy derived 
 from the process of deciphering. A cipher is a contrivance for 
 disguising the alphabetical writing of a known language by a 
 conventional change of characters. The explanation of this 
 conventional change is called the Key. If a document written 
 in cipher falls into the possession of a stranger ignorant of the 
 Key, and if he can conjecture with tolerable certainty the lan- 
 guage in which it is written, he can proceed to apply to it the 
 rules for deciphering, which are founded upon the comparative 
 frequency of certain letters and certain words in the given 
 language. This process, if the document be tolerably long, is 
 almost infallible. It is difficult to devise a cipher, sufficiently 
 simple for frequent use, which cannot be deciphered by a skilful 
 and experienced decipherer. Eut this operation supposes the 
 language to be understood ; it is a irerely alphabetical process ; 
 it does not determine the meaning of a single word ; it merely 
 strips the disguise off a word, and reproduces it in its ordinary 
 orthography. Jso process similar to deciphering can afford the 
 smallest assistance towards discovering the signification of an 
 unknown word, written in known alphabetical characters. The 
 united ingenuity of the most skilful decipherers in Europe 
 could not throw any light upon an Etruscan or Lycian inscrip- 
 tion, or interpret a single sentence of the Eugubine Tables.
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 233 
 
 In like manner, assuming an Egyptian hieroglyphical text to 
 be correctly read into alphabetical characters, no process of 
 deciphering could detect the meaning of the several words. 
 
 It is possible, for example, that Champollion may have dis- 
 covered, by comparison on some proper names, some phonetic 
 characters, and it is also possible that the ancient Egyptian may 
 have had some analogy with the modern Coptic the same sort 
 of analogy, perhaps, which Italian bears to Latin. But it is very 
 difficult to be satisfied that any great knowledge could be de- 
 rived from the spelling of a few letters, and the guessing of a 
 few words as expressed in these letters. ' Where/ says Sir 
 George Lewis, 'the tradition of a language is lost, but its affi- 
 nity with a known language is ascertained or presumed, the 
 attempts to restore the significations of words proceed upon 
 the hypothesis that the etymology of the word can be deter- 
 mined by its resemblance, more or less close, to a word in the 
 known language, and that the etymology of the word is a cer- 
 tain guide to its meaning. But although there is a close affi- 
 nity between etymology and meaning, yet etymology alone 
 cannot be taken as a sure index to meaning. When the signi- 
 fication of a word is ascertained, it is often difficult to determine 
 the etymology. The Lexilogus of Buttmann, the Eomance 
 Dictionary of Diez in fact, any good etymological vocabulary 
 will furnish ample evidence of this truth. But when the 
 process is inverted, and it is proposed to determine the signi- 
 fication of the words of an entire language from etymological 
 guesses, unassisted by any other knowledge, the process is ne- 
 cessarily uncertain and inconclusive, and can be satisfactory 
 only to a person who has already made up his mind to accept 
 some system of interpretation. 
 
 4 Thus in Italian the word troja signifies a sow. Diez refers the 
 origin of this word to the old Latin expression porcus Trojanus, which 
 meant a pig stuffed with other animals and served for the table ; the 
 name being an allusion to the Trojan horse. He conceives that this 
 phrase first became porco cZi troja, and afterwards troja simply, with
 
 234 Sir George Cornew all Lewis. 
 
 the signification of a pregnant sow. Assuming this etymology to he 
 true, what possible ingenuity could have enabled anybody to invert 
 the process, and to discover the meaning by the etymology, if the 
 meaning were unknown ? ' 
 
 The alphabet of Baron Bunsen is very complicated. He 
 has four classes and an extra, or later class. He has more 
 than 1C 00 characters altogether : 
 
 Ideographics ...... 620 
 
 Determinatives . . . . . . 164 
 
 Phonetics . . . . . . . 130 
 
 Mixed ........ 55 
 
 Later alphabet . . . . . . 100 
 
 1069 
 
 And he can read a very large number of words ; but we are 
 not surprised to hear that ' the system of reading the hiero- 
 glyphic characters as expounded by the Egyptologists, is 
 flexible and arbitrary. It involves the hypothesis of homo- 
 phones ; that is to say of a plurality of signs for the same 
 sound. It likewise involves a mixture of ideographic and 
 phonetic symbols.' 
 
 Altogether, though Sir George Lewis may not be right in 
 his bold assertion that no early Egyptian history is possible, he 
 is clearly successful in proving that Baron Bunsen's history is 
 untrue. As he expelled the conjectures of Niebuhr from 
 Roman history, so he has expelled the conjectures of Niebuhr's 
 great pupil from Egyptian history. Nobody who reads Sir 
 George Lewis can doubt that Bunsen, for the most part, in- 
 dulges in conjecture as to the language, as to the written cha- 
 racter, and as to the history of ancient Egypt. His theories 
 in future will not be accepted as facts. A better feat of icono- 
 clasm has seldom been performed. 
 
 These historical works might well have exhausted the leisure 
 of a man almost always occupied in civil business. But Sir 
 George Lewis wrote another long series of books on philoso- 
 phical politics also. We have not left ourselves much space to
 
 Sir George CorneiL'all Lewis. 235 
 
 speak of them at length, and we do not think that they need 
 be spoken of at such great length as his historical works. We 
 think that they represent less perfectly the best parts of his 
 mind, and that they bear more marks of his deficiencies. 
 
 The earliest and among the most curious is an essay on the 
 ' Use and Abuse of certain Political terms,' published in 1832. 
 It is curiously characteristic of Sir George Lewis that,, at a time 
 when England was convulsed by the almost revolutionary 
 struggle of the Eeform Bill, when all Europe still gazed with 
 wonder at the prosperous effect of the most happy of French 
 revolutions, Sir George Lewis should have sat down to write, 
 not on the facts of political revolution, but on the words of 
 political science. After he became a practical statesman he 
 became more alive to political passions and less occupied with 
 political terms ; but to the last he was too apt to wonder at 
 great conflicts, and to be pleased with verbal inquiries. In 
 1833 he was under the mastery of a remarkable teacher. The 
 late Mr. Austin had little fame in his lifetime, and was so dis- 
 couraged by neglect that he could not nerve himself to com- 
 plete great works, of which he had finished what most men 
 would consider the difficult part, and had only to add that 
 which most people would think the easy part. He in this point 
 resembled Coleridge. That great thinker has left no work 
 which embodies his philosophy, and yet his philosophy has 
 permeated his generation. Mr. Austin seized hold, some thirty 
 years ago, of several strong minds, and by the help of these 
 great minds he greatly influenced his time. You will find 
 thoughts distinctly traceable to him far away among people 
 who never heard of him. His few lectures and his years of 
 conversation were a peculiar source of nice expression and 
 accurate thought for more than half a century ; a little bit of 
 just though almost pedantic thought cropped suddenly up in 
 our crude and hasty English life. Thirty years ago Mr. Austin, 
 at the London University, explained what may be called the 
 necessary part of political science, and illustrated it by the
 
 236 Sir George Cornewail Lewis. 
 
 best of all illustrations Roman law. He analysed not a par- 
 ticular government, but what is common to all governments ; 
 not one law, but what is common to all laws ; not political 
 communities in their features of diversity, but political com- 
 munities in their features of necessary resemblance. He gave 
 poMtics not an interesting aspect, but a new aspect ; for by 
 giving men a steady view of what political communities must 
 be, he nipped in the bud many questions as to what they 
 ought to be, or ought not to be. As a gymnastic of the intel- 
 lect, and as a purifier, Mr. Austin's philosophy is to this day 
 admirable even in its imperfect remains ; a young man who 
 will study it will find that he has gained something which he 
 wanted, but something which he did not knoiv that he wanted ; 
 he has clarified a part of his mind which he did not know needed 
 clarifying. Sir Greorge Lewis was deeply penetrated by this 
 abstract teaching; to the last day of his life, in the unphiloso- 
 phical atmosphere of the War Office, lie would use the phrases 
 of, and would like allusions to, this philosophy. One source 
 of his power as a political thinker was, that he had, under Mr. 
 Austin's guidance, studied political questions as it were in 
 their skeleton. Once a jurist, always a jurist. The vast and 
 easy command of the whole sources of judicial literature which 
 Sir George Lewis showed in his essay ' On Foreign Jurisdiction, 
 and the Extradition of Criminals,' and elsewhere, is largely 
 due to his early studies. Yet it may be doubted whether Mr. 
 Austin's influence was entirely favourable for him. A certain 
 school of thinkers magnify the effects of human language. 
 Calm and simple-minded students, when they see the hasty 
 world of human beings using inaccurate and vague words, are 
 apt to ascribe all their errors to those words, and to believe 
 that, if you could put human language right, you would set 
 the world in order. There is no greater mistake. Men are 
 mainly deceived by their passions and their interests ; they 
 care but little for abstract truth, and rush forward to small, 
 petty, but concrete, objects. They catch hastily at any sort of
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lezvis. 237 
 
 word that justifies what they wish to do, and if it sounds well, 
 care little for fallacies and ambiguities. The language is in- 
 accurate, no doubt, but it is a symptom only of a mental dis- 
 ease. You cannot calm the passions of men by defining their 
 words. Mr. Austin's school was apt to forget this. The early 
 treatise of Sir George Lewis on the ' Use and Abuse of Political 
 Terms,' and some of his later treatises too, are not exempt from 
 this defect, though his strong sense and really practical turn of 
 mind always kept it in check. A person wishing to watch his 
 intellectual history, should look carefully at this book ; it is a 
 series of exercises in Mr. Austin's class-room. 
 
 A more serious defect mars the popularity of Sir George 
 Lewis's writings, and we think Mr. Austin is partly to blame for 
 that too. Mr. Austin was always talking of the ' formidable com- 
 munity of fools ; ' he had no popularity ; little wish for popu- 
 larity ; little respect for popular judgment. This is a great 
 error. The world is often wiser than any philosopher. ' There 
 is some one,' said a great man of the world, ' wiser than Vol- 
 taire, and wiser than Napoleon, c'est tout le monde.' Popular 
 judgment on popular matters is crude and vague, but it is right. 
 And it is even more certain that a great writer on morals and 
 politics ought not to adopt a mode of writing which excludes 
 him from popularity. Mr. Austin's mere style did this for him. 
 He wrote on the principle that people would be sure to compre- 
 hend what was completely expressed, but could never be trusted 
 to supply a hiatus in what was incompletely expressed. His 
 writings accordingly read like a legal document ; every possible 
 case is provided for, every ambiguity is guarded against, and 
 hardly any one can read them. The ordinary human mind 
 cannot bear that method of expressing everything ; is is more 
 puzzled by such elaborate precision than by anything else. 
 Sir Gfeorge Lewis did not err in mere language, but he erred in 
 treatment. Mr. Austin expands all thoughts, new and old, at 
 just the same length ; and he taught Sir George Lewis. to do so 
 also. In the present state of the moral sciences, this is absurd.
 
 238 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 Much of them is very well, though a little vaguely, understood 
 by the world at large. It is often of great consequence to 
 reduce them to a principle ; it is often of great importance to 
 add new truths, and to give a new edge to old truth. But it 
 is not advisable to begin with a principle and to work steadily 
 through all its possible applications at the same length. If 
 you do, the reader will say, ' How this man does pi'ose ! why, I 
 knew that ; and he did know it. Some of the applications of 
 a principle are new, and should be treated at length ; some are 
 of pressing importance, and should be treated at length too ; 
 but all the consequences should not be worked out like a sum. 
 An atmosphere of commonplace hangs over long moral didac- 
 tics, and an equal expansion of what the world knows and what 
 it does not know will not be read by the world. 
 
 Sir George Lewis did his fame serious harm by neglecting 
 this maxim. He wrote, for example, * An Essay on the Influence 
 of Authority in Matters of Opinion,' which was described by a 
 hasty thinker as a book to prove that when ' you wanted to 
 know anything, you asked someone who knew something about 
 it.' This essay certainly abounds in acute remarks and inter- 
 esting illustrations, and if these remarks and these illustrations 
 had been printed separately, it would have been a good book. 
 But the systematic treatment has been fatal to it. The differ- 
 ent kinds and cases of authority are so systematically enumer- 
 ated, that the reader yawns and forgets. 
 
 The case is even worse with his great treatise ' On the 
 Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics,' in two large 
 volumes. Scarcely any one has read these volumes, and those 
 who have are sure that their bulk was a mistake. They are 
 written upon the principle that ' two and two make four ' is as 
 much unknown to the mass of men as the integral calculus. 
 Easy things are explained exactly with the same care as diffi- 
 cult things, and in consequence very few people read the expla- 
 nations. There are many admirable parts and essays in the 
 book. It contains an account and criticism of ' political indue-
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 239 
 
 tion ' as described by Mr. Mill, and an account and criticism 
 of jurisprudence as described and understood by Mr. Austin. 
 Both these discussions are very good, and the speculations of 
 the two thinkers are well- spliced together ; but they are over- 
 laid with long explanations of what requires no explanation, 
 and discussions of what need never have been discussed. 
 Charles Fox used to say of a very dull but able speaker, ' I 
 always listen to that man, and then speak his speech over 
 again.' A dishonest writer might well do so with Sir George 
 Lewis's writings. There are many thoughts, and a million facts 
 in them, which the world would be glad to hear, though it cannot 
 extract them from the rest. A writer of this sort naturally 
 did not look for profit from his laborious writings ; few men 
 have done more gratuitous work. He was disposed to agree 
 with Mr. Mill, that the notion of ' thinkers giving out doctrines 
 for bread was a mistake,' and even to hold that speculators 
 should pay for the opportunity of placing their opinions before 
 the world. 
 
 We own that we much regret this misconception of the 
 conditions of modern writing, now that Sir Greorge Lewis's career 
 has been cut short in the midst. When he had life before him, 
 it seemed less important that he should throw a\vay fame ; but 
 now that all is over, we wish he had desired popularity more, 
 for he would have been remembered better. He really had 
 considerable powers of pointed writing. The little treatise at 
 the head of this article shows that when he did not aim at com- 
 pleteness he could write easily that which would be easily read. 
 He had not, indeed, the powers of a great literary artist ; it was 
 not in his way to look at style as an alluring art. He wanted to 
 express his opinion, and cared for nothing else. He had no 
 literary vanity ; and without the vanity that loves applause, few 
 indeed cultivate the tact that gains applause. ' If you can do 
 without the world,' says the cynic, ' the world can do without 
 you ; ' and it is as true to say that few, if any, gain literary 
 fame who do not long and hunger after it.
 
 240 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 As a sort of compensation, Sir George Lewis rose more rapidly 
 as a parliamentary statesman than any of his contemporaries. 
 He was in the first rank of the Liberal party, yet he entered 
 parliament five years after Mr. Cardwell, fifteen years after 
 Mr. Gladstone, nineteen years after Sir Charles Wood, and forty 
 years after Lord Palmerston. It is curious at first sight that 
 he should have done so. He was not an attractive speaker, he 
 wanted animal spirits, and detested an approach to anything 
 theatrical. He had very considerable command of exact lan- 
 guage, but he had no impulse to use it. If it was his duty to 
 speak, he spoke ; but he did not want to speak when it was not 
 his duty. Silence was no pain, and oratory no pleasure to him. 
 If mere speaking were the main qualification for an influence in 
 Parliament if, as is often said, parliamentary government be a 
 synonym for the government of talkers and avocats Sir George 
 Lewis would have had no influence, would never have been a 
 parliamentary ruler. Yet we once heard a close and good ob- 
 server say : ' George Lewis's influence in the House is some- 
 thing wonderful ; whatever he proposes has an excellent chance 
 of being carried. He excites no opposition, and he commands 
 great respect, and generally he carries his plan.' The House 
 of Commons, according to the saying, is wiser than any one in 
 it. There is an elective affinity for solid sense in a practical 
 assembly of educated Englishmen which always operates, and 
 which rarely errs. Sir George Lewis's influence was great, not 
 only on his own side of the House, but on the other. He had, 
 indeed, probably more real weight with moderate Conservatives 
 than with extreme Liberals. Enterprise neither seemed to be 
 nor was his forte, and bold men thought him rather tame. His 
 influence was like that of Lord Palmerston : he was liked by 
 the moderate members, whether Whigs or Tories, who think 
 just alike, whatever they call themselves ; and who are likely 
 nowadays to rule the country, whatever name the party in 
 power may chance to bear. He was a safe man, a fair man, 
 and an unselfish man. He had a faculty of ' patient labour,'
 
 Sir George Cor new all Lewis. 241 
 
 which, as he himself remarked, ' ivas as sure to be appreciated, 
 when Englishmen meet together to transact business, as wit or 
 eloquence ; ' and therefore it was that he had great influence in 
 the House of Commons ; and therefore it was that he rose rapidly. 
 He filled three cabinet offices ; the first was that of Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, and this was the one which he liked 
 best, and for which he conceived himself best qualified. He 
 had no easy time, however, during his actual tenure of the 
 office. He had to find money for the Crimean War, the heaviest 
 draft on the resources of the exchequer since Waterloo ; he had 
 to break the * fundamental law of the currency,' as he called it, 
 Peel's Act, in the unexpected panic of 1857. He gave uni- 
 versal satisfaction as finance minister, and especial satisfaction 
 in the City. He was clear, considerate, and it was at once felt 
 that argument would move him if good argument could be 
 found. He had to borrow much money, and he so managed as 
 to be able to borrow it without undue charge to the state, and 
 with that immediate success which sustains the credit of the 
 state, and secures a prestige in the money-market. It is scarcely 
 possible to speak of him as finance minister without alluding to 
 his differences with Mr. Gladstone in the cabinet and out of it.. 
 Yet it is not possible to discuss the subject accurately. Mr,. 
 Gladstone's views of the budget of 1860, we all know ; but Sir 
 George Lewis's views have never been set forth at length, and! 
 it is not wise to base an argument on scraps of oral conversa- 
 tions. It may be as well, however, to point out that, in addition 
 to their intrinsic and considerable differences of temperament 
 and character, they approached finance from two different and 
 even opposite points of view. Mr. Gladstone is the successor, 
 the legitimate inheritor of the policy of Sir Robert Peel. He 
 made his reputation as a financier and as a statesman by the 
 budget of 1853, in which the prominent object is to remove old 
 taxes that cramp and harass industry. He regards the public 
 purse as donative, out of which trade may be augmented and 
 industry developed. Sir Robert Peel used the public purse in 
 
 R
 
 242 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 that manner, and Mr. Gladstone has done so also. Sir George 
 Lewis was led, perhaps from temperament, and certainly from 
 circumstances, to take a stricter and simpler view of finance. 
 He came into office on a sudden, during a great war, and he had 
 to find the resources for that war. He had to consider, not how 
 taxation could be adjusted so as to help trade, but how the 
 exchequer could be filled to pay soldiers. On all financial 
 matters he looked solely at the balance of the account, Will 
 there be a deficit, or will there not be? Forms of account, 
 and all minor matters, were in his mind of very small import- 
 ance ; he looked to the simple question, How much will there 
 be in the till at the end of the year ? With two such different 
 prepossessions as these, it is no wonder that men so intrinsically 
 different as Sir George Lewis and Mr. Gladstone did not very 
 well agree upon finance ; it is rather a wonder that they could 
 act together at all. There is no use, over Sir George Lewis's 
 grave, in reviving financial controversies ; everybody will now 
 admit that while he was in office and responsible, he was a 
 .sound and sure Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 
 In the panic of 1857, we have heard, he was even amusing. 
 His perfect impassivity and collectedness contrasted much with 
 the excitement of eager men, and in a panic most men are eager. 
 A deputation of Scotch bankers attended at the Treasury to 
 ask Sir George to induce the Bank of England to make ad- 
 vances to them in certain possible cases. Sir George said, ' Ah, 
 gentlemen, if I were to interfere with the discretion of the Bank, 
 there would be a run upon me much greater than any which 
 there has ever been upon you.' He was a man who probably 
 could not lose his head. 
 
 At the Home Office he had the opportunity of displaying 
 great judicial faculties. The Home Office is the high court of 
 appeal in cases of criminal justice. When anyone is to be hanged, 
 it is almost always argued before the Home Secretary that he 
 should not be hanged. If Sir George Lewis had practised at the 
 bar, for which he studied, he would have been a bad advocate ;
 
 Sir George Co r new all Lewis. 243 
 
 his mind was not fertile in ambiguous fallacies, and was incapable 
 of artificial belief; and a great pleader should excel in these. 
 One of the greatest judges of our generation, when at the bar, 
 could only state the point once, and when the court did not 
 understand him, could only mutter, * What fools they are ! awful 
 fools ! infernal fools ! ' Sir George Lewis would not have in- 
 dulged in these epithets, but he would have been nearly as little 
 able to invent ingenious suggestions and out-of-the-way argu- 
 ments. He probably would have said, ' I have explained the 
 matter. If the court will not comprehend it, 1 cannot make 
 them.' But no man was fitter for a judge than himself. He 
 would never have shirked labour which is not unknown even 
 among judges and his lucid exposition of substantial reasons 
 would have been consulted by students for years. At the Home 
 Office he could not display all these qualities, but he was able 
 to display some of them. 
 
 At the War Office he shone far less. It did not suit his 
 previous pursuits ; and no other man with such pursuits would 
 have taken it, or, indeed, would have been asked to take it. 
 He pushed the notion too far in this case, that an able and 
 educated man can master any subject, and is fit for any office. 
 The constitutional habit in England of making a civilian supreme 
 over military matters, though we believe a most wise habit, has 
 its objections, and may easily look absurd. It did look rather 
 absurd when the most pacific of the pacific, the most erudite of 
 the erudite, Sir George Lewis, was placed at the head of the 
 War Department. In great matters, it cannot be denied, he 
 did well. When the capture of the Trent made a war with the 
 Federal States a pressing probability, the arrangements were 
 admitted to be admirable. Much of the credit must belong in 
 such a case to military and other subordinates all the details . 
 must be managed by them ; but the superior minister must 
 have his credit too. He brought to a focus all which was done; 
 he summed-up the whole ; he could say distinctly why every- 
 thing which was done was done, and why everything left un-
 
 244 Si*' George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 done was left undone. He would have been ready with a plain 
 intelligible reason on all these matters in Parliament and else- 
 where. And this was not an easy matter for a civilian after a 
 few months of office. But on minor matters Sir George Lewis 
 was not so good at the War Department as at the Exchequer or 
 the Home Office. He had been apprenticed to the Home Office 
 as Under-Secretary, and to the Exchequer as Financial Secretary 
 to the Treasury ; but he had never been apprenticed to the 
 War Office. On matters of detail he was obliged to rely on 
 others. He held, and justly, that a parliamentary chief of 
 temporary, perhaps very temporary, tenure of office should be 
 very cautious not to interfere too much with the minor business 
 of his department. He should govern, but he should govern 
 through others. But the due application of this maxim re- 
 quires that the chief minister should know, as it were by intui- 
 tion and instinct, which points are important and which are not 
 important. And no civilian introduced at once to a new de- 
 partment like that of W<ir can at once tell this. He must be in 
 the hands of others. In the House of Commons, too, Sir George 
 Lewis could never answer questions of detail on war matters 
 in an offhand manner. He had to say, ' I will inquire, and 
 inform the honourable member.' At the Home Office he could 
 have answered at once and of himself. It was an act of self- 
 denial in him to go to the War Office. He felt himself out of 
 place there, and was sure that his administration of military 
 matters would not add to his reputation. But he was told it 
 was for the interest of the Government that he should accept 
 the office, and he accepted it. Perhaps he was wrong. The 
 reputation of a first-rate public man is a great public power, 
 and he should be careful not to diminish it. The weight of the 
 greatest men is diminished by their being seen to do daily that 
 which they do not do particularly well. A cold and cynical 
 wisdom particularly disapproves of most men's best actions. 
 Few men were less exposed to the censure of such wisdom than 
 Sir George Lewis; but his acceptance of the War Office was a
 
 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 245 
 
 sacrifice of himself to the public, which injured him more than 
 it advantaged the public which it would have been better not 
 to have made. 
 
 The usefulness of men like Sir George Lewis is not to be 
 measured by their usefulness in mere office. It is in the cabinet 
 that they are of most use. Sir George Lewis was made to dis- 
 cuss business with other men. * If,' we have heard one who 
 did much business with him say, * if there is any fault in what 
 you say, he will find it out.' In council, in the practical dis- 
 cussions of pending questions, a simple masculine intellect like 
 that of Sir George Lewis finds its greatest pleasure and its best 
 use. He was made to be a cabinet minister. 
 
 The briefest notice of Sir George Lewis should not omit to 
 mention one of his most agreeable, and not one of his least rare, 
 peculiarities his good-natured use of great knowledge. It 
 would have been easy for a man with such a memory as his, and 
 such studious habits as his, to become most unpopular by cut- 
 ting up the casual blunders of others. On the contrary, he was 
 ii most popular man, for he used his knowledge with a view to 
 amend the ignorance of others, and not with a view to expose 
 it. His conversation was superior either to his speeches or his 
 writings. It had what is perhaps rarer among parliamentary 
 statesman than among most people the flavour of exact thought. 
 It is hardly possible for men to pass their lives in oratorical 
 efforts without losing some part of the taste for close-fitting 
 words. Well-sounding words which are not specially apt, which 
 are not very precise, are as good or better for a popular assembly. 
 Sir George Lewis's words in political conversation were as good 
 as words could be ; they might have gone to the press at once. 
 We have compared it to hearing a chapter in Aristotle's Poli- 
 tics, and perhaps that may give an idea that it was dull. But 
 pointed thought on great matters is a very pleasant thing to 
 hear, though, after many ages and changes, it is sometimes a 
 hard thing to read. The conversation of the ' Dialogue ' at the 
 end of his treatise on the ' Best Form, of Government,' has been
 
 246 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 
 
 admired, but it is very inferior to the conversation of the writer. 
 There was a delicate flavour of satire lurking in the precise 
 thought which could not be written down, and which is now 
 gone and irrecoverable. 
 
 ' When,' says Lord Brougham, commenting on the death 
 of a statesman once celebrated and now forgotten ' when a 
 subject presented itself so large and shapeless, and dry and 
 thorny, that few men's fortitude could face, and no one's 
 patience could grapple with it; or an emergency occurred 
 demanding, on the sudden, access to storey of learning, the 
 collection of many long years, but arranged so as to be made 
 available at the shortest notice then it was men asked 
 where Lawrence was.' And now, not only when information is 
 wanted, but when counsel is needed when parties are confused 
 when few public men are trusted when wisdom, always 
 rare, is rarer even than usual many may ask, in no long time, 
 * Where is Lewis now ? ' 1 
 
 1 I have given in the Addenda (page 330) a shorter article, written in the 
 Economist newspaper by Mr. Bagehot, on occasion of the unveiling of the memorial 
 to Sir George Lewis at Hereford in the autumn of 1864. This article, which 
 appeared on the 10th September in that year, seems lo me either supplementary 
 to, or a very interesting expansion and illustration of, the longer paper. EDITORS
 
 247 
 
 ADAM SMITH AS A PERSON. 
 
 [1876.] 
 
 OF Adam Smith's Political Economy almost an infinite quantity 
 has been said, but very little has been said as to Adam Smith 
 himself. And yet not only was he one of the most curious of 
 human beings, but his books can hardly be understood without 
 having some notion ol what manner of man he was. There 
 certainly are economical treatises that go straight on, and that 
 might have been written by a calculating machine. But the 
 ' Wealth of Nations ' is not one of these. Anyone who would 
 explain what is in it, and what is not in it, must apply the 
 * historical method,' and state what was the experience of its 
 author and how he worked up that experience. Perhaps, there- 
 fore, now that there is a sort of centenary of Adam Smith, it 
 may not be amiss to give a slight sketch of him and of his life, 
 and especially of the peculiar points in them that led him to 
 write the book which still in its effects, even more than in its 
 theory, occupies mankind. 
 
 The Founder of the science of business was one of the most 
 unbusinesslike of mankind. He was an awkward Scotch pro- 
 fessor, apparently choked with books and absorbed in abstrac- 
 tions. He was never engaged in any sort of trade, and would 
 probably never had made sixpence by any if he had been. His 
 absence of mind was amazing. On one occasion, having to sign 
 his name to an official document, he produced not his own sig- 
 nature, but an elaborate imitation of the signature of the person 
 who signed before him ; on another, a sentinel on duty having 
 saluted him in military fashion, he astounded and offended the 
 man by acknowledging it with a copy a very clumsy copy no 
 doubt of the same gestures. And Lord Brougham preserves
 
 248 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 other similar traditions. ' It is related,' he says, ' by old people 
 in Edinburgh that while he moved through the Fishmarket in 
 his accustomed attitude that is with his bands behind his back, 
 and his head in the air a female of the trade exclaimed, taking 
 him for an idiot broken loose, " Hech, sirs, to see the like o' him 
 to be aboot. And yet he is weel eneugh put on " (dressed). It 
 was often so too in society. Once, during a dinner at Dalkeith, 
 he broke out into a lecture on some politics of the day, and was 
 bestowing a variety of severe epithets on a statesman, when he 
 suddenly perceived the nearest relative of the politician he was 
 criticizing, sitting opposite, and stopped ; but he was heard to 
 go on muttering, " Deil care, Deil care, it's all true." ' And 
 these are only specimens of a crowd of anecdotes. 
 
 The wonder that such a man should have composed the 
 * Wealth of Nations,' which shows so profound a knowledge of the 
 Teal occupations of mankind, is enhanced by the mode in which 
 it was written. It was not the exclusive product of a lifelong 
 study, such as an absent man might, while in seeming abstrac- 
 tion, be really making of the affairs of the world. On the 
 contrary, it was in the mind of its author only one of many 
 books, or rather a single part of a great book, which he intended 
 to write. A vast scheme floated before him much like the dream 
 of the late Mr. Buckle as to a ' History of Civilisation,' and he 
 spent his life accordingly, in studying the origin and progress 
 of the sciences, the laws, the politics, and all the other aids and 
 forces which have raised man from the savage to the civilised 
 state. The plan of Adam Smith was indeed more comprehen- 
 sive even than this. He wanted to trace not only the progress 
 of the race, but also of the individual ; he wanted to show how 
 each man being born (as he thought) with few faculties, came 
 to attain to many and great faculties. He wanted to answer 
 the question, how did man race or individual come to be 
 what he is ? These immense dreams are among the commonest 
 phenomena of literary history -, and, as a rule, the vaster the 
 intention, the less the result. The musings of the author are
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 249 
 
 too miscellaneous, his studies too scattered, his attempts too 
 incoherent, for him to think out anything valuable, or to pro- 
 duce anything connected. But in Adam Smith's case the very 
 contrary is true ; he produced an enduring particular result in 
 consequence of a comprehensive and diffused anbition. He 
 discovered the laws of wealth in looking for ' the natural pro- 
 gress of opulence ; ' and he investigated the progress of opulence 
 as part of the growth and progress of all things. 
 
 The best way to get a distinct notion of Adam Smith's 
 scheme is to look at the other works which he published 
 besides the ' Wealth of Nations.' The greatest, and the one 
 which made his original reputation, was the ' Theory of Moral 
 Sentiments,' in which he builds up the whole moral nature of 
 man out of a single primitive emotion sympathy, and in which 
 he gives a history of ethical philosophy besides. With this are 
 commonly bound up some ( Considerations concerning the first 
 Formation of Languages,' which discuss how ' two savages who 
 had never been taught to speak, but had been bred up remote 
 from the society of man, would naturally begin their converse.' 
 Then there is a very curious ' History of Astronomy,' left im- 
 perfect ; and another fragment on the * History of Ancient 
 Physics,' which is a kind of sequel to that part of the ' History 
 of Astronomy' which relates to the ancient astronomy ; then a 
 similar essay on 'Ancient Logic and Metaphysics ; 'then another 
 on the nature and development of the Fine, or, as he calls them, 
 * The Imitative Arts, Painting, Poetry, and Music,' in which was 
 meant to have been included a history of the Theatre all 
 forming part, his executors tell us, ' of a plan he had once 
 formed for giving a connected history of the liberal and elegant 
 arts.' And he destroyed before his death the remains of the 
 book, ' Lectures on Justice,' ' in which,' we are told by a student 
 who heard them, * he followed Montesquieu in endeavouring to 
 trace the gradual progress of jurisprudence, both public and 
 private, from the rudest to the most refined ages, and to point 
 out the effects of those arts which contribute to subsistence
 
 250 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 and to the accumulation of property in producing correspondent 
 alterations in law and government ; ' or, as he himself announces 
 it at the conclusion of the ' Moral Sentiments,' ' another dis- 
 course ' in which he designs * to endeavour to give an account 
 of the general principles of law and government, and of the 
 different revolutions they have undergone in the different ages 
 and periods of society, not only in what concerns justice, but in 
 what concerns police, revenue, and arms, and whatever else is 
 the subject of law.' Scarcely any philosopher has imagined a 
 vaster dream. 
 
 Undoubtedly it is a great literary marvel that so huge a 
 scheme, on so many abstract subjects, should have produced 
 anything valuable, and still more so that it should have pro- 
 duced what has been for a whole century a fundamental book 
 on trade and money at first sight, the least fit for a secluded 
 man to treat at all, and which, if he did treat of them, would 
 seem more than any other to require from him an absorbed and 
 exclusive attention. A little study of the life of Adam Smith, 
 however, in some degree lessens the wonder ; because it shows 
 how in the course of his universal studies he came to meet with 
 this particular train of thought, and how he came to be able to 
 pursue it effectually. 
 
 Adam Smith was born early in the first half of the eigh- 
 teenth century, at Kirkcaldy in Scotland, on June 5, 1713. 
 His father died before he was born; but his mother, who is 
 said to have been a woman of unusual energy and ability, lived 
 to be very old, and to see her son at the height of his reputa- 
 tion as a philosopher. He was educated at school in the 
 usual Scotch way, and at the University of Glasgow ; and at 
 both he is said, doubtless truly, to have shown an unusual 
 facility of acquisition, and an unusual interest in books and 
 study. As we should also expect, a very strong memory, which 
 he retained till the last, showed itself very early. Nothing, 
 however, is known with precision as to the amount of know- 
 ledge he acquired in Scotland, nor as to his place among hi*
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 251 
 
 contemporaries. The examination system, which nowadays in 
 England discriminates both so accurately, has in Scotland never 
 been equally developed, and in Adam Smith's time had never 
 been heard of there at all. 
 
 His exceptional training begins at the next stage. There 
 is at the University of Glasgow a certain endowment called the 
 Snell exhibition, after the name of its founder, which enables 
 the students selected for it to study for some years at the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford. Of these exhibitioners Adam Smith became 
 one, and as such studied at Oxford for as many as seven years. 
 As might be epxected, he gave the worst account of the state 
 of the university at that time. In the sketch of the history 
 of education which forms so odd an episode in the ' Wealth of 
 Nations,' he shows perpetually that he thought the system 
 which he had seen at Oxford exceedingly bad, and its govern- 
 ment excessively corrupt. ' If,' he says, ' the authority to 
 which a teacher is subject resides in the body corporate of the 
 college or university of which he is himself a member, and in 
 which the greater part of the other members are, like himself, 
 persons who either are or ought to be teachers, they are likely 
 to make a common cause, to be all very indulgent to one 
 another, and every man to consent that his neighbour may 
 neglect his duty, provided he is himself allowed to neglect his 
 own. In the University of Oxford the greater part of the 
 public professors have for these many years given up altogether 
 even the pretence of teaching. And he adds, ' In England, 
 the public schools are much less corrupted than the universi- 
 ties. In the schools, the youths are taught, or at least may be 
 taught, Greek and Latin. That is everything which the 
 masters pretend to teach, or which it is expected they should 
 teach. In the universities, the youth neither are taught, nor 
 can always find the means of being taught, the sciences which 
 it is the business of these incoporated bodies to teach.' And 
 he retained through life a fixed belief that endowments for 
 education tended only to the ' ease ' of the teacher, and not to
 
 252 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 the advantage of the learner. But though he says he had the 
 means of learning a little at Oxford, he certainly, in fact, learnt 
 much. ' Greek,' as Sydney Smith says, 'never crossed the 
 Tweed in any force ; but Adam Smith incessantly shows a real 
 familiarity with Greek books and a sound accumulation of 
 Greek learning. Very likely is erudition would not bear 
 much comparison with what is now carried away from Balliol. 
 If we compare him with a more recent Snell exhibitioner, Sir 
 William Hamilton, we shall see that Greek teaching has 
 enormously advanced in the timo between them ; but, on the 
 other hand, if we compare Adam Smith with Scotch philoso- 
 phers, or purely Scotch education, say with Keid or Hume, we 
 cannot help seeing that his acquaintance with Greek things 
 belongs, both in quantity and in quality, to an order altogether 
 superior to theirs. 
 
 For the vast works which Adam Smith contemplated, a 
 sound knowledge of Greek was, as he must have felt, far more 
 necessary than any other kind of knowledge. The beginnings 
 of nine-tenths of all philosophy are to be found there, and the 
 rudiments of many other things. But for the purpose of the 
 great task which he actually performed, Adam Smith learned 
 at Oxford something much more valuable than Greek. He ac- 
 quired there a kind of knowledge and sympathy with England, in 
 which the other eminent Scotchmen especially literary Scotch- 
 men of his time were often very deficient. At that time the 
 recollection of the old rivalry between the two countries had by 
 no means died away ; there was still a separate Scotch philo- 
 sophy and a separate literature ; and when it happened, as it 
 perpetually did, that Scotch writers were not thought so much 
 of in England as they thought they ought to be, they were apt 
 to impute their discredit to English prejudice, and to appeal to 
 France and Paris to correct the error. Half Hume's mind, or 
 more than half, was distorted by his hatred of England and his 
 love of France. He often could not speak of English things 
 with tolerable temper, and he always viewed French ones with
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 extravagant admiration. Whether Adam Smith altogether 
 liked this country may perhaps be doubted Englishmen then 
 hated Scotchmen so much but he had no kind of antagonism 
 to her, and quite understood that in most economical respects 
 she was then exceedingly superior to France. And this ex- 
 ceptional sympathy and knowledge we may fairly ascribe to a 
 long and pleasant residence in England. For his great work 
 no qualification was more necessary ; the ' Wealth of Nations ' 
 would have been utterly spoiled if he had tried (as Hume 
 incessantly would have tried) to show that, in industrial re- 
 spects, England might not be better than France, or at any 
 rate was not so very much better. 
 
 The Snell foundation at Oxford has often been an avenue 
 to the English Church, and it seems to have been intended that 
 Adam Smith should use it as such. The only anecdote which 
 remains of his college life may be a clue to his reasons for not 
 doing so. He is said to have been found by his tutor in the 
 act of reading Hume's ' Philosophical Essays,' then lately pub- 
 lished, and to have been reproved for it. And it is certain that 
 anyone who at all sympathised with Hume's teaching in that 
 book would have felt exceedingly little sympathy with the 
 formularies of the Church of England, even as they were 
 understood in the very Broad Church of that age. At any 
 rate, for some reason or other, Adam Smith disappointed the 
 wishes of his friends, gave up all idea of entering the Church of 
 England, and returned to Scotland without fixed outlook or 
 employment. He resided, we are told, two years with his 
 mother, studying no doubt, but earning nothing, and visibly 
 employed in nothing. In England such a career would pro- 
 bably have ended in his writing for the booksellers,' a fate of 
 which he speaks in the ' Wealth of Nations ' with contempt. 
 But in Scotland there was a much better opening for philo- 
 sophers. The Scotch universities had then, as now, several 
 professorships very fairly paid, and very fairly distributed. 
 The educated world in Scotland was probably stronger a cen-
 
 254 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 tury ago than it ever was before or since. The Union with 
 England had removed the aristocracy of birth which over- 
 shadowed it before, and commerce had not yet created the 
 aristocracy of wealth which overshadows it now. Philosophical 
 merit had therefore then in Scotland an excellent chance of 
 being far better rewarded than it usually is in the world. 
 There were educated people who cared for philosophy, and 
 these people had prizes to give away. One of those prizes 
 Adam Smith soon obtained. He read lectures, we are told, 
 under the patronage of Lord Karnes, an eminent lawyer who 
 wrote books on philosoply that are still quoted, and who was 
 no doubt deeply interested in Adam Smith's plans of books on 
 the origin and growth of all arts and sciences, as these were 
 the topics which he himself studied and handled. Contrary to 
 what might have been expected, these lectures were very 
 successful. Though silent and awkward in social life, Adam 
 Smith possessed in considerable perfection the peculiarly 
 Scotch gift of abstract oratory. Even in common conversation, 
 when once moved he expounded his favourite ideas very 
 admirably. As a teacher in public he did even better ; he 
 wrote almost nothing, and though at the beginning of a lecture 
 he often hesitated, we are told, and seemed ' not to be suffi- 
 ciently possessed of the subject,' yet in a minute or two he 
 became fluent, and poured out an interesting series of animated 
 arguments. Commonly, indeed, the silent man, whose brain 
 is loaded with unexpressed ideas, is more likely to be a success- 
 ful public speaker than the brilliant talker who daily exhausts 
 himself in sharp sayings. Adam Smith acquired great reputa- 
 tion as a lecturer, and in consequence obtained two of the best 
 prizes then given to philosophers in Scotland first the pro- 
 fessorship of logic, and then that of moral philosophy, in the 
 University of Glasgow. 
 
 The rules, or at any rate the practice, of the Scotch univer- 
 sities, seern at that time to have allowed a professor in either of 
 these chairs great latitude in the choice of his subject. Adam
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 Smith during his first year lectured on rhetoric and belles lettres 
 ' instead of on logic,' and in the chair of moral philosophy he 
 expounded, besides the theory of duty, a great scheme of social 
 evolution. The beginnings of the ' Wealth of Nations ' made 
 part of the course, but only as a fragment of the immense 
 design of showing the origin and development of cultivation 
 and law ; or, as we may perhaps put it, not inappropriately, of 
 saying how, from being a savage, man rose to be a Scotchman. 
 This course of lectures seems to have been specially successful. 
 So high, we are told, was his reputation as a professor, ' that a 
 multitude of students from a great distance resorted to the 
 university merely upon his account. Those branches of 
 science which he taught became fashionable ' in the city, ' and 
 his opinions were the chief topics of discussion in clubs and 
 literary societies. Even the small peculiarities of his pronun- 
 ciation and manner of speaking became frequently the objects 
 of imitation.' This is the partial recollection of an attached 
 pupil in distant years ; it may be over-coloured a little but 
 even after a fair abatement it is certainly the record of a great 
 temporary triumph and local success. 
 
 That the greater part of the lectures can have been of much 
 intrinsic merit it is not now easy to believe. An historical 
 account ' of the general principles of law and government, and 
 of the different revolutions which they have undergone in the 
 different ages and periods of society,' would be too great a task 
 for a great scholar of the ripest years and with all the accumu- 
 lated materials of the present time, and it was altogether 
 beyond the strength of a young man a century ago ! not 
 to say that he combined it with an account of the origin of the 
 moral faculties, a theory of belles lettres, and other matters. 
 The delivery of that part of the course which was concerned 
 with wealth and revenue may have been useful to him, because 
 it compelled him to bring his ideas on those subjects into a 
 distinct form. Otherwise, being a bookish man, he might have 
 been too absorbed in bookish matters, and neglected what can
 
 256 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 only be taught by life for that which is already to be learned 
 from literature. But at the time this was only a minor merit; 
 the main design of the lectures was only an impossible aim 
 at an unbounded task. 
 
 So complex, however, is life, that this Scotch professorship, 
 though in a superficial view wasteful, and likely to exhaust and 
 hurt his mind by demanding the constant efflux of inferior 
 matter, was, nevertheless, on the whole exceedingly useful. 
 It not only induced him to study as a part of his vast scheme 
 the particular phenomena of wealth, but it gave him an excel- 
 lent opportunity of seeing those phenomena and of learning 
 how to explain them. It was situated at Glasgow, and Glasgow, 
 though a petty place in comparison with its present magnitude, 
 was nevertheless a considerable mercantile place according to the 
 notions of those times. The Union with England had opened 
 to it the trade with our West Indian colonies, as well as with the 
 rest of the English empire, and it had in consequence grown 
 rapidly and made large profits. That its size was small, as we, 
 should think now, was to a learner rather an aid than a dis- 
 advantage. A small commerce is more easily seen than an 
 immense one ; that of Liverpool or London is now so vast that 
 it terrifies more than excites the imagination. And a small 
 commerce, if varied, has almost as much to teach as a large 
 one ; the elements are the same though the figures are smaller, 
 and the less the figures the easier are they to combine. An 
 inspection of Liverpool now would not teach much more than 
 an inspection of Glasgow a hundred years ago, and the lessons 
 of modern Liverpool would be much more difficult to learn. 
 But the mere sight of the phenomena of Glasgow commerce was 
 but a small part of the advantage to Adam Smith of a residence 
 at Glasgow. The most characteristic and most valuable tenets 
 of Adam Smith are, when examined, by no means of a very 
 abstract and recondite sort. We are, indeed, in this genera- 
 tion not fully able to appreciate the difficulty of arriving at 
 them. We have been bred up upon them ; our disposition is
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 257 
 
 more to wonder how anyone could help seeing them, than to 
 appreciate the effort of discovering them. Experience shows 
 that many of them the doctrine of free trade for example are 
 very uncongenial to the untaught human mind. On political 
 economy the English-speaking race is undoubtedly the best 
 instructed part of mankind ; and, nevertheless, in the United 
 States and in every English-speaking colony, protection is the 
 firm creed of the ruling classes, and free trade is but a heresy. 
 We must not fancy that any of the main doctrines of Adam 
 Smith were very easily arrived at by him because they seem 
 very obvious to us. But, on the other hand, although such 
 doctrines as his are too opposed to many interests and to many 
 first impressions to establish themselves easily as a dominant 
 creed, they are quite within the reach and quite congenial to 
 the taste of an intelligent dissenting minority. There was a 
 whole race of mercantile freetraders long before Adam Smith 
 was born ; in his time the doctrine was in the air ; it was not 
 accepted or established ; on the contrary, it was a tenet against 
 which a respectable parent would probably caution his son ; 
 still it was known as a tempting heresy, and one against which 
 a warning was needed. In Glasgow there were doubtless many 
 heretics. Probably in consequence of the firm belief in a rigid 
 theology, and of the incessant discussion of its technical tenets, 
 there has long been, and there is still, in the south of Scotland, 
 a strong tendency to abstract argument quite unknown in 
 England. Englishmen have been sometimes laughing at it, 
 and sometimes gravely criticising it for several generations : 
 Mr. Buckle wrote half a volume on it : Sydney Smith alleged 
 that he heard a Scotch girl answer in a quadrille, ' But, my 
 lord, as to what ye were saying as to love in the fti&stract,' and 
 so on. Yet, in spite both of ridicule and argument, the 
 passion for doctrine is still strong in southern Scotland, and it 
 will take many years more to root it out. At Glasgow in Adam 
 Smith's time it had no doubt very great influence ; a certain 
 number of hard-headed merchants were believers in free trade 
 
 s
 
 258 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 and kindred tenets. One of these is still by chance known to 
 us. Dr. Carlyle, whom Mr. Gladstone not unhappily described 
 as a ' gentleman clergyman ' of the Church of Scotland, tells us 
 of a certain Provost Cochrane, to whom Adam Smith always 
 acknowledged his obligations, and who was the founder and 
 leading member of a club ' in which the express design was to 
 inquire into the nature and principles of trade in all its branches, 
 and to communicate their knowledge on that subject to each 
 other.' From this club Adam Smith not only learned much 
 which he would never have found in any book, but also in part 
 perhaps acquired the influential and so to say practical way of 
 explaining things which so much distinguishes the ' Wealth of 
 Nations.' Mr. Mill says he learned from his intercourse with 
 East India directors the habit of looking for, and the art of 
 discovering, 'the mode of putting a thought which gives it 
 easiest admittance into minds not prepared for it by habit ! ' 
 and Adam Smith probably gained something of this sort by 
 living with the Glasgow merchants, for no other book written 
 by a learned professor shows anything like the same power of 
 expressing and illustrating arguments in a way likely to 
 influence minds like theirs. And it is mainly by his systematic 
 cultivation of this borderland between theory and practice that 
 \darn Smith attained his pre-eminent place and influence. 
 
 But this usefulness of his Scotch professorship was only in 
 the distant future. It was something for posterity to detect, 
 but it could not have been known at the time. The only pages 
 of his professorial work which Adam Smith then gave to the 
 public were his lectures on Moral Philosophy, in what an 
 Englishman would consider its more legitimate sense. These 
 formed the once celebrated * Theory of Moral Sentiments,' which, 
 though we should now think them rather pompous, were then 
 much praised and much read. For a great part, indeed, of 
 Adam Smith's life they constituted his main title to reputation. 
 The * Wealth of Nations ' was not published till seventeen years 
 later; he wrote nothing else of any importance in the interval
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 259 
 
 and it is now curious to find that when the ' Wealth of Nations ' 
 was published, many good judges thought it not so good as the 
 ' Theory of Moral Sentiments,' and that the author himself was 
 by no means certain they were not right. 
 
 The ' Theory of Moral Sentiments ' was, indeed, for many 
 years, exceedingly praised. One sect of philosophers praised 
 it, as it seems to me, because they were glad of a celebrated 
 ally, and another because they were glad of a celebrated oppo- 
 nent : the first said, ' see that so great an authority as Adam 
 Smith concurs with us;' and the second replied, ' but see how 
 very weak his arguments are ; if so able an arguer as Adam 
 Smith can say so little for your doctrines, how destitute of 
 argumentative grounds those doctrines must be.' Several 
 works in the history of philosophy have had a similar fate. 
 But a mere student of philosophy who cares for no sect, and 
 wants only to know the truth, will nowadays, I think, find 
 little to interest him in this celebrated book. In Adam Smith's- 
 mind, as I have said before, it was part of a whole ; he wanted 
 to begin with the origin of the faculties of each man, and then 
 build up that man just as he wished to arrive at the origin of 
 human society, and then build up society. His * Theory of 
 Moral Sentiments ' builds them all out of one source, sympathy, 
 and in this way he has obtained praise from friends and 
 enemies. His friends are the school of ' moral sense ' thinkers, 
 because he is on their side, and believes in a special moral 
 faculty, which he laboriously constructs from sympathy ; his 
 enemies are the Utilitarian school, who believe in no such 
 special faculty, and who set themselves to show that his labour 
 has been in vain, and that no such faculty has been so built up. 
 One party says the book is good to gain authority for the con- 
 clusion, and the other that you may gain credit by refuting its 
 arguments. For unquestionably its arguments are very weak, 
 and attractive to refutation. If the intuitive school had had no 
 better grounds than these, the Utilitarians would have van- 
 quished them ages since. There is a fundamental difficulty in 
 
 s 2
 
 260 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 founding morals on sympathy; an obvious confusion of two 
 familiar sentiments. We often sympathise where we cannot 
 approve, and approve where we cannot sympathise. The special 
 vice of party spirit is that it effaces the distinction between the 
 two ; we sympathise with our party, till we approve its actions. 
 There is a story of a Radical wit in the last century who was 
 standing for Parliament, and his opponent, of course a Tory, 
 objected that he was always against the king whether right or 
 wrong, upon which the wit retorted that on his own showing the 
 Tory was exposed to equal objection, since he was always for the 
 king whether right or wrong. And so it will always be. Even 
 the wisest party men more or less sympathise with the errors of 
 their own side ; they would be powerless if they did not do so ; 
 they would gain no influence if they were not of like passions 
 with those near them. Adam Smith could not help being 
 aware of this obvious objection; he was far too able a reasoner 
 to elaborate a theory without foreseeing what would be said 
 against it. But the way in which he tries to meet the objec- 
 tion only shows that the objection is invincible. He sets up 
 a supplementary theory a little epicycle that the sympathy 
 which is to test good morals must be the sympathy of an 
 * impartial spectator.' But, then, who is to watch the watch- 
 man ? Who is to say when the spectator is impartial, and when 
 he is not? If he sympathises with one side, the other will 
 always say that he is partial. As a moralist, the supposed 
 spectator must warmly approve good actions and warmly dis- 
 approve bad actions ; as an impartial person he must never do 
 either the one or the other. He is a fiction of inconsistent 
 halves; if he sympathises he is not impartial, and if he is 
 impartial he does not sympathise. The radical vice of the 
 theory is shown by its requiring this accessory invention of a 
 being both hot and cold, because the essence of the theory is to 
 identify the passion which loves with the sentiment which 
 approves. 
 
 But although we may now believe the * Theory of Moral
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 261 
 
 Sentiments' to be of inconsiderable philosophical value, and 
 though it would at first sight seem very little likely to contribute 
 to the production of the ' Wealth of Nations,' yet it was, in fact, 
 in a curious way most useful to it. The education of young 
 noblemen has always been a difficulty in the world, and maay 
 schemes have been invented to meet it. In Scotland, a hun- 
 dred years ago, the most fashionable way was to send them to 
 travel in Europe, and to send with them some scholar of repute 
 to look after their morals and to superintend their general 
 education. The guardians of the great border nobleman, the 
 Duke of Buccleugh, were in want of such a tutor to take him 
 such a tour, and it seems to have struck them that Adam 
 Smith was the very person adapted for the purpose. To all 
 appearance an odder selection could hardly have been made. 
 Adam Smith was, as we have seen, the most absent of men, ana 
 an awkward Scotch professor, and he was utterly unacquainted 
 with the Continent. He had never crossed the English Channel 
 in his life, and if he had been left to himself would probably 
 never have done so. But one of the guardians was Charles 
 Townshend, who had married the young duke's mother. He 
 was not much unlike Mr. Disraeli in character, and had great 
 influence at that time. He read the ' Theory of Moral Senti- 
 ments,' and Hume writes to Adam Smith : * Charles Townshend, 
 who passes for the cleverest fellow in England, is so taken with 
 the performance, that he said to Oswald he would put the duke 
 under the author's care and would make it worth his while to 
 accept of that charge. As soon as I heard this, I called on him 
 twice with a view of talking with him about the matter, and of 
 convincing him of the propriety of sending that young noble- 
 man to Glasgow ; for I could not hope that he could offer you 
 any terms which would tempt you to renounce your professor- 
 ship. But I missed him. Mr. Townshend passes for being a 
 little uncertain in his resolutions, so perhaps you need not 
 build much on this sally.' Mr. Townshend was, however, this 
 time in earnest, and the offer was made to Adam Smith. In
 
 262 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 our time there would have been an insuperable difficulty. He 
 was a professor of great repute, they were asking him to give 
 up a life-professorship that yielded a considerable income, and 
 they would have hardly been able to offer him anything equally 
 permanent. But in the eighteenth century there was a way of 
 facilitating such arrangements that we do not now possess. 
 The family of Buccleugh had great political influence, and 
 Charles Townshend, the duke's step-father, at times possessed 
 more ; and accordingly the guardians of the young duke 
 agreed that they should pay Adam Smith 2001. a year till 
 they should get him an equal office of profit under the Crown. 
 A person apparently more unfit for the public service could 
 not easily have been found ; but in that age of sinecures and 
 pensions it was probably never expected that he should perform 
 any service ; an arrangement more characteristic of the old 
 world, and more unlike our present world, could hardly have 
 been made. The friends of the young duke might, not unna- 
 turally, have had some fears about it ; but, in fact, for his 
 interests, it turned out very well. Long afterwards, when Adam 
 Smith was dead, the duke wrote; 'In October, 1766, we 
 returned to London, after having spent near three years toge- 
 ther without the slightest disagreement or coolness ; on my part 
 with every advantage that could be expected from the society of 
 such a man. We continued to live in friendship till the hour 
 of his death ; and I shall always remain with the impression of 
 having lost a friend whom I loved and respected, not only for his 
 great talents, but for every private virtue.' Very few of Charles 
 Townshend's caprices were as successful. Through life there 
 was about Adam Smith a sort of lumbering bonhomie which 
 amused and endeared him to those around him. 
 
 To Adam Smith the result was even better. If it had not 
 been for this odd consequence of the ' Theory of Moral Senti- 
 ments,' he might have passed all his life in Scotland, delivering 
 similar lectures and clothing very questionable theories in 
 rather pompous words. He said in after life that there was no
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 263 
 
 better way of compelling a man to master a science than by 
 setting him to teach it. And this may be true of the definite 
 sciences. But nothing can be conceived \vorse for a man of 
 inventive orininality, than to set him to roam over huge sub- 
 jects like law, morals, politics, and civilisation, particularly at a 
 time when few good data for sound theories on such subjects 
 are at hand for him to use. In such a position the cleverer 
 the man, the worse are likely to be the consequences : the wider 
 his curiosity and the more fertile his mind, the surer he is to 
 pour out a series of gigantic conjectures of little use to himself 
 or to anyone. A one-eyed man with a taste for one subject, 
 even at this disadvantage, may produce something good. The 
 limitation of his mind may save him from being destroyed by 
 his position; but a man of large interests will fail utterly. As 
 Adam Smith had peculiarly wide interests, and as he was the 
 very reverse of a one-eyed man, he was in special danger ; and 
 the mere removal from his professorship was to him a gain of 
 the first magnitude. It was of cardinal importance to him to 
 be delivered from the production of incessant words and to be 
 brought into contact with facts and the world. And as it turned 
 out, the caprice of Charles Townshend had a singular further 
 felicity. It not only brought him into contact with facts and 
 the world ; but with the most suitable sort of facts, and, for his 
 purpose, the best part of the world. 
 
 The greater part of his three years abroad was naturally 
 spont in France. France was then by far the greatest country 
 on the Continent. Germany was divided and had not yet risen ; 
 Spain had fallen ; Italy was of little account. In one respect, 
 indeed, France was relatively greater than even at the time of 
 her greatest elevation, the time of the first Napoleon. The 
 political power of the first empire was almost unbounded, but 
 it had no intellectual power ; under it Paris had ceased to be an 
 important focus of thought and literature. The vehement rule 
 which created the soldiers also stamped out the ideas. But 
 under the mild government of the old regime, Paris was the
 
 264 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 principal centre of European authorship. The deficiency of the 
 old regime, in eminent soldiers and statesmen only added to the 
 eminence of its literary men. Paris was then queen of two 
 worlds : of that of politics by a tradition from the past, and of 
 literature by a force and life vigorously evidenced in the presenf. 
 France therefore thus attracted the main attention of all 
 travellers who cared for the existing life of the time ; Adam 
 Smith and his pupil spent the greater part of their stay abroad 
 there. And as a preparation for writing the ' Wealth of Nations * 
 he could nowhere else have been placed so well. Macaulay says 
 that ' ancient abuses and new theories' flourished together in 
 France just before the meeting of the States-General in greater 
 vigour than they had been seen to be combined before or since. 
 And the description is quite as true economically as politi- 
 cally ; on all economical matters the France of that time was a 
 sort of museum stocked with the most important errors. 
 
 By nature then, as now, France was fitted to be a great 
 agricultural country, a great producer and exporter of corn and 
 wine ; but her legislators for several generations had endeavoured 
 to counteract the aim of nature, and had tried to make her a 
 manufacturing country and an exporter of her manufactures. 
 Like most persons in those times, they had been prodigious- ly 
 impressed by the high position which the maritime powers, as 
 they were then called (the comparatively little powers of England 
 and Holland), were able to take in the politics of Europe. They 
 saw that this influence came from wealth, that this wealth was 
 made in trade and manufacture, and therefore they determined 
 that France should not be behindhand, but should have as much 
 trade and manufacture as possible. Accordingly, they imposed 
 prohibitive or deterring duties on the importation of foreign 
 manufactures ; they gave bounties to the corresponding home 
 manufactures. They tried, in opposition to the home-keeping 
 bent of the French character, to found colonies abroad. These 
 colonies were, according to the maxim then everywhere received, 
 to be markets for the trade and nurseries for the commerce of
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 265 
 
 the mother country; they were mostly forbidden to manu- 
 facture for themselves, and were compelled to import all the 
 manufactures and luxuries they required from Europe exclu- 
 sively in French ships. Meanwhile, at home, agriculture was 
 neglected. There was not even a free passage for goods from 
 one part of the country to another. As Adam Smith himself 
 describes it : 
 
 ' In France, the different revenue laws which takes place in the 
 different provinces require a multitude of revenue-officers to sur- 
 round, not only the frontiers of the kingdom, but those of almost 
 each particular province, in order either to prevent the importation 
 of certain goods or to subject it to the payment of certain duties, 
 to the no small interruption of the interior commerce of the country. 
 Some provinces are allowed to compound for the gabelle or salt-tax. 
 Others are exempted from it altogether. Some provinces are ex- 
 empted from the exclusive sale of tobacco, which the farmers-general 
 enjoy through the greater part of the kingdom. The Aides, which 
 correspond to the excise in England, are very different in different 
 provinces. Some provinces are exempted from them, and pay a com- 
 position or equivalent. In those in which they take place and arc in 
 farm, there are many local duties which do not extend beyond a par- 
 ticular town or district. The Traites, which correspond to our 
 customs, divide the kingdom into three great parts : first, the provinces 
 subject to the tariff of 1C 64, which are called the provinces of the 
 five great farms, and under which are comprehended Picardy, 
 Normandy, and the greater part of the interior provinces of the king- 
 dom; secondly, the provinces subject to the tariff of 1667, which are 
 called the provinces reckoned foreign, and under which are compre- 
 hended the greater part of the frontier provinces ; and, thirdly, those 
 provinces which are said to be treated as foreign, or which because 
 they are allowed a free commerce with foreign countries are in their 
 commerce with the other provinces of France subjected to the same 
 duties as other foreign countries. These are Alsace, the three Bishop- 
 rics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and the three cities of Dunkirk, 
 Bayonne, and Marseilles. Both in the provinces of the five great 
 farms (called so on account of an ancient division of the duties of 
 customs into five great branches, each of which was originally the 
 subject of a particular farm, though they are now all united into one), 
 and in those which are said to be reckoned foreign, there are many
 
 266 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 local duties which do not extend beyond a particular town or district. 
 There are some such even in the provinces which are said to be treated 
 as foreign, particularly in the city of Marseilles. It is unnecessary 
 to observe how much both the restraints upon the interior commerce 
 of the country and the number of the revenue officers must be multi- 
 plied, in order to guard the frontiers of those different provinces and 
 districts which are subject to such different systems of taxation.' 
 
 And there were numerous attendant errors, such as gener- 
 ally accompany a great protective legislation, but which need 
 not be specified in. detail. 
 
 In consequence, the people were exceedingly miserable. 
 The system of taxation was often enough by itself to cause 
 great misery. ' In the provinces,' says Adam Smith, ' where 
 the personal taille on the farm is imposed, the farmer is 
 afraid to have a good team of horses or oxen, but endeavours 
 to cultivate with the meanest and most wretched instru- 
 ments of husbandry that he can.' The numerous imposts 
 on the land due from the peasantry to the nobles had the 
 same effect even then most of the country was practically 
 held in a kind of double ownership; the peasant cultivator had 
 usually, by habit if not by law, a fixed hold upon the soil, but 
 he was subject in the cultivation of it to innumerable exactions 
 of varying kinds, which the lord could change pretty much as 
 he chose. ' In France,' continues Adam Smith, so oddly con- 
 trary to everything which we should say now, ' the inferior 
 ranks of the people must suffer patiently the usage which their 
 surperiors choose to inflict on them.' The country in Europe 
 where there is now, perhaps, the most of social equality was 
 then the one in which there was, perhaps, the least. 
 
 And side by side with this museum of economical errors 
 there was a most vigorous political economy which exposed 
 them. The doctrines of Free Trade had been before several 
 times suggested by isolated thinkers, but by far the most 
 powerful combined school of philosophers who incessantly 
 inculcated them were the French Economistes. They delighted 
 in proving that the whole structure of the French laws
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 267 
 
 upon industry was utterly wrong; that prohibitions ought 
 not to be imposed on the import of foreign manufactures ; 
 that bounties ought not to be given to native ones ; that 
 the exportation of corn ought to be free ; that the whole 
 country ought to be a fiscal unit; that there should be no 
 duty between any province; and so on in other cases. No 
 one could state the abstract doctrines on which they rested 
 everything more clearly. ' Acheter, c'est vendre,' said 
 Quesnay, the founder of the school, ' vendre, c'est acheter.' 
 You cannot better express the doctrine of modern political 
 economy that ' trade is barter.' ' Do not attempt,' Quesnay 
 continues, ' to fix the price of your products, goods, or services ; 
 they will escape your rules. Competition alone can regulate 
 prices with equity ; it alone restricts them to a moderation 
 which varies little ; it alone attracts with certainty provisions 
 where they are wanted or labour where it is required.' ' That 
 which we call dearness is the only remedy of dearness : dear- 
 ness causes plenty.' Any quantity of sensible remarks to this 
 effect might be disinterred from these writers. They were not 
 always equally wise. 
 
 As the prime maxim of the ruling policy, was to encourage 
 commerce and neglect agriculture, this sect set up a doctrine 
 that agriculture was the only source of wealth, and that trade 
 and commerce contributed nothing to it. The labour of arti- 
 ficers and merchants was sterile ; that of agriculturists was 
 alone truly productive. The way in which they arrived at 
 this strange idea was, if I understand it, something like this : 
 they took the whole agricultural produce of a country, worth 
 say 5,000,000. as it stood in the hands of the farmer, and 
 applied it thus : 
 
 First, as we should say, in repayment of capital spent 
 
 in wages, &c 3,000,0002. 
 
 Secondly, in payment of profit by way of hire of capital, 
 
 say, or as subsistence to himself . . . 500,0002. 
 
 Total outlay . . 3,500,0002.
 
 268 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 But that outlay of 3,500,OOOL has produced a value of 
 5,000,000?. ; there is therefore an overplus over and above the 
 outlay of 1,500,0002.; and this overplus, or produit net as 
 the Economistes call it, goes to the landlord for rent, as we 
 should call it. But no other employment yields any similar 
 produit net. A cotton spinner only replaces his own capital, 
 and obtains his profit on it ; like the farmer (as they said), he 
 pays the outlay, and he gains a profit or subsistence for himself. 
 But he does no more. There is no extra overplus in farming ; 
 no balance, after paying wages and hiring capital ; nothing to 
 go to any landlord. In the same way commerce is, according 
 to this system, transfer only the expense of distribution is 
 paid ; the necessary number of capitalists and of labourers are 
 maintained, but that is all ; there is nothing beyond the wages 
 and beyond the profit. In agriculture only is there a third 
 element a produit net. 
 
 From this doctrine the Economistes drew two inferences 
 one very agreeable to agriculturists, the other very disagree- 
 able ; but both exactly opposite to the practice of their govern- 
 ment. First, they said, as agriculture was the exclusive source 
 of all wealth, it was absurd to depress it or neglect it, or to en- 
 courage commerce or manufacture in place of it. They had 
 no toleration for the system of finance and commercial legisla- 
 tion which they saw around them, of which the one object was 
 to make France a trading and manufacturing country, when 
 nature meant it to be an agricultural one. Secondly, they 
 inferred that most, if not all, the existing taxes in France were 
 wrong in principle. * If,' they argued, * agriculture is the only 
 source of wealth, and if, as we know, wealth only can pay taxes, 
 then all taxes should be imposed on agriculture.' They rea- 
 soned: 'In manufactures there is only a necessary hire of 
 labour, and a similar hire of capital, at a cost which cannot be 
 diminished ; there is in them no available surplus for taxation. 
 If you attempt to impose taxes on them, and if in name you 
 make them pay such taxes, they will charge higher for their
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 269 
 
 necessary work. They will in a roundabout way throw the 
 burden of those taxes on agriculture. The produ.it net of the 
 latter is the one real purse of the state ; no other pursuit can 
 truly pay anything, for it has no purse. And therdfore,' they 
 summed up, 'all taxes, save a single one on the produit net, 
 were absurd. They only attempted to make those pay who 
 could not pay ; to extract money from fancied funds, in which 
 there was no money.' All the then existing taxes in France, 
 therefore, they proposed to abolish, and to replace them by a 
 single tax on agriculture only. 
 
 As this system was so opposed to the practice of the govern- 
 ment, one would have expected that it should have been dis- 
 countenanced, if not persecuted, by the government. But, in 
 fact, it was rather favoured by it. Quesnay, the founder of the 
 system, had a place at Court, and was under the special pro- 
 tection of the king's mistress, who was then the king's govern- 
 ment. M. de Lavergne has quoted a graphic description of 
 him. * Quesnay, writes Marmontel, well lodged in a small 
 appartement in the entresol of Madame de Pompadour, only 
 occupied himself from morning till night with political and 
 agricultural economy. He believed that he had reduced the 
 system to calculation, and to axioms of irresistible evidence ; 
 and as he was collecting a school, he gave himself the trouble 
 to explain to me his new doctrine, in order to make me one of 
 his proselytes. I applied all my force of comprehension to 
 understand those truths which he told me were self-evident ; 
 but I found in them only vagueness and obscurity. To make 
 him believe that I understood that which I really did not un- 
 derstand was beyond my power; but I listened with patient 
 docility, and left him the hope that in the end he would en- 
 lighten me and make me believe his doctrine. I did more ; I 
 applauded his work, which I really thought very useful, for he 
 tried to recommend agriculture in a country where it was too 
 much disdained, and to turn many excellent understandings 
 towards the study of it. While political storms were formincr
 
 270 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 and dissolving above the entresol of Quesnay, he perfected his 
 calculations and his axioms of rural economy, as tranquil and as 
 indifferent to the movements of the Court, as if he had been a, 
 hundred leagues off. Below, in the salon of Madame de Pom- 
 padour, they deliberated on peace or war on the choice of 
 generals on the recall of ministers ; while we in the entresol 
 were reasoning on agriculture, calculating the produit net, or 
 sometimes were dining gaily with Diderot, d'Alembert, Duclos, 
 Helvetius, Turgot, Buffon; and Madame de Pompadour, not 
 being able to induce this troop of philosophers to come down 
 to her salon, came herself to see them at table and to chat 
 with them.' An opposition philosophy has rarely been so 
 petted and well treated. Much as the reign of Louis XVI. 
 differed in most" respects from that of Louis XV., it was like it 
 in this patronage of the Economistes, Turgot was made 
 Minister of Finance, to reform France by applying their 
 doctrines. 
 
 The reason of this favour to the Economistes from the 
 government was, that on. the question in which the govern- 
 ment took far the most interest the Economistes were on its 
 side. The daily want of the French government was more 
 power ! though nominally a despotism, it was feeble in reality. 
 But the Econonistes were above all things anxious for a very 
 strong government ; they held to the maxim, everything for 
 the people nothing by them ; they had a horror of checks and 
 counterpoises and resistances ; they wished to do everything by 
 ike fiat of the sovereign. They had, in fact, the natural wish 
 of eager speculators, to have an irresistible despotism behind 
 them and supporting them ; and with the simplicity which 
 marks so much of the political speculation of the eighteenth 
 century, but which now seems so childlike, they never seemed 
 to think how they were to get their despot, or how they were to 
 ensure that he should be on their side. The painful experience 
 of a hundred years has taught us that influential despotisms are 
 not easy to make, and that good ones are still less so. But in
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 271 
 
 their own time nothing could be more advantageous to the 
 Economistes than to have an eager zeal for a perfect despotism ; 
 in consequence they were patronised by the greatest existing 
 authority, instead of being discountenanced by it. 
 
 This account of the Economistes may seem to a reader 
 who looks at Adam Smith exclusively by the light of modern 
 political economy to be too long for their relation to him. But 
 he would not have thought so himself. He so well knew how 
 much his mind had been affected by them and by their teach- 
 ing, that he at one time thought of dedicating the ' Wealth of 
 Nations ' to Quesnay, their founder ; and though he relinquished 
 that intention, he always speaks of him with the gravest respect. 
 If, indeed, we consider what Glasgow is now, still more what 
 it must have been a hundred years ago, we shall comprehend 
 the degree to which this French experience this sight of a 
 country so managed, and with such a political economy must 
 have excited the mind of Adam Smith. It was the passage 
 from a world where there was no spectacle to one in which there 
 was the best which the world has ever seen, and simultaneously 
 the passage from the most Scotch of ideas to others the most 
 un-Scotch. A feeble head would have been upset in the transit, 
 but Adam Smith kept his. 
 
 From France he went home to Scotland, and stayed quietly 
 with his mother at his native town of Kirkcaldy for a whole 
 ten years. He lived on the annuity from the Duke of Buc- 
 cleugh, and occupied himself in study only. What he \vas 
 studying, if we considered the ' Wealth of Nations ' as a book of 
 political economy only, we might be somewhat puzzled to say. 
 But the contents of that book are, as has been said, most mis- 
 cellaneous, and in its author's mind it was but a fragment of an 
 immensely larger whole. Much more than ten years' study 
 would have been necessary for the entire book which he 
 contemplated. 
 
 At last, in 1776, the ' Wealth of Nations ' was published, and 
 HS, on the whole, well received. Dr. Carlyle, indeed, preserves
 
 272 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 an impression that, in point of style, it was inferior to the 
 * Theory of Moral Sentiments.' But all competent readers were 
 agreed as to the great value of the substance. And almost 
 everybody will probably now think, in spite of Dr. Carlyle, that 
 the style is very much better than that of the * Moral Senti- 
 ments.' There is about the latter a certain showiness and an 
 ' air of the professor trying to be fascinating,' which are not 
 very agreeable; and, after all, there is a ponderous weight in 
 the words which seems to bear down the rather flimsy matter. 
 But the style of the * Wealth of Nations ' is entirely plain and 
 manly. The author had, in the interval, seen at least a little 
 of the living world and of society, and had learnt that the 
 greatest mistake is the trying to be more agreeable than you 
 can be, and that the surest way to spoil an important book is 
 to try to attract the attention of, to ' write down ' to, a class of 
 readers too low to take a serious interest in the subject. A 
 really great style, indeed, Adam Smith's certainly is not. Lord 
 Mansfield is said to have told Bos well that he did not feel, in 
 reading either Hume or Adam Smith, that he was reading 
 English at all ; and it was very natural that it should be so. 
 English was not the mother tongue of either. Adam Smith 
 had, no doubt, spoken somewhat broad Scotch for the first 
 fourteen or fifteen years of his life ; probably he never spoke 
 anything that could quite be called English till he went to 
 Oxford. And nothing so much hampers the free use of the 
 pen in any language as the incessant remembrance of a kindred 
 but different one ; you are never sure the idioms nature 
 prompts are those of the tongue you would speak, or of the 
 tongue you would reject. Hume and Adam Smith exemplify 
 the difficulty in opposite ways. Hume is always idiomatic, but 
 his idioms are constantly wrong ; many of his best passages are, 
 on that account, curiously grating and puzzling; you feel that 
 they are very like what an Englishman would say, but yet 
 that, after all, somehow or other, they are what he never 
 would say ; there is a minute seasoning of imperceptible
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 273 
 
 difference which distracts your attention, and which you are 
 "for ever stopping to analyse. Adam Smith's habit was very 
 different. His style is not colloquial in the least. He adheres 
 to the heavy 'book' English which he had found in the works 
 of others, and was sure that he could repeat in his own. And 
 in that sort of style he has eminent merit. No one ever has to 
 read him twice to gather his meaning ; no one can bring much 
 valid objection to his way of expressing that meaning ; there is 
 even a sort of appropriateness, though often a clumsy sort, in 
 his way of saying it. But the style has no intrinsic happiness ; 
 no one would read it for its own sake ; the words do not cleave 
 to the meaning, so that you cannot think of them without it, 
 or of it without them. This is only given to those who write in 
 the speech of their childhood, and only to the very few of those 
 the five or six in every generation who have from nature the 
 best grace, who think by inborn feeling in words at once charm- 
 ing and accurate. 
 
 Of the ' Wealth of Nations ' as an economical treatise, I have 
 nothing to say now; but it is not useless to say that it is a 
 very amusing book about old times. As it is dropping out of 
 immediate use from change of times, it is well to observe that 
 this very change brings it a new sort of interest of its own. 
 There are few books from which there may be gathered more 
 curious particulars of the old world. I cull at random almost 
 that ' a broad wheel waggon, attended by two men, and drawn 
 by eight horses,' then * in about six weeks' time carried and 
 brought trade between London and Edinburgh ; ' that in 
 Adam Smith's opinion, if there were such an effectual demand 
 for grain as would require a million tons of shipping to import 
 it, the ' navy of England,' the mercantile navy of course, would 
 nor be sufficient for it ; that ' Holland was the great emporium 
 of European goods ; ' that she was, in proportion to the land 
 and the number of inhabitants, by far the richest country in 
 Europe ; that she had the greatest share of the ocean-carrying 
 trade ; that her citizens possessed 40,000,OOOZ. in the French 
 
 T
 
 274 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 and English funds; that in Sheffield no master cutler oan 
 have more than one apprentice, by a by-law of the corporation, 
 and in Norfolk and Norwich no weaver more than two ; that, if 
 Adam Smith's eyes served him right, ' the common people in 
 Scotland, who are fed with oatmeal, are in general neither so 
 strong nor so handsome as the same class of people in England, 
 who are fed with wheaten bread, and that they do not look or 
 work as well ; that and this is odder still * the porters and 
 coal-heavers in London, and those unfortunate women who 
 live by prostitution the strongest men and the most beautiful 
 women, perhaps, in the British dominions are from the lowest 
 rank of people in Ireland, and fed with the potato ' ; that 1,000. 
 share in India stock ' gave a share not in the plunder, but in 
 the appointment of the plunderers of India'; that 'the expense 
 of the establishment of Massachusetts Bay, before the com- 
 mencement of the late disturbances,' that is, the American 
 war, 'used to be about 18,000. a year, and that of New York, 
 4,500^. ; ' that all the civil establishments in America did not 
 at the same date cost 67,000. a year; that 'in consequence 
 of the monopoly of the American colonial market,' the commerce 
 of England, ' instead of running in a great number of small 
 channels, has been taught to run principally in one great 
 channel ; ' that ' the territorial acquisitions of the East India 
 Company, the undoubted right of the Crown,' ' might be 
 rendered another source of revenue more abundant, perhaps, 
 than all ' others from which much addition could be expected ; 
 that Great Britain is, perhaps, since ' the world began, the 
 only state which has extended its empire ' ' without augment- 
 ing the area of its resources;' that, and this is the final 
 sentence of the book, ' If any of the provinces of the British 
 empire cannot be made to contribute towards the support of the 
 whole empire, it is surely time that Great Britain should free 
 herself from the expense of defending those provinces in time 
 of war, and of supporting any part of their civil or military 
 establishments in time of peace, and endeavour to accommodate
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 275 
 
 her future views and designs to the real mediocrity of her 
 circumstances.' A strange passage, considering all that has 
 happened since, and all the provinces which we have since 
 taken. No one can justly estimate the ' Wealth of Nations ' 
 who thinks of it as a book of mere political economy, such as 
 Quesnay had then written, or as Kicardo afterwards wrote. It 
 is really full both of the most various kinds of facts and of 
 thoughts often as curious on the most various kinds of subjects. 
 The effect of the publication of the ' Wealth of Nations ' on 
 the fortunes of its author was very remarkable. It gave the 
 Duke of Buccleugh the power of relieving himself of his annuity, 
 by performing the equivalent clause in the bargain ; he obtained 
 for Adam Smith a commissionership of customs for Scotland 
 an appointment of which we do not know the precise income, 
 but which was clearly, according to the notions of those times, 
 a very good one indeed. A person less fitted to fill it could not 
 indeed easily have been found. Adam Smith had, as we have 
 seen, never been used to pecuniary business of any kind ; he 
 had never even taken part in any sort of action out of such 
 business ; he was an absent and meditative student. It was 
 indeed during his tenure of this office that, as I have said, he 
 startled a subordinate, who asked for his signature, by imitating 
 the signature of the last commissioner, instead of giving his 
 own of course in pure absence of mind. He was no doubt 
 better acquainted with the theory of taxation than any other 
 man of his time ; he could have given a minister in the capital 
 better advice than anyone else as to what taxes he should, or 
 should not, impose. But a commissioner of customs, in a pro- 
 vincial city, has nothing to do with the imposition of taxes, or 
 with giving advice about them. His business simply is to see 
 that those which already exist are regularly collected and 
 methodically transmitted, which involves an infinity of transac- 
 tions requiring a trained man of detail. But a man of detail 
 Adam Smith certainly was not at least of detail in business. 
 Nature had probably not well fitted him for it, and his mode of 
 
 T 2
 
 276 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 life had completed the result, and utterly unfitted him. The 
 appointment that was given him was one in which the great 
 abilities which he possessed were useless, and in whish much 
 smaller ones, which he had not, would have been of extreme 
 value. 
 
 But in another respect this appointment has been more 
 blamed than I think is just. However small may be the value 
 of Adam Smith's work at the Custom House, the effect of 
 performing it and the time which it occupied prevented him 
 from writing anything more. And it has been thought that 
 posterity has in consequence suffered much. But I own that I 
 doubt this exceedingly. Adam Smith had no doubt made a 
 vast accumulation of miscellaneous materials for his great 
 design. But these materials were probably of very second-rate 
 value. Neither for the history of law, nor of science, nor of art, 
 had the preliminary work been finished, which is necessary 
 before such a mind as Adarn Smith's can usefully be applied to 
 them. Before the theorising philosopher must come the accurate 
 historian. To write the history either of law or science or art 
 is enough for the life of any single man : neither have as yet 
 been written with the least approach to completeness. The 
 best of the fragments on these subjects, which we now have, 
 did not exist in Adam Smith's time. There was, therefore, but 
 little use in his thinking or writing at large about them. If he 
 had set down for us some account of his residence in France, 
 and the society which he saw there, posterity would have been 
 most grateful to him. But this he had no idea of doing ; and 
 nobody would now much care for a series of elaborate theories, 
 founded upon facts insufficiently collected. 
 
 Adam Smith lived for fourteen years after the publication 
 of the * Wealth of Nations,' but he wrote nothing, and scarcely 
 studied anything. The duties of his office, though of an easy 
 and routine character, which would probably have enabled a 
 man bred to business to spend much of his time and almost all 
 his mind on other things, were, we are told, enough * to waste
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 277 
 
 his spirits and dissipate his attention.' And not unnaturally, 
 for those who have ever been used to give all their days to 
 literary work, rarely seem able to do that work when they are 
 even in a slight degree struck and knocked against the world ; 
 only those who have scarcely ever known what it is to have 
 unbroken calm are able to accomplish much without that calm. 
 During these years Adam Smith's life passed easily and 
 pleasantly in the Edinburgh society of that time a very suit- 
 able one, for it was one to which professors and lawyers gave 
 the tone, and of which intellectual exertion was the life and 
 being. Adam Smith was, it is true, no easy talker was full 
 neither of ready replies nor of prepared replies. He rather 
 liked to listen, but if he talked and traps it is said were laid 
 to make him do so he could expound admirably on the subjects 
 which he knew, and also (which is quite as characteristic of the 
 man as we see him in his works) could run up rapid theories 
 on such data as occurred to him, when, as Dugald Stewart tells 
 us in his dignified dialect, ' he gave a loose to his genius upon 
 the very few branches of knowledge of which he only possessed 
 the outlines.' 
 
 He died calmly and quietly, leaving directions about his 
 manuscripts and such other literary things, and saying, in a 
 melancholy way, ' I meant to have done more.' The sort of 
 fame which the ' Wealth of Nations ' has obtained, and its special 
 influence, did not begin in his lifetime, and he had no notion of 
 it. Nor would he perhaps have quite appreciated it, if he had. 
 His mind was full of his great scheme of the origin and history 
 of all cultivation. As happens to so many men, though scarcely 
 ever on so great a scale, aiming at one sort of reputation, he 
 attained another. To use Lord Bacon's perpetual illustration, 
 like Saul, he ' went in search of his father's asses, and he found 
 a kingdom.' 
 
 Adam Smith has been said to belong to the Macaulay type 
 of Scotchmen, and the saying has been thought a paradox, 
 particularly by those who, having misread Macaulay, think him.
 
 278 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 a showy rhetorician, and not having at all read Adam Smith, 
 think of him as a dry and dull political economist. But the 
 saying is true, nevertheless. Macaulay is anything but a mere 
 rhetorical writer there is a very hard kernel of business in him ; 
 and Adam Smith is not dry at all the objection to him is that 
 he is not enough so, and that the real truth in several parts of 
 his subject cannot be made so interesting as his mode of treat- 
 ment implies. And there is this fundamental likeness between 
 Macaulay and Adam Smith, that they can both describe practical 
 matters in such a way as to fasten them on the imagination, 
 and not only get what they say read, but get it remembered 
 and make it part of the substance of the reader's mind ever 
 afterwards. Abstract theorists may say that such a style as 
 that of Adam Smith is not suitable to an abstract science ; but 
 then Adam Smith has carried political economy far beyond the 
 bounds of those who care for abstract science, or who under- 
 stand exactly what it means. He has popularised it in the 
 only sense in which it can be popularised without being spoiled ; 
 that is, he has put certain broad conclusions into the minds of 
 hard-headed men, which are all which they need know, and all 
 which they for the most part will ever care for, and he bus put 
 those conclusions there ineradicably. This, too, is what 
 Macaulay does for us in history, at least what he does best ; he 
 engraves indelibly the main outlines and the rough common 
 sense of the matter. Other more refining, and perhaps in some 
 respects more delicate, minds may add the nicer details, and 
 explain those wavering, flickering, inconstant facts of human 
 nature which are either above common sense or below it. 
 Both these great Scotchmen excelled in the ' osteology of their 
 subject,' a term invented by Dr. Chalmers, a third great Scotch- 
 man who excelled in it himself; perhaps, indeed, it is an idio- 
 syncrasy of their race. 
 
 Like many other great Scotchmen Macaulay is one of 
 them Adam Smith was so much repelled by the dominant 
 Calvinism in which he was born, that he never voluntarily wrote
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 279 
 
 of religious subjects, nor, as far as we know spoke of them. 
 Nothing, indeed, can repel a man more from such things than 
 what Macaulay called the ' bray of Exeter Hall.' What can be 
 worse for people than to hear in their youth arguments, alike 
 clamorous and endless, founded on ignorant interpretations of 
 inconclusive words ? As soon as they come to years of discre- 
 tion, all instructed persons cease to take part in such discussions, 
 and often say nothing at all on the great problems of human 
 life and destiny. Sometimes the effect goes farther ; those 
 subjected to this training become not only silent but careless. 
 There is nothing like Calvinism for generating indifference. 
 The saying goes that Scotchmen are those who believe most or 
 least ; and it is most natural that it should be so, for they have 
 been so hurt and pestered with religious stimulants, that it is 
 natural they should find total abstinence from them both plea- 
 sant and healthy. How far this indifference went in Adam 
 Smith's case we do not exactly know ; but there is reason to 
 think it extended to all religion. On the contrary, there are 
 many traces of the complacent optimism of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury a doctrine the more agreeable to him perhaps, because 
 it is the exact opposite of Calvinism and one which was very 
 popular in an easy-going age, though the storms and calamities of 
 a later time dispelled it, and have made it seem to us thin and 
 unreal. The only occasion when Adam Smith ever came near 
 to theological discussion was in a letter on Hume's death, in 
 which he said that Hume, one of his oldest friends, was the 
 best man he had ever known praise which perhaps was scarcely 
 meant to be taken too literally, but which naturally caused a 
 great storm. The obvious thing to say about it is, that it does 
 not indicate any very lofty moral standard, for there certainly 
 was no sublime excellence in Hume, who, as Carlyle long ago 
 said, ' all his life through did not so much morally live, as criti- 
 cally investigate.' But though the bigots of his time misunder- 
 stood him, Adam Smith did not by so saying mean to identify 
 himself with irreligion or even with scepticism.
 
 280 Adam Smith as a Person. 
 
 Adam Smith's life, however, was not like Macaulay's ' a 
 life without a lady.' There are vestiges of an early love affair, 
 though but vague ones. Dugald Stewart, an estimable man in 
 his way, but one of the most detestable of biographers, for he 
 seems always thinking much more of his own words than of the 
 facts he has to relate, says : ' In the early part of Mr. Smith's 
 life, it is well known to his friends that he was for several years 
 attached to a young lady of great beauty and accomplishment.' 
 But he does not tell us who she was, and ( has not been able to 
 learn ' 'how far his addresses were favourably received,' or, in 
 fact, anything about the matter. It seems, however, that the 
 lady died unmarried, and in that case the unsentimental French 
 novelists say that the gentleman is not often continuously in 
 earnest, for that ' a lady cannot be always saying No ! ' But 
 whether such was the case with Adam Smith or not, we cannot 
 tell. He was a lonely bookish man, but that may tell both 
 way?. The books may be opposed to the lady, but the solitude 
 will preserve her remembrance. 
 
 If Adam Smith did abandon sentiment and devote himself 
 to study, he has at least the excuse of having succeeded. 
 Scarcely any writer's work has had so much visible fruit. He 
 has, at least, annexed his name to a great practical movement 
 which is still in progress through the world. Free trade has 
 become in the popular mind almost as much his subject as the 
 war of Troy was Homer's : only curious inquirers think of 
 teachers before the one any more than of poets before the other. 
 If all the speeches made at our Anti-Corn Law League were 
 examined, I doubt if any reference could be found to any pre- 
 ceding writer, though the name of Adam Smith was always on 
 men's lips. And in other countries it is the same. Smith-ism 
 is a name of reproach with all who reject such doctrines, and of 
 respect with those who believe them ; no other name is used 
 equally or comparably by either. So long as the doctrines of 
 protection exist and they seem likely to do so, as human 
 interests are what they are and human nature is what it is
 
 Adam Smith as a Person. 281 
 
 Adam Smith will always be quoted as the great authority of 
 Anti-Protectionism as the man who first told the world the 
 truth so that the world could learn and believe it. 
 
 And besides this great practical movement, Adam Smith 
 started a great theoretical one also. On one side his teaching 
 created Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, on another it rendered 
 possible Eicardo and Mr. Mill. He is the founder of that 
 analysis of the ' great commerce ' which in England we now call 
 political economy, and which, dry, imperfect, and unfinished as 
 it is, will be thought by posterity one of the most valuable and 
 peculiar creations of English thought. As far as accuracy goes, 
 Ricardo no doubt began this science ; but his whole train of 
 thought was suggested by Adam Smith, and he could not have 
 written without him. So much theory and so much practice 
 have really, perhaps never, sprung from a single mind. 
 
 Fortunate in many things, Adam Smith was above all things 
 fortunate in his age. Commerce had become far larger, far 
 more striking, far more world-wide than it ever was before, and 
 it needed an effectual explainer. A vigorous Scotchman, with 
 the hard-headedness and the abstractions of his country, 
 trained in England and familiar with France, was the species 
 of man best fitted to explain it, and such a man was Adam 
 Smith.
 
 282 
 
 LORD ALTHORP AND THE REFORM ACT OF 1832. 1 
 
 [1877.] 
 
 * ALTHORP carried the Bill,' such is the tradition of our fathers : 
 1 the Bill,' of course, being the Bill to them the great Reform 
 Act of 1832, which was like a little revolution in that genera- 
 tion which really changed so much, and which seemed to 
 change so much more. To have been mainly concerned in 
 passing so great a measure seems to many of the survivors of 
 that generation, who remember the struggles of their youth 
 and recall the enthusiasm of that time, almost the acme of 
 fame. And in sober history such men will always be respect- 
 fully and gravely mentioned, but all romance has died away. 
 The Bill is to us hardly more than other Bills ; it is one of a 
 great many Acts of Parliament which in this day, partly for 
 good and partly for evil, have altered the ever-varying constitu- 
 tion of England. The special charm, the charm which to the 
 last you may see that Macaulay always felt about it, is all 
 gone. The very history of it is forgotten. Which of the younger 
 generation can say what was General Gascoigne's amendment, 
 or who were the * waverers,' or even how many Reform ' Bills ' 
 in those years there were ? The events for which one genera- 
 tion cares most, are often those of which the next knows least. 
 They are too old to be matters of personal recollect ion, and they 
 are too new to be subjects of study : they have passed out of 
 memory, and they have not got into the books. Of the well- 
 informed young people about us, there are very many who 
 scarcely know who Lord Althorp was. 
 
 1 Memoir of John Charles, Viscount Alfhorp, third Earl Spencer. Y>\ the 
 late Sir Denis Le Marchant, Bart. London : Richard Bcntley & Son. 1876.
 
 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 283 
 
 And in another respect this biography has been unfortunate. 
 It has been kept back too long. The Reform Act of 1867 has 
 shed a painful light on the Reform Act of 183 2, and has exhibited 
 in real life what philosophers said were its characteristic defects. 
 While these lingered in the books they were matters of dull 
 teaching, and no one cared for them ; but now Mr. Disraeli has 
 embodied them, and they are living among us. The traditional 
 sing-song of mere eulogy is broken by a sharp question. 
 Those who study that time say, ' Althorp, you tell us, passed 
 the Bill. It was his frankness and his high character and the 
 rest of his great qualities which did it. But was it good that 
 he should have passed it ? Would it not have been better if 
 he had not possessed those ;fine qualities ? Was not some 
 higher solution possible ? Knowing this Bill by its fruits, 
 largely good, bub also largely evil, might we not have had a 
 better Bill ? At any rate, if it could not be so, show why it 
 could not be so. Prove that the grave defects in the Act of 
 1832 were necessary defects. Explain how it was that Althorp 
 had no choice, and then we will admire him as you wish us.' 
 But to this biographer a man of that time, then in the House 
 of Commons on the Whig side, and almost, as it were, on the 
 skirts of the Bill such questions would have seemed impos- 
 sible. To him, the Act of 1832 is still wonderful and perfect 
 the great measure which ^ve carried in my youth ; and as for 
 explaining defects in it, he would have as soon thought of ex- 
 plaining defects in a revelation. 
 
 But if ever Lord Althorp's life is well written, it will, I think, 
 go far to explain not only why the Reform Bill was carried, but 
 why that Bill is what it was. He embodies all the characteristic 
 virtues which enable Englishmen to effect well and easily 
 great changes in politics : their essential fairness, their * large 
 roundabout common sense,' their courage, and their disposition 
 rather to give up something than to take the uttermost farthing. 
 But on the other hand also he has all the characteristic English 
 defects : their want of intellectual and guiding principle, their
 
 284 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 even complete! want of the culture which would give that 
 principle, their absorption in the present difficulty, and their 
 hand-to-mouth readiness to take what solves it without thinking 
 of other consequences. And I am afraid the moral of those 
 times is that these English qualities as a whole merits and 
 defects together are better suited to an early age of politics 
 than to a later. As long as materials are deficient, these qualities 
 are most successful in hitting off simple expedients, in adapt- 
 ing old things to new uses, and in extending ancient customs ; 
 they are fit for instantaneous little creations, and admirable at 
 bit-by-bit growth. But when, by the incessant application of 
 centuries, these qualities have created an accumulated mass of 
 complex institutions, they are apt to fail, unless aided by others 
 very diffierent. The instantaneous origination of obvious ex- 
 pedients is of no use when the field is already covered with the 
 heterogeneous growth of complex past expedients ; bit-by-bit 
 development is out of place unless you are sure which bit should, 
 and which bit should not, be developed ; the extension of cus- 
 toms may easily mislead when there are so many customs; no 
 immense and involved subject can be set right except by facul- 
 ties which can grasp what is immense and scrutinise what is 
 involved. But mere common sense is here matched with more 
 than it can comprehend, like a schoolboy in the differential cal- 
 culus ; and absorption in the present difficulty is an evil, not 
 a good, for what is wanted is that you should be able to see 
 many things at once, and take in their bearing, not fasten your- 
 self on one thing. Tlie characteristic danger of great nations, 
 like the Romans, or the English, which have a long history of 
 continuous creation, is that they may at last fail from not 
 comprehending the great institutions which they have created. 
 No doubt it would be a great exaggeration to say that this 
 calamity happened in its fulness in the year 1832, and it would 
 be most unfair to Lord Althorp to cite him as a complete 
 example of the characteristics which may cause it ; but there 
 was something in bim of those qualities, and some trace in 1832
 
 Lord Altkorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 285 
 
 of that calamity enough in those cases to be a warning. Only 
 a complete history of the time can prove this ; but perhaps in 
 a few pages I may a little explain and illustrate it. 
 
 Let us first get, both as more instructive and as less tedious 
 than analysis, a picture of a man as he stood in the principal 
 event of his life. A good drawer has thus painted him. Lord 
 Jeffrey, the great Edinburgh Reviewer, who was an able lawyer 
 and practical man of business in his day, though his criticism 
 on party has not stood the test of time, was Lord Advocate in 
 the Reform Ministry of 1830, and he is never tired of describ- 
 ing Lord Althorp. ' There is something,' he writes, ' to me 
 quite delightful in his calm, clumsy, courageous, immutable 
 probity, and it seems to have a charm for everybody.' ' I went 
 to Althorp,' he writes, ' again, and had a characteristic scene 
 with that most honest, frank, true, and stout-hearted of .(rod's 
 creatures. He had not come downstairs, and I was led up to 
 his dressing-room, with his arms (very rough and hairy) bare 
 above the elbows, and his beard half shaved and half staring 
 through the lather, with a desperate razor in one hand, and a 
 great soap-brush in the other. He gave me the loose finger of 
 his brush hand, and with the usual twinkle of his bright eye 
 and radiant smile, he said, " You need not be anxious about 
 your Scotch Bills to-night, for we are no longer his Majesty's 
 ministers." ' And soon after he writes again, at a later stage 
 of the ministerial crisis, 'When they came to summon Lord 
 Althorp to a council on the Duke's giving in, he was found in 
 a shed with a grocm, busy oiling the locks of his fowling-pieces, 
 and lamenting the decay into which they had fallen during his 
 ministry.' And on another occasion he adds what may serve as 
 an intellectual accompaniment to these descriptions : ' Althorp, 
 with his usual frankness, gave us a pretended confession of his 
 political faith, and a sort of creed of his political morality, and 
 showed that though it was a very shocking doctrine to promul- 
 gate, he must say that he had never sacrificed his own inclina- 
 tions to a sense of duty without repenting it, and always found
 
 286 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 himself more substantially unhappy for having employed him- 
 self for the public good.' And someone else at the time said, 
 ' The Government cannot be going out, for Althorp looks so 
 very dismal.' He was made (as we learn from this volume) a 
 principal minister, contrary to his expectation and in opposition 
 to his wish. He was always wanting to resign ; he was always 
 uncomfortable, if not wretched; and the instant he could do so, 
 he abandoned politics, and would never touch them again, 
 though he lived for many years. And this, though in appearance 
 he was most successful, and was almost idolized by his followers 
 and friends. 
 
 At first this seems an exception to one of Nature's most 
 usual rules. Almost always, if she gives a great faculty she 
 gives also an enjoyment in the use of it. But here Nature had 
 given a remarkable power of ruling and influencing men one 
 of the most remarkable (good observers seem to say) given to 
 any Englishman of that generation ; and yet the possessor did 
 not like, but, on the contrary, much disliked to use it. The 
 explanation, however, is, that not only had Nature bestowed on 
 Lord Althorp this happy and great gift of directing and guid- 
 ing men, but, as if by some subtle compensation, had added 
 what was, under the circumstances, a great pain to it. She had 
 given him a most sluggish intellect only moving with effort, 
 and almost with suffering generally moving clumsily, and 
 usually following, not suggesting. If you put a man with a mind 
 like this especially a sensitive, conscientious man such as Lord 
 Altborp was to guide men quickly through complex problems 
 of legislation and involved matters of science, 110 wonder that 
 he will be restive and wish to give up. No doubt the multitude 
 wish to follow him ; but where is he to tell the multitude to go ? 
 His mind suggests nothing, and there is a pain and puzzle in 
 his brain. 
 
 Fortune and education had combined in Lord Althorp's 
 case to develop his defects. His father and mother were both 
 persons of great cultivation, but they were also busy people of
 
 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 287 
 
 the world, and so they left their son to pick up his education as 
 he could. A Swiss footman, who did not know English very 
 well, taught him to read, and ' was his sole instructor and most 
 intimate associate till he went to Harrow.' His father, too, being 
 a great fox-hunter, the son clearly cared more for, and was more 
 occupied with hounds and animals, as a young boy, than with 
 anything else ; and he lived mainly with servants and people 
 also so occupied, from which, as might be expected, he contracted 
 a shyness and awkwardness which stayed with him through* life. 
 When he went to Harrow, the previous deficiencies of his edu- 
 cation were, of course, against him, and he seems to have shown 
 no particular disposition to repair them. As far as can now be 
 learnt, he was an ordinary strong-headed and strong-willed 
 English boy, equal to necessary lessons, but not caring for 
 them, and only distinguished from the rest by a certain sup- 
 pressed sensibility and tenderness, which he also retained in 
 after years, which softened a manliness that would otherwise 
 have been rugged, and which saved him from being unrefined. 
 At Cambridge his mother, as it appears, suddenly, and for 
 the first time, took an interest in his studies, and told him she 
 should expect him to be high at his first college examination. 
 And this seemed to have awakened him to industry. The 
 examination was in mathematics, which suited him much better 
 than the Harrow classics, and he really came out high in it. 
 The second year it was the same, though he had good com- 
 petitors. But there his studies ended. His being a nobleman 
 at that time excluded him from the university examinations, 
 and he was far too apathetic to work at mathematics, except for 
 something of the sort, and his tutor seems to have discouraged 
 his doing so. Then, as since, the bane of Cambridge has been 
 a certain incomplete and rather mean way of treating great 
 studies, which teaches implicitly, if not plainly, that it was as 
 absurd to learn the differential calculus in and for itself as it 
 would be to keep a ledger for its owu sake. On such a mind 
 as Lord Althorp's, which required as much as possible to be
 
 288 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 awakened and kept awake to the interest of high studies, no 
 external surroundings could have been more fatal. He threw 
 up his reading and took to hounds, betting, and Newmarket, 
 and to all which was then, even if not since, thought to be most 
 natural, if not most proper, in a young nobleman. 
 
 As far as classical studies are concerned he probably lost 
 nothing. He was through life very opaque to literary interests, 
 and in his letters and speeches always used language in the 
 clumsiest way. But he had perhaps from his childish field 
 sports a keen taste for animals and natural history, which now- 
 a-days would have been developed into a serious pursuit. And 
 as it was, he had an odd craving for figures, which might have 
 been made something of in mathematics. ' He kept,' we are 
 told, ' an account of every shot he fired in the course of a year, 
 whether he missed or killed, and made up the book periodically.' 
 He would not pass the accounts of the Agricultural Society 
 without hunting for a missing threepence ; and when Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, he used, it is said, ' to do all his calculations, 
 however complicated, alone in his closet,' which his biographer 
 thinks very admirable, and contrasts with the habit of Mr. Pitt, 
 * who used to take a Treasury clerk into his confidence,' but 
 which was really very absurd. It is not by such mechanical work 
 that great budgets are framed ; and a great minister ought to 
 know what not to do himself, and how to use, for everything 
 possible, the minds of others. Still there is much straight- 
 forward strength in this, if also some comic dulness. 
 
 If Lord Althorp's relatives did not give him a very good 
 education, they did not make up for it by teaching him light 
 accomplishments. They sent him the * grand tour,' as it was 
 then called ; but he was shy and awkward, seems to have had 
 no previous preparation for foreign society, would not go into 
 it, and returned boasting that he could not speak French. His 
 mother a woman of great fashion and high culture must have 
 sighed very much over so uncourtly and so ' English ' an eldest 
 son.
 
 Lord Althorp and the Rejorm Act of 1832. 289 
 
 Then, in the easy way of those times it was in 1804 lie 
 was brought into Parliament for Okehampton, a nomination 
 borough, some * Mr. Strange,' a barrister, retiring in his favour, 
 and his interest being strong, he was made a Lord of the 
 Treasury. But the same apathy to intellectual interests which 
 showed itself at college clung to him here also. He showed 
 energy, but it was not the energy of a man of business. He 
 passed, we are told, * the greatest part of his time in the country, 
 and when he attended at the Treasury, which was very rarely, 
 and only on particular occasions to make up a Board, he returned 
 home immediately afterwards. Indeed, he used to have horses 
 posted on the road from London to Althorp, and often rode 
 down at night, as soon as the House had risen, in order that he 
 might hunt with the Pytchley the next morning.' ' On these 
 occasions,' says another account, ' he had no sleep, and often the 
 hacks which he rode would fall down on the road.' And years 
 afterwards the old clerks at the office used to tell of the rarity 
 and brevity of his visits to the department, and of the difficulty 
 of getting him to stay ; all which shows force and character, 
 but still not the sort of character which would fit a man to be 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. But though he had much of the 
 want of culture, Lord Althorp had none of the unfeelingness 
 which also the modern world is getting somehow to attach to 
 the character of the systematic sportsman. On the contrary, 
 he was one of the many instances which prove that this charac- 
 ter may be combined with an extreme sensibility to the suffer- 
 ing of animals and man. He belonged to the class of men in 
 whom such feelings are far keener than usual, and his inner 
 character approached to the ' Arnold type,' ' for to hear of 
 cruelty or injustice pained him 'almost ' like a blow.' 
 
 He it seems, kept a hunting journal, which tells how his 
 hounds found a fox at Parson's Hill, and ' ran over old Xaseby 
 field to Althorp in fifty minutes, and then, after a slight check, 
 over the finest part of Leicestershire;' and all that sort of 
 thing. But probably it does not tell one the very natural conse- 
 
 U
 
 290 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 quence which happened to him from such a life. Being a some- 
 what uncouth person, addicted to dogs and horses a 'man's 
 man,' as Thackeray used to call it he did not probably go much 
 into ladies' society, and was not very aggressive when he was 
 there. But men who do not make advances to women are apt 
 to become victims to women who make advances to them ; and 
 so it was with Lord Althorp. He married a Miss Acklom, a 
 * Diana Vernon ' sort of person, ' rather stout, and without pre- 
 tension to regular beauty;' but nevertheless, it. is said, 'with 
 something prepossessing about her clever, well read, with a 
 quick insight into the character of others, and with much self- 
 dependence.' And this self-dependence and thought she showed 
 to her great advantage in the principal affair of her life. Lord 
 Althorp's biographer is sure, but does not say how, that the 
 first declaration of love was made by the lady ; he was, it seems, 
 too shy to think of such a thing. As a rule, marriages in which 
 a young nobleman is actively captured by an aggressive lady 
 are not domestically happy, though they may be socially useful, 
 but in this case the happiness seems to have been exceptionally 
 great ; and when she died, after a few years, he suffered a very 
 unusual grief. ' He went,' we are told, ' at once to Winton, the 
 place where he had lived with her, and passed several months in 
 complete retirement, finding his chief occupation in reading the 
 Bible,' in which he found, at first, many grave difficulties, such 
 as the mention of the constellation ' Orion ' by the prophet 
 Amos, and the high place (an equality with Job and David) 
 given by Ezekiel to the prophet Daniel when still a young man, 
 ' and before he had proved himself to be a man of so great a 
 calibre as he certainly did afterwards.' On these questions, he 
 adds, 'I have consulted a Mr. Shepherd, the clergyman here, 
 but his answers are not satisfactory.' ' Happily, however, such a 
 man is not at the mercy of clergymen's answers, nor dependent 
 on the petty details of ancient prophets. The same sensibility 
 which made him keenly alive to justice and injustice in things 
 of this world, went further, and told him of a moral government
 
 Lord Alt 'horp and the Reform Act 0/1832. 291 
 
 in things not of this world. No man of or near the Arnold species 
 was ever a sceptic as to, far less an unbeliever in, ultimate 
 religion. New philosophies are not wanted or appreciated by 
 such men, nor are book arguments of any real use, though these 
 men often plod over them as if they were ; for in truth an inner 
 teaching supersedes everything, and for good or evil closes the 
 controversy ; no discussion is of any effect or force ; the court 
 of appeal, fixed by nature in such minds, is peremptory in 
 belief, and will not hear of any doubt. And so it was in this 
 case. Through life Lord Althorp continue d to be a man strong, 
 though perhaps a little crude, in religious belief; and thus 
 gained at the back of his mind a solid seriousness which went 
 well with all the rest of it. And his grief for his wife was 
 almost equally durable. He gave up not only society, which 
 perhaps was no great trial, but also hunting not because he 
 believed it to be wrong, but because he did not think it seemly 
 or suitable that a man after such a loss should be so very happy 
 as he knew that hunting would make him. 
 
 Soon after his marriage he had begun to take an interest 
 in politics, especially on their moral side, and of course the 
 increased seriousness of his character greatly augmented it. 
 Without this change, though he might have thought himself 
 likely to be occasionally useful in outlying political questions, 
 probably he would have had no grave political career, and his 
 life never would have been written. But the sort of interest 
 which he took in politics requires some explanation, for though 
 his time was not very long ago, the change of feeling since then 
 is vast. 
 
 ' If any person,' said Sir Samuel Eomilly, the best of judges, 
 for he lived through the times and was mixed up, heart and 
 soul, in the matters he speaks of, ' if any person be desirous of 
 having an adequate idea of the mischievous effects which have 
 been produced in this country by the French Eevolution and 
 all its attendant horrors, he should attempt some reforms on 
 humane and liberal principles. He will then find not only 
 
 u 2
 
 292 Lord A Itkorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 what a stupid spirit of conservation, but what a savage spirit, it 
 has infused into the minds of his countrymen.' And very 
 naturally, for nothing is so cruel as fear. A whole generation 
 in England, and indeed in Europe, was so frightened by the 
 Reign of Terror, that they thought it could only be prevented 
 by another Reign of Terror. The Holy Alliances, as they were 
 then called, meant this and worked for this. Though we had 
 not in name such an alliance in England, we had a state of 
 opinion which did the work of one without one. Nine-tenths 
 of the English people were above all things determined to put 
 down ' French principles ; ' and unhappily ' French principles ' 
 included what we should all now consider obvious improvements 
 and rational reforms. They would not allow the most cruel penal 
 code which any nation ever had to be mitigated ; they did not 
 wish justice to be questioned; they would not let the mass of 
 the people be educated, or at least only so that it came to 
 nothing ; they would not alter anything which came down from 
 their ancestors, for in their terror they did not know but there 
 might be some charmed value even in the most insignificant 
 thing ; and after what they had seen happen in France, they 
 feared that if they changed a single iota all else would collapse. 
 Upon this generation, too, came the war passion. They 
 waged, and in the main though with many errors waged with 
 power and spirit, the war with Napoleon ; and they connected 
 this with their horror of liberal principles in a way which is 
 now very strange to us, but which was very powerful then. We 
 know now that Napoleon was the head of a conservative reaction, 
 a bitter and unfeeling reaction, just like that of the contempo- 
 rary English ; but the contemporary English did not know this. 
 To the masses of them he was Robespierre a cheval, as some 
 one called him a sort of Jacobin waging war, in some occult 
 way, for liberty and revolution, though he called himself 
 Emperor. Of course, the educated few gradually got more or 
 less to know that Napoleon hated Jacobins and revolution, and 
 liberty too, as much as it is possible to hate them ; but the
 
 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 293 
 
 ordinary multitude, up to the end of the struggle, never 
 dreamed of it. Thus, in an odd way, the war passion of the 
 time strengthened its conservative feeling; and in a much 
 more usual way it did so too, for it absorbed men's minds in the 
 story of battles and the glory of victories, and left no unoccupied 
 thought for gradual improvement and dull reform at home. A 
 war time, also, is naturally a harsh time; for the tale of con- 
 flicts which sometimes raises men from pain, also tends to make 
 men indifferent to it : the familiarity of the idea ennobles but 
 also hardens. 
 
 This savageness of spirit was the more important because, 
 from deep and powerful economical agencies, there was an 
 incessant distress running through society, sometimes less and 
 sometimes more, but always, as we should now reckon, very 
 great. The greatest cause of this was that we were carrying 
 on, or trying to carry on, a system of free trade under a re- 
 strictive tariff: we would not take foreign products, and yet 
 we wished to sell foreigners ours. And our home market was 
 incessantly disordered. First the war, and then the corn-laws 
 confined us chiefly to our own soil for our food ; but that soil 
 was of course liable to fail in particular years, and then the 
 price of food rose rapidly, which threw all other markets into 
 confusion for people must live first, and can only spend the 
 surplus, after paying the cost of living, upon anything else. 
 The fluctuations in the demand for our manufactures at home 
 were ruinously great, though we were doing all we could to 
 keep them out of foreign markets, and the combined effect was 
 terrible. And the next great cause was that we were daily extend- 
 ing an unprecedented system of credit without providing a basis 
 for it, and without knowing how to manage it. There was no 
 clear notion that credit, being a promise to pay cash, must be sup- 
 ported by proportionate reserves of cash held in store ; and that 
 as bullion is the international cash, all international credit must 
 be sustained by a store of bullion. In consequence, all changes 
 for the worse in trade, whether brought on by law or nature,
 
 294 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 caused a destruction of confidence, and diffused an uneasy moral 
 feeling which made them far worse than they would have been 
 otherwise. The immense fluctuations in our commerce, caused 
 by protection, were aggravated by immense fluctuations in our 
 credit, and the combined result was unspeakably disastrous. 
 
 During the French war these causes were not so much felt. 
 Trade was better, because we were creating a foreign market 
 for ourselves. Just as lately, by lending to a miscellaneous 
 mass of foreign countries, we enabled those countries to buy of 
 us, so in the great war, by large subsidies and huge foreign 
 expenditure, we created a ' purchasing power ' which was 
 ultimately settled by our manufactures. We had nothing else 
 to settle it with ; if we did not send them direct, we must use 
 them to buy the bullion, or whatever else it might be which we 
 did send indirectly. This ' war demand,' of which so much is 
 said in the economical literature of those years, of course ceased 
 at the peace ; and as we declined to take foreign products in 
 exchange for ours, no substitude for it could be found, and 
 trade languished in consequence. Agriculture, too, was worse 
 after the peace, for the natural protection given by the war was 
 far more effective than the artificial protection given by the 
 corn-laws. The war kept out corn almost equally whatever was 
 the price, but the corn-laws were based on the ' sliding scale,' 
 which let in the corn when it became dear. Our farmers, 
 therefore, were encouraged to grow more corn than was enough 
 for the country in good years, which they could not sell ; and 
 they did not get a full price in bad years, for the foreign corn 
 came in more and more as the price rose and rose. Though 
 the protection availed to hurt the manufacturer, it was not 
 effectual in helping the farmer. And the constant adversity of 
 other interests, by a reflex action, also hurt him. Committees 
 on agricultural distress, and motions as to the relief of trading 
 distress, alternate in the parliamentary debates of those years. 
 Our credit system, too, was in greater momentary danger after 
 the peace than before ; for during the war it was aided by a
 
 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 295 
 
 currency of inconvertible paper, which absolved us from the 
 necessity of paying our promises in solid cash, though at very 
 heavy cost in other ways, both at the instant and afterwards. 
 
 These fluctuations in trade and agriculture of course told on 
 the condition of the working classes. They were constantly 
 suffering, and then the ' savage spirit ' of which Sir Samuel has 
 spoken showed itself at its worst. Suffering, as usual, caused 
 complaint, and this complaint was called sedition. The Habeas 
 Corpus Act was suspended, harsh laws were passed, and a 
 harsher administration incited to put it down. It could not be 
 put down. It incessantly smouldered and incessantly broke out, 
 and for years England was filled with the fear of violence, first 
 by the breakers of the law and then by the enforcers of it. 
 
 Resistance to such a policy as this was most congenial to a 
 nature half unhinged by misfortune, and always in itself most 
 sensitive and opposed to injustice. Even before his wife's 
 death, Lord Althorp had begun to exert himself against it, 
 and afterwards he threw the whole vigour not only of his mind 
 but of his body into it. So far from running away perpetually 
 to hunt, as in old times, he was so constant in his attendance in 
 Parliament that tradition says hardly anyone, except the clerks 
 at the table, was mora constantly to be seen there. He opposed 
 all the Acts by which the Tory Government of the day tried 
 to put down disaffection instead of curing it, and his manly 
 energy soon made him a sort of power in Parliament. He 
 was always there, always saying what was clear, strong, and 
 manly ; and therefore the loosely-knit opposition of that day 
 was often guided by him ; and the ministers, though strong 
 in numerical majority, feared him, for he said things that the 
 best of that majority understood in a rugged English way, which 
 changed feelings, even if it did not alter votes. He was a man 
 whom everyone in the House respected, and who therefore 
 spoke to prepossessed hearers. No doubt, too, the peculiar 
 tinge which grief had given to his character added to his 
 influence. He took no share in the pleasures of other men.
 
 296 Lord Alt horp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 Though a nobleman of the highest place, still young, as we 
 should now reckon (he was only thirty-six when Lady Althorp 
 died), he stood aloof from Society, which courted him, and lived 
 for public business only ; and therefore he had great weight in 
 it, for the English very much value obviously conscientious 
 service, and the sobered foxhunter was a somewhat interesting 
 character. 
 
 He had not indeed any clear ideas of the cause of the diffi- 
 culties of the time, or of the remedies for them. He did no 
 doubt attend much to economical questions ; and his taste for 
 figures, shown before in calculating the ratio of his good shots 
 to his bad, made statistical tables even pleasing to him. His 
 strong sense, though without culture and without originality, 
 struggled dimly and sluggishly with the necessary problems. 
 But considering that he lived in fhe days of Huskisson and 
 Kicardo, his commercial ideas are crude and heavy. He got as 
 far as the notion that the substitution of direct taxes for the 
 bad tariff of those days would be * a good measure ; ' but when 
 he came to apply the principle he failed from inability to work 
 it out. Nor did years of discussion effectually teach him. In 
 his great budget of 1832 the first which the Whigs had made 
 for many years, and at which therefore everyone looked with 
 unusual expectation he proposed to take off a duty on tobacco 
 and to replace it by a tax on the transfer of real and funded 
 property, together with a tax on the import of raw cotton ; and 
 it was the necessity of having to withdraw the larger part of 
 this plan, that more than anything else first gave the Whigs 
 that character for financial incapacity which clung to them so 
 long. A crude good sense goes no way in such problems, and 
 it is useless to apply it to them. The other economical pro- 
 blem of the time, how to lay a satisfactory basis for our credit, 
 Lord Althorp was still less able to solve, and excusably so ; 
 for the experience which has since taught us so much did not 
 exist, and the best theories then known were very imperfect. 
 The whole subject was then encumbered with what was called
 
 Lord Alt horp and the Reform Act (7/1832. 297 
 
 the ' currency question,' and on this Lord Althorp's views were 
 fairly sensible, but no more. 
 
 I have said what may seem too much of the distresses of 
 the country fifty or sixty years ago, not only because the mode 
 in which he dealt with them is the best possible illustration of 
 Lord Althorp's character, but also because some knowledge 
 of them is necessary to an understanding of * parliamentary 
 reform/ as it was in his time, on account of which alone any- 
 one now cares for him. The ' bill,' if I may say so, for these 
 miseries of the country was sent in to the old system of par- 
 liamentary representation ; and very naturally. The defenders 
 of that system of necessity conceded that it was anomalous, 
 complex, and such as it would have been impossible to set up 
 de novo. But they argued that it was practically successful, 
 worked well, and promoted the happiness of the people better 
 than any other probably would. And to this the inevitable 
 rejoinder at the time was : ' The system does not work well ; 
 the country is not happy ; if your system is as you say to be 
 judged by its fruits, that system is a bad system, for its fruits 
 are bad, and the consequences everywhere to be seen in the 
 misery around us.' Upon many English minds which would 
 have cared nothing for an apparent work of theoretical com- 
 pleteness, this 'practical' way of arguing, as it was called, 
 pressed with irresistible strength. 
 
 The unpopularity was greater because a new generation 
 was growing up with ' other thoughts ' and ' other minds ' than 
 that which had preceded it. Between 1828 and 1830 a new 
 race came to influence public affairs, who did not remember 
 the horrors of the French Revolution, and who had been teased 
 to death by hearing their parents talk about them. The harsh 
 and cruel spirit which those horrors had awakened in their 
 contemporaries became itself, by the natural law of reaction, an 
 object of disgust and almost of horror to the next generation. 
 When it was said that the old structure of Parliament worked 
 well, this new race looked not only at the evident evils amid
 
 298 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 which they lived, but at the oppressive laws and administration 
 by which their fathers had tried to cure those evils ; and they 
 ' debited ' both to the account of the old Parliament. It was 
 made responsible for the mistaken treatment as well as for the 
 deep-rooted disease, and so the gravest clouds hung over it. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington, too (the most unsuccessful of 
 premiers as well as the most successful of generals), broke the 
 Tory party the natural party to support this system into 
 fragments. With a wise renunciation both of his old prin- 
 ciples and of his fixed prejudices he had granted ' Catholic 
 Emancipation,' and so offended the older and stricter part of 
 his followers. They accused him of treachery, and hated him 
 with a hatred of which in this quiet age, when political passion 
 is feeble, we can hardly form an idea. And he then quarrelled, 
 also, with the best of the moderate right Mr. Huskisson and 
 the Canningites. He had disliked Mr. Canning personally 
 when alive, he hated still more the liberal principles which he 
 had begun to introduce into our foreign policy, and he was an 
 eager, despotic man, who disliked difference of opinion; so 
 just when he had broken with the most irrational section of 
 his part}*, he broke with its most rational members too, and 
 left himself very weak. No one so much, though without 
 meaning it, aided the cause of parliamentary change, for he 
 divided and enfeebled the supporters of the old system ; he 
 took away the question of Catholic Emancipation which before 
 filled the public mind ; and he intensified the unpopularity of 
 all he touched by the idea of a 'military premier,' for which 
 we should not care now, but which was odious and terrible 
 then, when men still feared oppression from the Government. 
 
 Upon minds thus predisposed, the French ^Revolution of 
 1830 broke with magical power. To the young generation it 
 seemed like the fulfilment of their dreams, 
 
 the meagre, stale, forbidding ways 
 Of custom, law, and statute, took at once 
 The attraction of a country in Romance,
 
 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 299 
 
 and there came upon them eager thoughts that they might still be 
 
 called upon to exercise their skill 
 ]N^ot in Utopia, subterranean fields, 
 Or some secreted island, heaven knows where, 
 But in the very world, which is the world 
 Of all of us. 
 
 And even to soberer persons this new revolution seemed to 
 prove that change, even great change, was not so mischievous 
 as had been said that the good of 1789 might be gained with- 
 out the evil, and that it was absurd not to try reform when 
 the unreformed world contained so much which was miserable 
 and so much which was difficult to bear. Even a strong Tory 
 ministry might have been overthrown, so great was the force 
 of this sudden sentiment : the feeble ministry of the Duke of 
 Wellington fell at once before it, and the Whigs were called 
 to power. 
 
 Their first act was to frame a plan of parliamentary reform, 
 and that which they constructed was many times larger than 
 anything which anyone expected from them. All those who 
 remember those times say that when they heard what was 
 proposed they could hardly believe their ears. And when it 
 was explained to the House of Commons, the confusion, the 
 perplexity, and the consternation were very great. Eeform 
 naturally was much less popular in the assembly to be reformed 
 than it was elsewhere. The general opinion was that if Sir Eobert 
 Peel had risen at once and denounced the Bill as destructive 
 and revolutionary he might have prevented its being brought 
 in. Another common opinion in the House was that the 
 ' Whigs would go out next morning.' But the Bill had been 
 framed by one who, with whatever other shortcomings and 
 defects, has ever had a shrewd eye for the probable course of 
 public opinion. ' I told Lord Grrey,' says Lord Russell, ' that 
 none but a large measure would be a safe measure.' And 
 accordingly, as soon as its provisions came to be comprehended 
 by the country, there was perhaps the greatest burst of enthu-
 
 3OO Lord Althorp and the Reform Act 0/1832. 
 
 siasm which England has ever seen (certainly the greatest 
 enthusiasm for a law, though that for a favourite person may 
 sometimes have risen as high or higher). A later satirist has 
 spoken of it as the * Great Bill forgiving everybody everything/ 
 and everybody almost seems to have been as much in favour 
 of it as if they were to gain everything by it. Agricultural 
 counties were as eager as manufacturing towns ; men who had 
 always been Tories before were as warm as Liberals. The 
 country would have ' the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but 
 the Bill.' 
 
 But this enthusiasm did not of itself secure the passing of 
 the Bill. There were many obstacles in the way which it 
 took months to overcome, and which often made many de- 
 spair. First, the Bill was not one of which the political world 
 itself strongly approved ; on the contrary, if left to itself, that 
 world would probably have altogether rejected it. It was 
 imposed by the uninitiated on the initiated, by the many on the 
 few ; and inevitably those who were compelled to take it did 
 not like it. Then, the vast proposals of the ministry deeply 
 affected many private interests. In 1858 I heard an able 
 politician say, ' The best way for a Government to turn itself 
 out is to bring in a Eeform Bill ; the number of persons whom 
 every such Bill must offend is very great, and they are sure to 
 combine together, not on Reform, but on something else, and 
 so turn out the Government.' And if there was serious danger 
 to a ministry which ventured to propose such petty reforms as 
 were thought of in 1858, we can imagine the magnitude of the 
 danger which the ministry of 1832 incurred from the great 
 measure they then brought in. One member, indeed, rose and 
 said, * I am the proprietor of Ludgershall, I am the member 
 for Ludgershall, I am the constituency of Ludgershall, nnd in 
 all three capacities I assent to the disfranchisement of Ludger- 
 shall.' But the number of persons who were so disinterested 
 was rare. The Bill of 1832 affected the franchise of every 
 constituency, and, therefore, the seat of every member ; it
 
 Lord Althorp and the Rejorm Act o/ 1832. 301 
 
 abolished the seats of many, and destroyed the right of nomi- 
 nation to seats also possessed by many ; and nothing could 
 be more repugnant to the inclinations of most. A House of 
 Commons with such a Bill before it was inevitably captious, 
 unruly, and difficult to guide. And even if there had been or 
 could have been a House of Commons which at heart liked the 
 Bill, there would still have been the difficulty that many other 
 people then most influential did not much like it. A great 
 many members of the Cabinet which proposed it, though they 
 believed it to be necessary, did not think it to be desirable. 
 The country would have some such measure, and therefore they 
 proposed this. * Lord Palmerston and Mr. Grant,' says Lord 
 Russell, ' had followed Mr. Canning in his opposition to Par- 
 liamentary Reform. Lord Lansdowne and Lord Holland had 
 never been very eager on the subject.' Lord Brougham did 
 not approve of the disfranchisement of nearly so many boroughs, 
 and others of the Cabinet were much of the same mind. Their 
 opinion was always dubious, their action often reluctant, and, 
 according to Mr. Gfreville, some of the most influential of them, 
 being very sensitive to the public opinion of select political 
 society, were soon ' heartily ashamed of the whole thing.' 
 
 The House of Lords, too, was adverse, not only as an 
 assembly of men mostly rich and past middle age is ever 
 adverse to great political change, or as a privileged assembly is 
 always hostile to any movement which may destroy it, but for 
 a reason peculiar to itself. The English House of Lords, as we 
 all know, is not a rigid body of fixed number like the upper 
 chambers of book constitutions, but an elastic body of unfixed 
 number. The Crown can add to its members when it pleases 
 and as it pleases. And in various ways which 'I need not 
 enumerate now, this elasticity of structure has been of much 
 use, but in one way it does much harm. The Crown for this 
 purpose means the ministry ; the ministry is appointed by a 
 party, and is the agent of that party, and therefore it makes 
 peers from its own friends all but exclusively. Under a Tory
 
 302 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 Government more than nine-tenths of the new peers will be 
 Tory ; under a Whig Government more than nine-tenths will 
 be Whig ; and if for a long course of years either party has 
 been continuously, or nearly so, in power, the House of Lords 
 will be rilled with new members belonging to it. And this is a 
 serious inconvenience, because the longer any party has been 
 thus in power, the more likely it is to have to go out and lose 
 power ; and the new ministry which comes in, and the new 
 mode of thought which that ministry embodies, finds itself face 
 to face with a House of Peers embodying an antagonistic mode 
 of thought, and one formed by its enemies. In 1831 this was 
 so, for the Tories had been in office almost without a break since 
 1784, had created peers profusely, who were all Tories, and 
 added the Irish elective peers, who, from the mode of election, 
 were all Tories too. In consequence, the reform movement of 
 1831 and 1832 found itself obstinately opposed to a hostile 
 House of Lords, whose antagonism aided the reluctance diffused 
 through the House of Commons, and fostered the fainthearted- 
 ness common in the Cabinet. The King, too, who had begun 
 by being much in favour of reform, gradually grew frightened. 
 His correspondence with Lord Grey gives a vivid picture of a 
 well-meaning, but irresolute man, who is much in the power 
 of the last speaker, who at last can be securely relied on, by no 
 one, and who gives incessant (and as it seems unnecessary) 
 trouble to those about him. The rising republicanism of the 
 day will find in these letters much to serve it; for, however 
 convinced one may be, on general grounds, that English 
 royalty was necessary to English freedom at that time, it is 
 impossible not to be impatient at seeing how, month after 
 month in a "great crisis, when there was so much else to cause 
 anxiety and create confusion, one stupid old man should have 
 been able to add so much to both. 
 
 And all through the struggle the two effects of the new 
 French Revolution were contending with one another. Just as 
 it aroused in young and sanguine minds (and the majority of
 
 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 303 
 
 the country was just then disposed to be sanguine) the warmest 
 hopes, in minds oppositely predisposed it aroused every kind of 
 fear. Old and timid people thought we should soon have in 
 England ' Kobespierre and the guillotine.' Indeed, in a way 
 that is rather amusing now to consider, the French horrors 
 of 1793 are turned into a kind of intellectual shuttlecock by 
 two disputants. One says, ' See what comes of making rash 
 changes, how many crimes they engender, and how many lives 
 they lose ! ' ' No/ replies the other ; ' see what comes of not 
 making changes till too late, for it was delay of change, and 
 resistance to change, which caused those crimes and horrors.' 
 Nor were these unreal words of mere rhetoric. They told 
 much on many minds, for what France had done and would do 
 then naturally filled an immense space in men's attention, as 
 for so many years not long since, Europe had been divided into 
 France and anti-France. 
 
 With all these obstacles in its way, the ministry of 1831 
 had the greatest difficulty in carrying the Eeform Bill. I have 
 not space to narrate, even in the briefest way, the troubled 
 history of their doing so. Parliamentary debates are generally 
 dull in the narration ; but so great was the excitement, and so 
 many were the relieving circumstances, that an accomplished 
 historian will be able to make posterity take some sort of 
 exceptional interest in these. The credit of the victory, such 
 as it is, must be divided between many persons. Lord Grey 
 managed the King, and stood first in the eye of the country ; 
 Lord Russell contributed the first sketch of the Bill, containing 
 all its essential features, both good and bad, and he introduced 
 the first Bill into the House of Commons ; the late Lord Derby 
 then first showed his powers as a great debater. But the best 
 observers say that Lord Althorp carried the Bill : he was 
 leader of the House at the time, and the main strain of ruling 
 one of the most troubled of Parliaments was on him. His 
 biographer, Sir Denis Le Marchant, who was present at the 
 debates, says :
 
 304 Lord Altkorp and the Reform Act 0/1832. 
 
 ' Lord Al thorp's capacity as a leader had been severely tested 
 throughout this tremendous struggle, and it extorted the praise even 
 of his political opponents. I recollect Sir Henry Hardinge saying, 
 " It was Althorp carried the Bill. His fine temper did it. And in 
 answer to a most able and argumentative speech of Crocker, he rose 
 and merely said ' that he had made some calculations which he con- 
 sidered as entirely conclusive in refutation of the right honourable 
 gentleman's arguments which he had mislaid, but if the House would 
 be guided by his advice they would reject the amendment ' which 
 they accordingly did. There is no standing against such influence as 
 this. The Whigs ascribed Lord Althorp's influence not to his 
 temper alone, but to the confidence felt by the House in his integrity 
 and sound judgment, an opinion so universal that Lord Grey was 
 induced by it to press upon him a peerage, that he might take charge 
 of the Bill in the committee of the Lords : and the design was 
 abandoned not from any hesitation or unwillingness on the part of 
 Lord Althorp, but from the difficulty of finding a successor to him 
 in the Commons." So bad a speaker, with so slow a mind, has 
 never received so great a compliment in a scene where quickness and 
 oratory seem at first sight to be the most absolutely requisite of 
 qualities.' 
 
 But it is no doubt a great mistake to imagine that these 
 qualities are the true essentials to success of this kind, A very 
 shrewd living judge says, after careful reflection, that they 
 are even hurtful. ' A man,' says Mr. Massey in his history, 
 * who speaks seldom, and who speaks ill, is the best leader of 
 the House of Commons.' And no doubt the slow-speeched 
 English gentleman rather sympathize with slow speech in 
 others. Besides, a quick and brilliant leader is apt to be 
 always speaking, whereas a leader should interfere only when 
 necessary, and be therefore felt as a higher force when he does 
 so. His mind ought to be like a reserve fund not invested 
 in showy securities, but sure to be come at when wanted, and 
 always of staple value. And this Lord Althorp's mind was ; 
 there was not an epigram in the whole of it ; everything was 
 solid and ordinary. Men seem to have trusted him much as 
 they trust a faithful animal, entirely believing that he would 
 not deceive if he could, and that he could not if he would.
 
 Lord Altkorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 305 
 
 And what, then, was this great ' Bill ' which it was so great 
 an achievement to pass? Unfortunately this is not an easy 
 question to answer shortly. The ' Bill ' destroyed many old 
 things and altered many old things, and we cannot understand 
 its effects except in so far as we know what these old things 
 were. 
 
 ' A variety of rights of suffrage,' said Sir James Mackintosh, 
 ' is the principle of the English representation.' How that 
 variety began is not at all to the present purpose ; it grew as 
 all English things grow by day-by-day alterations from small 
 beginnings ; and the final product was very different from the 
 first beginning, as well as from any design which ever at any 
 one time entered anyone's mind. There always was a great 
 contrast between the mode of representation in boroughs and in 
 counties, because there was a great contrast in social structure 
 between them. The 'knight of the shire' was differently 
 chosen from the ' burgess of the town,' because the ' shire ' wa& 
 a different sort of place from the town, and the same people 
 could not have chosen for the two the same people not 
 existing in the two. The borough representations of England^ 
 too, ' struggled up 'there is hardly any other word to describe 
 it in a most irregular manner. The number of towns which 
 sent representatives is scarcely ever the same in any two of our 
 oldest Parliaments. The sheriff had a certain discretion, for 
 the writ only told him to convene * de quolibet burgo duos bur- 
 genses,' and did not name any towns in particular. Most towns 
 then disliked the duty and evaded it, if possible, which seems 
 to have augmented the sheriff's power, for he could permit or 
 prevent the evasion as much as he chose. And at a very early 
 period great differences grew up between the ways of election 
 in the towns which were always represented. There seems to 
 have been a kind of ' natural selection ; ' the most powerful 
 class in each borough chose if it could at each election, and if 
 any class long continued the most powerful, it then acquired 
 customary rights of election which came to be unalterable. 
 
 X
 
 306 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 Nor was there any good deciding authority to regulate this con- 
 fusion. The judge of elections was the * House of Commons ' 
 itself, and it often decided not according to law or evidence, 
 but as political or personal influence dictated. And rights of 
 election thus capriciously recognised became binding on the 
 borough for ever. As might be expected, the total result was 
 excessively miscellaneous. The following are the franchises of 
 the boroughs in two counties as legislators of 1832 found 
 them. 
 
 SOMERSETSHIRE. 
 
 BRISTOL . . . Freeholders of 40s., and free burgesses. 
 BATH .... Mayor, aldermen, and common councilmen only. 
 WELLS .... Mayor, masters, burgesses, and freemen of the 
 
 seven trading companies of the said cit}\ 
 TAUNTON . . . Potwallers not receiving alms or charity. 
 BRIDGEWATER . Mayor, aldermen, and twenty-four capital burgesses 
 
 of the borough paying scot and lot. 
 
 ILCHESTER . . Alleged to be the inhabitants of the said town pay- 
 ing scot and lot, which the town called potwallers. 
 MINEIIEAD . . The parishioners of Dunster and Minehead, being 
 housekeepers in the borough of Minehead, and not 
 receiving alms. 
 
 Mi i. BORN PORT . The capital bailiffs and their deputies, the number 
 of bailiffs being nine, and their deputies being two ; 
 in the commonalty, stewards, their number being 
 two ; and the inhabitants thereof paying scot and 
 lot. 
 
 LANCASHIRE. 
 
 LANCASTER . . Freemen only. 
 
 WIG AN .... Free burgesses. 
 
 Ci.irifEROE . . Freeholders resident and nonresident. 
 
 LIVERPOOL . . Mayor, bailiffs, and freemen not receiving alms. 
 
 PRESTON . . . All the inhabitants. 
 
 Nothing could be more certain than that a system which 
 was constructed in this manner must sooner or later need great 
 alteration. Institutions which have grown from the beginning 
 by adaptation may last as long as any, if they continue to possess
 
 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act 0/1832. 307 
 
 the power of adaptation. The force which created them still 
 exists to preserve them. But in this case the power of adapta- 
 tion was gone. A system of representation made without 
 design was fixed as eternal upon a changing nation, and some- 
 how or other it was sure to become unsuitable. Nothing 
 could be more false in essence than the old anti-reform argu- 
 ments as far as they affected the * wisdom of our ancestors ; ' 
 for the characteristic method of our ancestors had been departed 
 from. Our ancestors changed what they wanted bit by bit, just 
 when and just as they wanted. But their descendants were 
 forbidden to do so ; they were asked to be content not only 
 with old clothes, but with much-patched old clothes, which they 
 were denied the power to patch again. And this sooner or later 
 they were sure to refuse. 
 
 In 1832 a grave necessity existed for changing it. The 
 rude principle of natural selection by which it had been made, 
 insured that, at least approximately, the classes most influential 
 in the nation would have a proportionate power in the legisla- 
 tion ; no great class was likely to be denied any thing approach- 
 ing to its just weight. But now that a system framed in one 
 age was to be made to continue unchanged through after ages, 
 there was no such security. On the contrary, the longer the 
 system went on without change the more sure it was to need 
 change. Some new class was sure in course of time to grow up 
 for which the fixed system provided no adequate representa- 
 tives ; and the longer that system continued fixed, the surer 
 was this to happen, and the stronger was it likely that this 
 class would be. In 1832, such a class had arisen of the first 
 magnitude. The trading wealth of the country had created a 
 new world which had no voice in Parliament comparable to 
 that which it had in the country. Not only were some of the 
 greatest towns, like Birmingham and Manchester, left without 
 any members at all, but in most other towns the best of the 
 middle class felt that they had no adequate power; they were
 
 308 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1 832. 
 
 either extinguished by a franchise too exclusive, or swamped by 
 one too diffused ; either way, they were powerless. 
 
 There was equal reason to believe that, by the same inevit- 
 able course of events, some class would come to have more power 
 in Parliament than it should. The influence which gave the 
 various classes their authority at the time in which the machi- 
 nery of our representation was framed, would be sure in time to 
 ebb away, wholly or in part, from some of them. And in 
 matter of fact they did so. The richer nobility and the richer 
 commoners had come to have much more power than they 
 ought. The process of letting the most influential people in a 
 borough choose its members, amounted in time to letting the 
 great nobleman or great commoner to whom the property of 
 the town belonged, choose them. And many counties had 
 fallen into the direction of the same hands also, so that it was 
 calculated, if not with truth, at any rate with an approach to it, 
 that one hundred and seventy-seven lords and gentlemen chose 
 as many as three hundred and fifty-five English members of 
 Parliament. The parliamentary power of these few rich peers 
 and squires was much too great when compared with their 
 share in the life of the nation, just as that of the trading class 
 was too weak ; the excess of the one made the deficiency of the 
 other additionally difficult to bear ; and the contrast was more 
 than ever galling in the years from 1830 to 1832, because just 
 then the new French Revolution had revived the feud between 
 the privileged classes and the non-privileged. The excessive 
 parliamentary power of these few persons had before been a 
 yoke daily becoming heavier and heavier, and now it could be 
 endured no longer. 
 
 The ' Reform Bill ' amended all this. It abolished a multi- 
 tude of nomination boroughs, gave members to large towns and 
 cities, and changed the franchise, so that in all boroughs, at any 
 rate, the middle classes obtained predominant power. And no 
 one can deny that the good so done was immense ; indeed, no 
 one does now deny it, for the generation of Tories that did so
 
 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 309 
 
 has passed away. No doubt the Reform Act did not produce 
 of itself at once the new heaven and new earth which its more 
 ardent supporters expected of it. It did nothing to remove the 
 worst evils from which the country suffered, for those evils were 
 not political but economical ; and the classes whom it enfran- 
 chised were not more economically instructed than those whom 
 they superseded. The doctrine of protection then reigned all 
 through the nation, and while it did so no real cure for those 
 evils was possible. But this Act, coming as it did when a new 
 political generation was prepared to make use of it, got rid 
 entirely of the ' cruel spirit ' by which our distresses had been 
 repressed before, and which was as great an evil as those dis- 
 tresses themselves, introduced many improvements municipal 
 reform, tithe reform, and such like in which the business-like 
 habit of mind due to the greater power of the working classes 
 mainly helped and diffused a sweeter and better spirit through 
 society. 
 
 But these benefits were purchased at a price of the first 
 magnitude, though, from the nature of it, its payment was 
 long deferred. The reformers of 1832 dealt with the evils of 
 their time, as they would have said, in an English way, and 
 without much thinking of anything else. And exactly in that 
 English way, as they had under their hands a most curious 
 political machine which had grown without design, and which 
 produced many very valuable, though not very visible effects, 
 they, without thought, injured and destroyed some of the best 
 parts of it. 
 
 First, the old system of representation, as we have seen, 
 was based on a variety of franchises. But, in order to augment 
 the influence of the middle class, the reformers of 1832 de- 
 stroyed that variety ; they introduced into every borough the 
 10L household franchise, and with a slight exception, which we 
 need not take account of, made that franchise the only one in 
 all boroughs. They raised the standard in the boroughs in 
 which it was lower than 10Z., and lowered it in those where it
 
 310 Lord AltJiorp and the Reform Act 0/1832. 
 
 was higher; and in this way they changed the cardinal prin- 
 ciple of the system which they found established for uniformity 
 as the rule instead of variety. 
 
 And this worked well enough at first, for there was not for 
 some years after 1832 much wish for any more change in our 
 constituencies. But in our own time we have seen the harm of 
 it. If you establish any uniform franchise in a country, then 
 it at once becomes a question, What sort of franchise is it to 
 be? Those under it will say that they are most unjustly 
 excluded ; they will deny that there is any real difference 
 between themselves and those above ; they will show without 
 difficulty that some whom the chosen line leaves out, are even 
 better than those whom it takes in. And they will raise the 
 cry so familiar in our ears the cry of class legislation. They 
 will say, Who are these ten-pound householders, these arbitrarily 
 chosen middle-class men, that they should be sole electors ? 
 Why should they be alone enfranchised and all others practically 
 disfranchised, either by being swamped by their more numerous 
 votes or by not having votes at all ? The case is the stronger 
 because one of the most ancient functions of Parliament, and 
 especially the Commons House of Parliament, is the reforma- 
 tion of grievances. This suited very well with the old system 
 of variety ; in that .miscellaneous collection of constituencies 
 every class wras sure to have some members who represented it. 
 There were then working-class constituencies sending members 
 to speak for them ' men,' says Mackintosh, ' of popular talents, 
 principles, and feelings ; quick in suspecting oppression, bold 
 in resisting it, not thinking favourably of the powerful ; listen- 
 ing almost with credulity to the complaints of the humble 
 and the feeble, and impelled by ambition when they are not 
 prompted by generosity to be defenders of the defenceless.' 
 And in cases of popular excitement, especially of erroneous 
 excitement, this plan insured that it should have adequate 
 expression, and so soon made it calm. But the legislation of 
 1832 destroyed these working-men's constituencies ; ' they put
 
 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 3 1 1 
 
 the country,' as it was said afterwards, ' under ten-pounders 
 only.' And in consequence there are in our boroughs now 
 nothing hut working-class constituencies ; there are no longer 
 any ten-pound householders at all. There is throughout our 
 boroughs a uniform sort of franchise, and that the worst sort 
 a franchise which gives the predominance to the most ignorant 
 and the least competent, if they choose to use it. The middle 
 classes have as little power as they had before 1832, and the 
 only difference is, that before 1832 they were ruled by those 
 who were richer than themselves, and now they are ruled by 
 those who are poorer. 
 
 No doubt there is still an inequality in the franchise between 
 counties and boroughs the sole remnant of the variety of our 
 ancient system. But that inequality is much more difficult to 
 defend now when it stands alone, than it was in old times when 
 it was one of many. And the * ugly rush ' of the lower orders, 
 which has effaced the 'hard and fast' line established in 1832, 
 threatens to destroy this remnant of variety. In a few years 
 probably there will be but one sort of franchise throughout all 
 England, and the characteristic work of 1832 will be completely 
 undone ; the middle classes, whose intelligence Macaulay 
 praised, and to whom he helped to give so much power, will 
 have had all that power taken away from them. 
 
 No doubt, too, there is still a real inequality of influence, 
 though there is a legal equality of franchise. The difference of 
 size between different boroughs gives more power to those in 
 the small boroughs than to those in the large. And this is very 
 valuable, for elections for large boroughs are costly, and entail 
 much labour that is most disagreeable. But here, again, the 
 vicious precedent of establishing uniformity set in 1832 is 
 becoming excessively dangerous. Being so much used to it 
 people expect to see it everywhere. There is much risk that 
 before long there may be only one sort of vote and only one 
 size of constituency all over England, and then the reign of 
 monotony will be complete.
 
 312 Lord Althorp and tJie Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 And, secondly, the reformers of 1832 committed an almost 
 worse error in destroying one kind of select constituency with- 
 out creating an intellectual equivalent. We are not used now- 
 a-days to think of nomination boroughs as select constituencies, 
 but such, in truth, they were, and such they proved themselves 
 to be at, perhaps, the most critical period of English history. 
 Lord Kussell, no favourable judge, tells us 'that it enabled Sir 
 Kobert Walpole to consolidate the throne of the House of 
 Hanover amid external and internal dangers.' No democratic 
 suffrage would then have been relied on for that purpose, for 
 the mass of Englishmen were then more or less attached to 
 their hereditary king, and they might easily have been induced 
 to restore him. They had not, indeed, a fanatical passion of 
 loyalty towards him, nor any sentiment which would make 
 them brave many dangers on his behalf; but there was much 
 sluggish and sullen prejudice which might have been easily 
 aroused to see that he had his rights, and there were many 
 relics of ancient loyal zeal which might have combined with 
 that prejudice and ennobled it. Nor did the people of that day 
 much care for what we should now call parliamentary govern- 
 ment. The educated opinion of that day was strongly in favour 
 of the House of Hanover; but the numerical majority of the 
 nation was not equally so ; perhaps it would have preferred the 
 House of Stuart. But the higher nobility and the richer 
 gentry possessed a great power over the opinions of Parliament 
 because many boroughs were subject to their control, and by 
 exerting that power they, in conjunction with the trading 
 classes, who were then much too weak to have moved by them- 
 selves, fixed the House of Hanover on the throne, and so settled 
 the freedom of England. These boroughs at that time, for 
 this purpose being select constituencies, were of inestimable 
 value, because they enabled the most competent opinion in 
 England to rule without dispute, when, under any system of 
 diffused suffrage, that opinion would either have been out-voted 
 or almost so.
 
 Lord Altkorp and the Reform Act 0/1832. 313 
 
 And to the last these boroughs retained much of this 
 peculiar merit. They were an organ for what may be called 
 specialized political thought, for trained intelligence busy with 
 public affairs. Not only did they bring into parliament men 
 of genius and ability, but they kept together a higher political 
 world capable of appreciating that genius and ability when 
 young, and of learning from it when old. The Whig party, 
 such as it was in those days especially, rested on this parlia- 
 mentary power. In them was a combination of more or less 
 intelligent noblemen of liberal ideas and aims, who chose 
 such men as Burke, and Brougham, and Hume, and at last 
 Macaulay, to develop those ideas and to help to attain those 
 aims. If they had not possessed this peculiar power, they 
 would have had no such intellectual influence ; they would 
 have simply been gentlemen of what we now think good ideas, 
 with no special means of advancing them. And they would not 
 have been so closely combined together as they were ; they 
 would have been scattered persons of political intelligence. 
 But having this power they combined together, lived together, 
 thought together; and the society thus formed was enriched 
 and educated by the men ot genius whom it selected as instru- 
 ments, and in whom in fact it found teachers. And there was 
 something like it on the Grove rnment side, though the long 
 possession of power, and perhaps the nature of Toryism, some- 
 what modified its characteristics. 
 
 The effect is to be read in the parliamentary debates of those 
 times. Probably they are absolutely better than our own. 
 They are intrinsically a better discussion of the subjects of their 
 day than ours are of our subjects. But however this may be, 
 they are beyond question relatively better. General knowledge 
 of politics has greatly improved in the last fifty years, and the 
 best political thought of the present day is much superior to 
 any which there was then. So that, even if our present par- 
 liamentary debates retained the level of their former excellence 
 they would still not bear the same relation to the best thought
 
 314 Lord Alt horp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 of the present, that the old ones bear to the best thought of the 
 past. And if the debates have really fallen off much (as I am 
 sure they have), this conclusion will be stronger and more 
 certain. 
 
 Nor is this to be wondered at. If you lessen the cause you 
 will lessen the effect too. Not only are the men whom these 
 select constituencies brought into parliament not now to be 
 found there, but the society which formed those constituencies, 
 and which chose those men, no longer exists. The old parties 
 were combinations partly aristocratic, partly intellectual, 
 cemented by the common possession and the common use of 
 political power. But now that the power is gone the combina- 
 tions are dissolved. The place which once knew them knows 
 them no more. Anyone who looks for them in our present 
 London and our present politics will scarcely find much that is 
 like them. 
 
 This society sought for those whom it thought would be 
 useful to it in all quarters. There was a regular connection 
 between the ; Unions ' the great debating societies of Oxford 
 and Cambridge and Parliament. Young men who seemed 
 promising had even a chance of being competed for by both 
 parties. We all know the line which the wit of Brookes's made 
 upon Mr. Canning 
 
 The turning of coats so common is grown, 
 That no one would think to attack it ; 
 
 But no case until now was so flagrantly known 
 Of a schoolboy's turning his jacket. 
 
 This meant that it having been said and believed that Mr. 
 Canning, who had just left Oxford, was to bf> brought into 
 Parliament by the Whig Opposition, he went over to Mr. Pitt, 
 and was brought in by the Tory ministry. The Oxford Liberals 
 of our generation are quite exempt from similar temptations. 
 So far from their support in Parliament being craved by both 
 sides, they cannot enter Parliament at all. When many of
 
 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act 0/1832. 315 
 
 these tried to enter Parliament in the autumn of 1867, their 
 egregious failure was one of the most striking events of that 
 remarkable time. 
 
 There was a connection, too, then between the two parts of 
 the public service now most completely divided the permanent 
 and the parliamentary civil services. Now, as we all know, the 
 chief clerks in the Treasury and permanent heads of depart- 
 ments never think of going into Parliament ; they regard 
 the parliamentary statesmen who are set to rule over them 
 much as the Bengalees regard the English as persons who are 
 less intelligent and less instructed than themselves, but who 
 nevertheless are to be obeyed. They never think of changing 
 places any more than a Hindoo thinks of becoming an English- 
 man. But in old times, men like Lord Liverpool, Sir George 
 Rose, and Mr. Huskisson were found eminent in the public 
 offices, and in consequence of that eminence, were brought into 
 Parliament. The party in office were then, as now, anxious 
 to obtain competent help in passing measures of finance and 
 detail, and they then obtained it thus, whereas now their suc- 
 cessors do not obtain it at all. 
 
 There was then, too, a sort of romantic element in the lives 
 of clever young men which is wholly wanting now. Some one 
 said that Macaulay's was like a life in a. fairy tale ; he opens a 
 letter which looks like any other letter, and finds that it con- 
 tains a seat in Parliament. Gibbon says that just as he was 
 destroying an army of barbarians, Sir Gilbert Elliot called and 
 offered him a seat for Liskeard. Great historians will never 
 probably again be similarly interrupted. The effect of all this 
 was to raise the intellectual tone of Parliament. At present 
 the political conversation of members of Parliament ; a few of 
 the greatest excepted is less able and less striking than that 
 of other persons of fair capacity. There is a certain kind of 
 ideas which you hardly ever hear from any other educated 
 person, but which they have to talk to their constituents, and 
 which, if you will let them, they will talk to you too. Some of
 
 316 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 
 
 the middle-aged men of business, the * soap-boilers,' as the 
 London world disrespectfully calls them, whom local influence 
 raises to Parliament, really do not seem to know any better ; 
 they repeat the words of the hustings as if they were parts of 
 their creed. And as for the more intellectual members who 
 know better, no one of good manners likes to press them too 
 closely in argument in politics any more than he likes to press 
 a clergyman too strictly on religion. In both cases the status 
 in the world depends on the belief in certain opinions, and 
 therefore it is thought rather ill-bred, except for some great 
 reason, to try and injure that belief. Intellectual deference 
 used to be paid to members of Parliament, but now, at least in 
 London, where the species is known, the remains of that de- 
 ference are rare. 
 
 The other side of the same phenomenon is the increased 
 power of the provinces, and especially of the constituencies. 
 Any gust of popular excitement runs through them instantly, 
 grows greater and greater as it goes, till it gains such huge in- 
 fluence that for a moment the central educated world is power- 
 less. No doubt, if only time can be gained, the excitement 
 passes away ; something new succeeds, and the ordinary au- 
 thority of trained and practised intelligence revives. But if an 
 election were now to happen at an instant of popular fury, that 
 fury would have little or nothing to withstand it. And, even 
 in ordinary times, the power of the constituencies is too great. 
 They are fast reducing the members, especially the weaker 
 sort of them, to delegates. There is already, in many places, 
 a committee which often telegraphs to London, hoping that 
 their member will vote this way or that, and the member is 
 unwilling not to do so, because at the next election, if offended, 
 the committee may, perchance, turn the scale against him. 
 And this dependence weakens the intellectual influence of 
 Parliament, and of that higher kind of mind of which Parlia- 
 ment ought to be the organ. 
 
 We must remember that if now we feel these evils we must
 
 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act (7/1832. 317 
 
 expect ere long to feel them much more. The Reform Act 
 of 1867 followed in the main the precedent of 1832; and 
 year by year we shall feel its consequences more and more. 
 The two precedents which have been set will of necessity, in 
 the English world, which is so much guided by precedent, 
 determine the character of future Reform Acts. And if 
 they do, the supremacy of the central group of trained and 
 educated men which our old system of parliamentary choice 
 created, will be completely destroyed, for it is already half 
 gone. 
 
 I know it is thought that we can revive this intellectual in- 
 fluence. Many thoughtful reformers believe that by means of 
 Mr. Hare's system of voting, by the cumulative suffrage, the 
 limited suffrage, or by some others like them, we may be able 
 to replace that which the legislation of 1832 began to destroy, 
 and that which those who follow them are destroying. And I 
 do not wish to say a word against this hope. On the contrary, 
 I think that it is one of the most important duties of English 
 politicians to frame these plans into the best form of which 
 they are capable, and to try to obtain the assent of the country 
 to them. But the difficulty is immense. The reformers of 
 1832 destroyed intellectual constituencies in great numbers 
 without creating any new ones, and without saying, indeed, with- 
 out thinking, that it was desirable to create any. They thus 
 by conspicuous action, which is the most influential mode of 
 political instruction, taught mankind that an increase in the 
 power of numbers was the change most to be desired in England. 
 And of course the mass of mankind are only too ready to think 
 so. They are always prone to believe their own knowledge 
 to be ' for all practical purposes ' sufficient, and to wish to be 
 emancipated from the authority of the higher culture. What 
 we have now to do, therefore, is to induce this self-satisfied, 
 stupid, inert mass of men to admit its own insufficiency, which 
 is very hard ; to understand fine schemes for supplying that 
 insufficiency, which is harder ; and to exert itself to get those
 
 318 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832 . 
 
 ideas adopted, which is hardest of all. Such is the duty which 
 the reformers of 1832 have cast upon us. 
 
 And this is what of necessity must happen if you set men 
 like Lord Althorp to guide legislative changes in complex 
 institutions. Being without culture, they do not know how 
 these institutions grew ; being without insight, they only see 
 one half of their effect ; being without foresight, they do not 
 know what will happen if they are enlarged; being without 
 originality, they cannot devise anything new to supply, if neces- 
 sary, the place of w r hat is old. Common sense no doubt they 
 have, but common sense without instruction can no more 
 wisely revise old institutions than it can write the Nautical 
 Almanack. Probably they will do some present palpable good, 
 but they will do so at a heavy cost ; years after they have 
 passed away, the bad effects of that which they did, and of the 
 precedents which they set, will be hard to bear and difficult to 
 change. Such men are admirably suited to early and simple 
 times. English history is full of them, and England has been 
 made mainly by them ; but they fail in later times, when the 
 work of the past is accumulated, and no question is any longer 
 simple. The simplicity of their one-idead minds, which is 
 suited to the common arithmetic and vulgar fractions of early 
 societies, is not suited, indeed rather unfits them, for the in- 
 volved analysis and complex ' problem papers ' of later ages. 
 
 There is little that in a sketch like this need be said of 
 Lord Althorp's life after the passing of the Eeform Act. The 
 other acts of Lord Grey's ministry have nothing so memorable 
 or so characteristic of Lord Althorp that anything need be said 
 about them. Nor does anyone in the least care now as to 
 the once celebrated mistake of Mr. Littleton in dealing with 
 O'Connell, or Lord Althorp's connection with it. Parliament- 
 ary history is only interesting when it is important constitu- 
 tional history, or when it illustrates something in the character 
 of some interesting man. But the end of Lord Althorp's public 
 life was very curious. In the November of 1834 his brother,
 
 Lord Ait horp and the Reform Act of 18 32. 319 
 
 Lord Spencer, died, and as he was then leader of the House of 
 Commons, a successor for him had to be found. But William 
 IV., whose liberal partialities had long since died away, began 
 by objecting to everyone proposed, and ended by turning out 
 the ministry another event in his reign which our coming re- 
 publicans will no doubt make the most of. But I have nothing 
 to do with the King and the constitutional question now. My 
 business is with Lord Althorp. He acted very characteristically 
 he said that a retirement from office was to him the ' cessa- 
 tion of acute pain/ and never afterwards would touch it again, 
 though he lived for many years. Nor was this an idle affecta- 
 tion, far less indolence. 'You must be aware,' he said once 
 before, in a letter to Lord Brougham, ' that my being in office 
 is nothing less than a source of misery to me. I am perfectly 
 certain that no man ever disliked it to such a degree as I do ; 
 and, indeed, the first thing that usually comes into my head when 
 I wake is how to get rid of it.' He retired into the country 
 and occupied himself with the rural pursuits which he loved 
 best, attended at quarter sessions, and was active as a farmer. 
 ' Few persons,' said an old shepherd, 'could compete with my 
 lord in a knowledge of sheep.' He delighted to watch a whole 
 flock pass, and seemed to know them as if he had lived with 
 them. ' Of all my former pursuits,' he wrote, just after Lady 
 Althorp's death, and in the midst of his grief, ' the only one in 
 which I now t-ike any interest is breeding stock; it is the only 
 one in which I can build castles in the air.' And as soon as he 
 could, among such castles in the air he lived and died. No 
 doubt, too, much better for himself than for many of his friends, 
 who long wanted to lure him back to politics. He was wise 
 with the solid wisdom of agricultural England; popular and 
 useful ; sagacious in useful things; a model in common duties ; 
 well able to advise men in the daily difficulties which are the 
 staple of human life. But beyond this he could not go. 
 Having no call to decide on more intellectual questions, he was 
 distressed and pained when he had to do so. He was a man so
 
 320 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1 832. 
 
 picturesquely out of place in a great scene, that if a great 
 describer gets hold of him he may be long remembered ; and it 
 was the misfortune of his life that the simplicity of his purposes 
 and the trustworthiness of his character raised him at a great 
 conjuncture to a high place for which Nature had not meant 
 him, and for which he felt that she had not meant him.
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 THE PRINCE CONSORT. 
 
 [1861.] 
 
 So much has, ere this, been said upon the life and character of 
 Prince Albert, that scarcely anything now remains except to 
 join very simply and plainly in the regret and sympathy which 
 have been everywhere expressed by all classes of the nation 
 the low as well as the high. A long narrative of a simple 
 career would now be wholly needless, for our contemporaries 
 have supplied many such ; and any protracted eulogy would be 
 unsuitable both to our business-like pages l and to the simple 
 character of him whom we have lost. 
 
 If our loss is not as has been extravagantly said the 
 greatest which the English nation could have sustained, it is 
 among the most irreparable. Our parliamentary constitution, 
 in some sense, renews itself, or tends to do so. As one old 
 statesman leaves the scene, a younger one comes forward, in 
 the vigour of hope and power, to till his place. When one 
 great orator dies, another commonly succeeds him. The op- 
 portunity of the new aspirant is the departure of his prede- 
 cessor; on every vacancy some new claimant many claimants 
 probably -strive with eager emulation to win it and to retain 
 it. Every loss is, in a brief period, easily and fully repaired. 
 Even, too, in the hereditary part of our constitution, most 
 calamities are soon forgotten. One monarch dies, and another 
 
 1 The Economist of December 21, where this article first appeared 
 
 Y
 
 322 The Prince Consort. 
 
 succeeds him. A new court, a new family, new hopes and new 
 interests, spring up and supersede those which have passed 
 away. What was, is forgotten ; what is, is seen. But now we 
 have the old Court without one of its mainstays and principal 
 supports. The royal family of last week is still (and without 
 change) the royal family of to-day; but the father of that 
 family is removed. For such a loss there is not, in this world, 
 any adequate resource or any complete compensation. In no 
 rank of life can any one else be to the widow and children what 
 the deceased husband and father would have been. In the 
 Court as in the cottage, such loss must not only be grief now, 
 but perplexity, trouble, and perhaps mistake hereafter. 
 
 The present generation, at least the younger part of it, 
 have lost the idea that the Court is a serious matter. Every- 
 thing for twenty years has seemed to go so easily and so well, 
 that it has seemed to go of itself. There is no such thing in 
 this world. Everything requires anxiety, and reflection, and 
 patience. And the function of the Court, though we easily 
 forget it when it is well performed, keeps itself much in our 
 remembrance when it is ill performed. Old observers say that 
 some of the half-revolutionary discontent in the times preced- 
 ing the Reform Bill was attributable to the selfish apathy 
 and decrepit profligacy of George the Fourth. The Crown is 
 of singular importance in a divided and contentious free state, 
 because it is the sole object of attachment which is elevated 
 above every contention and division. But to maintain that 
 importance, it must create attachment. We know that the 
 Crown now does so fully; but we do not adequately bear in 
 mind how much rectitude of intention, how much judgment in 
 conduct, how much power of doing right, how much power of 
 doing nothing, are requisite to unite the loyalty and to retain 
 the confidence of a free people. 
 
 Some cynical observers have contrasted the unlimited en- 
 comiums of the last week with the ' cold observance ' and very 
 measured popularity of Prince Albert during his life. They
 
 The Prince Consort. 323 
 
 remember the public hisses of 1855, and perhaps recall many 
 hints and whispers of politics that have passed away. But the 
 most graphic of our contemporaries have found nothing to re- 
 cord of Prince Albert so truly characteristic as this change. 
 
 His circumstances, and perhaps his character, forbade him 
 to attempt the visible achievements and the showy displays 
 which attract momentary popularity. Discretion is a quality 
 seldom appreciated till it is lost ; and it was discretion which 
 Prince Albert eminently possessed. 
 
 v2
 
 3 2 4 
 
 WHAT LORD LYNDHURST REALLY WAS. 
 
 [1863.] 
 
 A GREAT phenomenon has passed [away from English public 
 life. Not long since, Lord Lyndhurst observed : * My Lords, 
 I well remember the breaking out of the French Eevolution in 
 1789, the death of Louis the Sixteenth, and the course of the 
 consequent events.' There is not, perhaps, a conspicuous public 
 man now in Europe who could say this ; certainly there is none 
 in England. The picturesque features of Lord Lyndhurst's 
 mind and character made the phenomenon still more striking. 
 The characteristic of his intellect was the combination of great 
 force and great lucidity. Every sentence from him was full of 
 light and energy. His face and brow were, perhaps, unrivalled 
 in our time for the expression of pure intellect, and he pre- 
 served the physical aptitude for public [oratory to an old age 
 when most men are scarcely fit for mere conversation. To the 
 very extremity of a protracted life and this is very rare he 
 both looked, and was, a great man. The intellect was un- 
 dimmed, and the power of expression hardly abated. There is 
 no such man left. 
 
 It is very natural that such a man should have lived till 
 his career should be half a myth or a legend. Few, indeed, of 
 those who, during the last few years, gazed on that remarkable 
 face, had any distinct conception of the life which had been 
 led by the person they saw. This singular vigour of his con- 
 versation charmed those who resorted to him, and they were 
 led to believe that a man who talked so very well could hardly 
 have acted very ill. The lives which have been 'put forth in
 
 What Lord Lyndhurst really was. 325 
 
 the newspapers, carefully prepared, like those of most old men, 
 are merely panegyrics. For once the physical vigour of a long 
 old age has redeemed, in public estimation, the errors and vices 
 of a long life. But it is not so that history should be written ; 
 it is in no strain of panegyric that an impartial observer can 
 review the career of Lord Lyndhurst. 
 
 The beginning of the public life of Lord Lyndhurst was 
 towards the end of the long reign of the Tory party. Sir 
 George Lewis justly observed 'that the Tories in 1815 had an 
 immense balance of popularity arising from the successful issue 
 of the great war, and that they managed to spend it most 
 completely before 1830.' They governed, as all Conservatives 
 even would now admit, in precisely the wrong spirit. 
 
 They governed, not in the spirit of Mr. Pitt, but in the 
 spirit of Lord Eldon. They maintained not only the main in- 
 stitutions of the country which were acceptable and popular, 
 but also the minutest abuses which, in the course of years, had 
 clung to those institutions. They connected the name of the 
 Tory party with every petty abuse and misdemeanour through- 
 out the country. They would alter nothing, and they would 
 let nothing be altered. When public meetings were convened 
 to express public opinion, the organs of the Government cried 
 out sedition, and talked as if a ' French Eevolution ' were going 
 to break out here. By this stupid there is no milder epithet 
 that is fitting and narrow-minded policy, the Tories caused 
 the outburst of public opinion which carried the Eeform Bill. 
 Their best organs have admitted as much of late years. ' A 
 few more drops,' said the ' Quarterly Review ' not long since, 
 * of Eldonine, and we should have had the People's Charter.' 
 The Tory party kept the nation in such tight and painful fet- 
 ters, that it was driven wild, and rose and broke them. If the 
 Tories will permit no improvement so went the national idea 
 we must have an end of Toryism. 
 
 All this was excusable and natural in men like Lord Eldon. 
 He had been a Tory from his youth, and he had been confirmed
 
 326 What Lord Lyndhurst really was. 
 
 in Toryism by the events of the French Revolution. When 
 the peace came, and a new generation sprang up, he was too 
 old to change his creed. He honestly believed that it was 
 necessary to resist every innovation, no matter of what sort, 
 and to maintain everything, no matter of what kind. In Lord 
 Eldon such conduct was natural and excusable. But it was 
 not natural in a young man of great intelligence in the next 
 generation. Able young men well knew that this illiberal 
 Toryism was out of place, and an anachronism. It was in 1818, 
 when the effects of this system were beginning to be plainly 
 visible, that Lord Lyndhurst chose to connect himself with it. 
 
 He did so under circumstances of great suspicion. He 
 had held loosely, we apprehend some sort of ultra-Liberal 
 opinions. He had been, at any rate, in the habit of talking in 
 that style at young men's parties and the circuit mess. He 
 was a Liberal, if he was anything ; and charges continued to be 
 made against him for many years of having deserted his prin- 
 ciples. It is, indeed, utterly inconceivable that Lord Lynd- 
 hurst should have believed in Toryism such as Toryism was in 
 1818. He would have no title to fame if he had believed in it. 
 His claim is an intellectual claim. He is said, and justly said, 
 to have had, when he chose to exert it, an intellect of the 
 highest cultivation, more fitted than almost any other in his 
 time for the perception of the truth ; a first-rate judicial mind, 
 with culture and experience far transcending the ordinary judi- 
 cial range. 
 
 It is inconsistent with this claim that he should really have 
 been on the wrong side in all the important questions of his 
 time. It is absurd to say that the greatest political intellect 
 of his time and some such claim as this might be justly made 
 for Lord Lyndhurst really believed that the Catholics should 
 not be emancipated; that the Corn Laws should be main- 
 tained ; that there should be no reform in Parliament ; that 
 the narrow system of 1818 was a perfect or even an endurable 
 system. We do not mean to charge him with acting contrary to
 
 What Lord Lyndhurst really was. 327 
 
 his principles that charge was made years ago, but was the ex- 
 aggerated charge of political opponents, who saw that there was 
 something to blame, but who in their eagerness and haste over- 
 did their accusation. The true charge is that he had no prin- 
 ciples, that he did not care to have opinions. If he had applied 
 his splendid judicial faculties to the arguments for Free-trade 
 or for Catholic emancipation, he would soon enough have dis- 
 covered the truth. But he never did apply them. There is a 
 story of a clever young official ' who said it was inconvenient to 
 keep opinions.' And this exactly expresses Lord Lyndhurst's 
 life and sentiments. They tell a story which may be true or 
 false, but is certainly characteristic of what he said as to the 
 Act which bears his name forbidding a man to marry a deceased 
 wife's sister. The real object of that Act was to please certain 
 particular people who had married their sisters-in-law, and as 
 it stands to this day it legalises all antecedent marriages. As 
 it was originally brought in, it legalised subsequent marriages 
 also. Persons conversant with the clergy, and other strict people 
 represented to Lord Lyndhurst that there would be an outcry 
 against this. He replied, ' Put it the other way, then, forbid 
 the future marriages ; I am sure I do not care which way it is.' 
 He wanted to serve a temporary purpose, and he did so always. 
 He regarded politics as a game ; to be played first for himself, 
 and then for his party. He did not act contrary to his opinion, 
 but he did not care to form a true opinion. 
 
 This was the explanation of his joining the Tories. Not to 
 join them was poverty then ; to join them was wealth. They 
 were firmly fixed in office. As the satirist then sang 
 
 Xaught's constant in the human race, 
 Except the Whigs not getting into place. 
 
 As was the pleasant habit of that time, the Government 
 picked out Mr. Copley, a clever young lawyer, and gave him a 
 seat in Parliament- 
 He accepted it, though he had no more formed opinion that
 
 328 What Lord Lyndhurst really was. 
 
 Toryism was true than he had that Mahometanism was true. 
 He took up the opinions of the exisiting Government and advo- 
 cated them, and to the end of his life would have thought it 
 ' nonsense and rubbish ' to act otherwise. 
 
 Probably, however, he would have acted more profitably if 
 he had acted more conscientiously. It really was a case when 
 honesty was the best policy. If he had paid a fair attention to 
 the subjects of his time, he would have been on what all 
 parties now admit to be the right side. If he had had a sincere 
 wish to improve and benefit mankind, he would have been for- 
 ward in the ranks of the Liberal party, who were then employed 
 in doing so. The chances of life were various, but most likely 
 he would have had his reward. The Whigs wanted a first-rate 
 judge who was also a first-rate politician. During their long 
 period of power they have never possessed one. The Whigs 
 have been in power, roughly speaking, five-and-twenty years 
 out of the last thirty. If Lord Lyndhurst had been their 
 leader instead of the Tory leader, he would have had far more 
 of what he valued, more power and influence, more wealth, and 
 greater station. He would have been among the foremost of 
 the winners instead of being amongst the foremost of the losers. 
 There was nothing which he would have liked so much. There 
 was nothing which he appreciated so much as success in the 
 game of political life ; nothing that he depised and detested 
 like want of success. 
 
 It is pleasant to turn to a more favourable topic. Many 
 duties Lord Lyndhurst may have neglected, or despised, or dis- 
 owned; but one duty, and a neglected one, he performed 
 better, perhaps, on the whole, than any man in his generation. 
 He had the most disciplined intellect of his time. There is 
 in every one of his productions evidence not only of natural 
 sinewy strength, but of careful culture and intellectual gym- 
 nastic. Lord Brougham tells a story of finding him occupied 
 over the integral calculus for amusement's sake, years ago. 
 Every line of his speeches tells how well he understocd, and
 
 What Lord Lyndhurst really was. 329 
 
 how well he acted on, the manly principles of Greek oratory. 
 Few men led a laxer life ; few men, to the very end of their 
 life, were looser in their conversation ; but there was no laxity 
 in his intellect. Everything there was braced and knit. Great 
 oratory is but a transitory art; few turn even to the best 
 speeches of the past, and even the best of these are so clogged 
 with the detail of the time that they are dull and wearisome 
 to a hasty posterity. Few will recur to Lord Lyndhurst's 
 speeches, but those who do so will find some of the best, if 
 not the very best, specimens in English, of the best manner in 
 which a man of great intellect can address and influence the 
 intellects of others. Their art, we might almost say their 
 merit, is of the highest kind, for it is concealed. The words 
 seem the simplest, clearest, and most natural that a man 
 could use. It is only the instructed man who knows that he 
 could not himself have used them, and that few men could. 
 
 Such was the great man whom we have just buried : great 
 in power, but not great in the use of power; a politician, not a 
 statesman ; a man of small principle and few scruples. Of 
 him, far more truly than of Burke, it may be said that ' to 
 party he gave up what was meant for mankind.' 
 
 He played the game of life for low and selfish objects, 
 and yet, by the intellectual power with which he played it, he 
 redeemed that game from its intrinsic degradation.
 
 330 
 
 THE TRIBUTE AT HEREFORD TO SIR G. C. LEWIS. 
 
 [1864.] 
 
 NOTHING could be in more perfect taste than the proceedings at 
 Hereford on the uncovering of the statue of Sir George Lewis. 
 These local events are local casualties. It is impossible to fore- 
 tell whether the principal local person is not a loquacious fool 
 of good intentions who will say just what he should not, or 
 whether he is a man of feeling and judgment, who will say 
 what he should say with taste and propriety. 
 
 There is nothing which Sir George Lewis would so much 
 have disliked as an exaggerated eloge over his grave ; those who 
 knew him would have had his quiet smile of utter contempt 
 present to them while they read it. Happily nothing of this 
 sort was attempted. The sober arid modest nature of the man 
 was duly honoured in the quiet and unobtrusive nature of the 
 remembrance. 
 
 Both Mr. Clive and Lord Palmerston spoke of Sir George 
 Lewis with guarded care, as English gentlemen wish to be 
 spoken of, as one English gentleman, therefore, should speak 
 of another. Sir George Lewis had no enemies, but, if he had, 
 no enemy could have taken a just exception to the praises of 
 his friends. He would have exactly desired this. He cared 
 very little, perhaps nothing, for passing popularity ; he would 
 have been prepared with various classical quotations upon the 
 mutability of the vulgar judgment, but he would deeply value 
 a restrained expression of deep respect by neighbours and 
 friends who knew him well ; he would have believed that they
 
 The Tribute to Sir G. C. Lewis. 331 
 
 were the legitimate ' authority,' the persons who ought to speak 
 on that matter. 
 
 It is very curious that Lord Palmerston, who spoke, so to 
 say, Sir George Lewis's epitaph, should have had the slowest, 
 and that Sir George Lewis should have had the most rapid, 
 political rise of our time. Unquestionably Lord Palmerston is in 
 some sense a buoyant man, and Sir Greorge Lewis was in some 
 sense a heavy man, yet the latter came to the surface far quicker. 
 Lord Palmerston was a quarter of a century in Parliament 
 before he was anything at all before he was an)* more than a 
 subaltern official ; Sir Greorge Lewis was only thirteen years in 
 Parliament altogether, and in that time he was Secretary of 
 the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, 
 Secretary for War, and had acquired the perfect respect and 
 confidence of the House of Commons. He finished his whole 
 career as a statesman in about half the number of years that it 
 took Lord Palmerston to become a statesman at all. 
 
 The causes which so much delayed Lord Palmerston's rise 
 are not to the present purpose, but the cause which so much 
 accelerated that of Sir George Lewis is very simple. He had, 
 above every other statesman of the age, the gift of inspiring 
 confidence. Coleridge said of Southey that he inspired every 
 one with a confidence in his reliability, and this is an almost 
 exact description of Sir George Lewis. Political opponents and 
 political friends both felt that he had fairly applied a strong 
 and unfettered mind to vast accumulated information, and 
 that his measures were the result of that application. People 
 thought twice before they opposed a grave and business-like 
 measure, proposed by Sir George Lewis in that grave and 
 business-like manner. 
 
 In one most important respect he was like Lord Palmerston, 
 though in every other most unlike. His opinions were always 
 plain and simple opinions. People who went to him with the 
 notion that he was a great philosopher and scholar were often 
 puzzled at his plainness. They expected something far-fetched
 
 332 The Tribute to Sir G. C. Lewis. 
 
 and recondite, and certainly they did not get it. He held as a 
 principle that difficult schemes, fine calculations, unintelligible 
 policies, were, as such, beyond the range of popular govern- 
 ment. Perhaps too he hated them as if they were a kind of 
 mysticism. At all events a person who could not understand 
 Sir George Lewis's conversation on political business, must 
 have been unfit for every kind of business. It had exactly the 
 homely exactitude that English people like. We have heard 
 it remarked of Sir Kobert Peel's speeches that he generally 
 made a remark which seemed to have been left by every one 
 on purpose for him ; it was so sensible when made, that every 
 one believed he could have made it. It was much the same 
 with Sir George Lewis. What he said seemed so credible and 
 sensible that in an hour or two you were apt to believe that 
 you had always thought so. 
 
 Possibly this distinctness of aim has been rather deficient 
 in our policy for a year past. We certainly believe that Sir 
 George Lewis could have cross-examined Lord Russell on the 
 Danish policy rather acutely. * What/ he would have said, ' is 
 the object you desire ? When you are agreed on that, we will 
 discuss the modus operandi ; but it is a mistake to deliberate 
 on expedients when there is a fundamental discrepancy respect- 
 ing ends.' At any rate we should like to hear Lord Russell 
 answer Sir George Lewis on this subject. This need of a 
 definite aim ran through all bis speculations. To take an 
 example from the foreign politics now most interesting to us 
 American politics : ' I have never,' said Sir George Lewis in a 
 letter of March 1861, now lying before us, 'been able, either 
 in conversation or by reading, to obtain an answer to the ques- 
 tion, What will the North do if they beat the South ? To 
 restore the old Union would be an absurdity. What other state 
 of things does that village lawyer, Lincoln, contemplate, as the 
 fruit of victory ? It seems to me that the men now in power 
 at Washington are much such persons as in this country get 
 possession of a disreputable joint-stock company. There is
 
 The Tribzite to Sir G. C. Lewis. 333 
 
 almost the same amount of ability and honesty.' After nearly 
 three years of experience it would be difficult to describe 
 Washington more justly. 
 
 But we do not cite the instance to prove Sir George Lewis's 
 power of prediction, so much as to prove his unfailing desire for 
 a distinct aim. 
 
 The political precision of Sir George Lewis is peculiarly 
 English, but it is not at all more English than his scholarship. 
 Persons who do not read such books may fancy that ' scholars ' 
 books ' are much the same in all countries. But such is not 
 the case. Mr. Grote's History, to take an instance, could no 
 more have been written in Germany than Bacon's * Novurn 
 Organon ' could have been written by Socrates. That history 
 belongs to the intellectual atmosphere of England as plainly as 
 our parliamentary debates. There is in it the constant sense 
 of evidence, the habitual perception of tested probability, which 
 the atmosphere of a free country produces and must produce. 
 Sir George Lewis's books have this instinctive sense of the 
 real value of evidence even more than Mr. Grote's. He could 
 not help feeling it ; he did not wish to forget it, and he could 
 not have forgotten it if he had wished. 
 
 Sir George Lewis is gone, but he has left a remembrance 
 in many minds which will not grow cold^while they are still 
 warm. For many years it will to many be much to have 
 known one who was learned and yet wise, just but yet kind; 
 considerate and observing, and yet never in the least severe.
 
 334 
 
 MR. COBDEN. 
 
 [1865.] 
 
 TWENTY-THREE years ago and it is very strange that it should 
 be so many years when Mr. Cobdeu first began to hold Free- 
 trade meetings in the agricultural districts, people there were 
 much confused. They could not believe the Mr. Cobden they 
 saw to be the * Mr. Cobden that was in the papers.' They 
 expected a burly demagogue from the North, ignorant of rural 
 matters, absorbed in manufacturing ideas, appealing to class 
 prejudices hostile and exciting hostility. They saw * a sensi- 
 tive and almost slender man, of shrinking nerve, full of rural 
 ideas, who proclaimed himself the son of a farmer, who under- 
 stood and could state the facts of agricultural life far better 
 than most agriculturists, who was most anxious to convince 
 every one of what he thought the truth, and who was almost 
 more anxious not to offend any one.' The tradition is dying 
 out, but Mr. Cobden acquired, even in those days of Free-trade 
 agitation, a sort of agricultural popularity. He excited a per- 
 sonal interest, he left what may be called a sense of himself 
 among his professed enemies. They were surprised at finding 
 that he was not what they thought ; they were charmed to find 
 that he was not what they expected ; they were fascinated to 
 find what he was. The same feeling has been evident at his 
 sudden death a death at least which was to the mass of occupied 
 men sudden. Over political Belgravia the last part of Eng- 
 lish society Mr. Cobden ever cultivated there was a sadness. 
 Every one felt that England had lost an individuality which it
 
 Mr. Cob den. 335 
 
 could never have again, which was of the highest value, which 
 was in its own kind altogether unequalled. 
 
 What used to strike the agricultural mind, as different from 
 what they fancied, and most opposite to a Northern agitator, 
 was a sort of playfulness. They could hardly believe that the 
 lurking smile, the perfectly magical humour which they were 
 so much struck by, could be that of a ' Manchester man.' Mr. 
 Cobden used to say, ' I have as much right as any man to call 
 myself the representative of the tenant farmer, for I am a far- 
 mer's son, and the son of a Sussex farmer.' But agriculturists 
 keenly felt that this was not the explanation of the man they 
 saw. Perhaps they could not have thoroughly explained, but 
 they perfectly knew that they were hearing a man of singular 
 and most peculiar genius, fitted as if by ' natural selection ' for 
 the work he had to do, and not wasting a word on any other 
 work or anything else, least of all upon himself. 
 
 Mr. Cobden was very anomalous in two respects. He was a 
 sensitive agitator. Generally, an agitator is a rough man of the 
 O'Connell type, who says anything himself, and lets others say 
 anything. You 'peg into me and I will peg into you, and 
 let us see which will win,' is his motto. But Mr. Cobden's habit 
 and feeling were utterly different. He never spoke ill of any one. 
 He arraigned principles, but not persons. We fearlessly say 
 that after a career of agitation of thirty years, not one single 
 individual has we do not say a valid charge, but a producible 
 charge a charge which he would wish to bring forward against 
 Mr. Cobden. You cannot find the man who says, ' Mr. Cobden 
 said this of me, and it was not true.' This may seem trivial 
 praise, and on paper it looks easy. But to those who know the 
 great temptations of actual life it means very much. How 
 would any other great agitator, O'Connell or Hunt or Cobbett 
 look, if tried by such a test ? Very rarely, if even ever in his- 
 tory, has a man achieved so much by his words been victor in 
 what was thought at the time to be a class struggle and yet 
 spoken so little evil as Mr. Cobden. There is hardly a word
 
 336 Mr. Cob den. 
 
 oo 
 
 to be found, perhaps, even now, which the recording angel 
 would wish to blot out. We may on other grounds object to 
 an agitator who lacerates no one, but no watchful man of the 
 world will deny that such an agitator has vanquished one of 
 life's most imperious and difficult temptations. 
 
 Perhaps some of our readers may remember as vividly as we 
 do a curious instance of Mr. Cobden's sensitiveness. He said 
 at Drury Lane Theatre, in tones of feeling, almost of passion, 
 curiously contrasting with the ordinary coolness of his nature, ' I 
 could not serve with Sir Robert Peel.' After more than twenty 
 years, the curiously thrilling tones of that phrase still live in 
 our ears. Mr. Cobden alluded to the charge which Sir Robert 
 Peel had made, or half made, that the Anti-Corn Law League 
 and Mr. Cobden had, by their action and agitation, conduced 
 to the actual assassination of Mr. Drummond, his secretary, and 
 the intended assassination of himself Sir Robert Peel. No 
 excuse or palliation could be made for such an assertion except 
 the most important one, that Peel's nerves were as susceptible 
 and sensitive as Mr. Cobden's. But the profound feeling with 
 which Mr. Cobden spoke of it is certain. He felt it as a man 
 feels an unjust calumny, an unfounded stain on his honour. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli said on Monday night (and he has made many 
 extraordinary assertions, but this is about the queerest), * Mr. 
 Cobden had a profound reverence for tradition.' If there is any 
 single quality which Mr. Cobden had not, it was traditional 
 reverence. But probably Mr. Disraeli meant what was most true, 
 that Mr. Cobden had a delicate dislike of offending other men's 
 opinions. He dealt with them tenderly. He did not like to have 
 his own creed coarsely attacked, and he did he could not help 
 doing as he would be done by ; he never attacked any man's 
 creed coarsely or roughly, or in any way except by what he in 
 his best conscience thought the fairest and justest argument. 
 
 This sensitive nature is one marked peculiarity in Mr. 
 Cobden's career as an agitator, and another is, that he was an 
 agitator for men of business.
 
 Mr. Cobden. 337 
 
 Generally speaking, occupied men charged with the respon- 
 sibilities and laden with the labour of grave affairs are jealous of 
 agitation. They know how much may be said against any one 
 who is responsible for anything. They know how unanswerable 
 such charges nearly always are, and how false they easily may 
 be. A capitalist can hardly help thinking, ' Suppose a man was to 
 make a speech against my mode of conducting my own business, 
 how much would he have to say ! ' Now it is an exact descrip- 
 tion of Mr. Cobden, that by the personal magic of a single- 
 minded practicability he made men of business abandon this 
 objection. He made them rather like the new form of agitation. 
 He made them say, ' How business-like, how wise, just what it 
 would have been right to do.' 
 
 Mr. Cobden of course was not the discoverer of the Free- 
 trade principle. He did not first find out that the Corn Laws 
 were bad laws. But he was the most effectual of those who 
 discovered how the Corn Laws were to be repealed, how 
 Freetrade was to change from a doctrine of the 'Wealth 
 of Nations ' into a principle of tariffs and a fact of real life.. 
 If a thing was right, to Mr. Cobden's mind it ought to 
 be done ; and as Adam Smith's doctrines were admitted on 
 theory, he could not believe that they ought to lie idle, that 
 they ought to be * bedridden in the dormitory of the under- 
 standing.' 
 
 Lord Houghton once said, ' In my time political economy 
 books used to begin, " Suppose a man on an island." ' Mr. 
 Cobden's speeches never began so. He was altogether a man of 
 business speaking to men of business. Some of us may remember 
 the almost arch smile with which he said ' the House of Commons 
 does not seem quite to understand the difference between a 
 cotton mill and a print work.' It was almost amusing to him 
 to think that the first assembly of the first mercantile nation 
 could be, as they were and are, very dim in their notions of the 
 most material divisions of their largest industry. It was this 
 evident and first-hand familiarity with real facts and actual 
 
 z
 
 338 Mr. Cobden. 
 
 life which enabled Mr. Cobden to inspire a curiously diffused 
 confidence in all matter-of-fact men. He diffused a kind 
 of ' economical faith.' People in those days had only to say, 
 * Mr. Cobden said so,' and other people went and ' believed it.' 
 
 Mr. Cobden had nothing in the received sense classical 
 about his oratory, but it is quite certain that Aristotle, the 
 greatest teacher of the classical art of rhetoric, would very 
 keenly have appreciated his oratory. This sort of economical 
 faith is exactly what he would most have valued, what he 
 most prescribed. He said : ' A speaker should convince his 
 audience that he was a likely person to know.' This was 
 exactly what Mr. Cobden did. And the matter-of-fact philoso- 
 pher would have much liked Mr. Cobden's habit of * coming to 
 the point.' It would have been thoroughly agreeable to his 
 positive mind to see so much of clear, obvious argument. He 
 would not, indeed, have been able to conceive a ' League Meet- 
 ing.' There has never, perhaps, been another time in the 
 history of the world when excited masses of men and women 
 hung on the words of one talking political economy. The 
 excitement of these meetings was keener than any political 
 excitement of the last twenty years, keener infinitely than 
 any which there is now. It may be said, and truly, that the 
 interest of the subject was Mr. Cobden's felicity, not his mind; 
 but it may be said with equal truth that the excitement 
 was much greater when he was speaking than when any one 
 else was speaking. By a kind of keenness of nerve, he said the 
 exact word most fitted to touch, not the bare abstract under- 
 standing, but the quick individual perceptions of his hearers. 
 
 We do not wish to make this article a mere panegyric. Mr. 
 Cobden was far too manly to like such folly. His mind was 
 very peculiar, and like all peculiar minds had its sharp limits. 
 He had what we may call a supplementary understanding, that 
 is, a bold, original intellect, acting on a special experience, and 
 striking out views and principles not know to or neglected by 
 ordinary men. He did not possess the traditional education of
 
 Mr. Cobden. 339 
 
 his country, and did not understand it. The solid heritage of 
 transmitted knowledge has more value, we believe, than he 
 would have accorded to it. There was too a defect in business 
 faculty not identical, but perhaps not altogether without analogy. 
 The late Mr. James Wilson used to say, ' Cobden's administra- 
 tive power I do not think much of, but he is most valuable in 
 counsel, always original, always shrewed, and not at all extreme.' 
 He was not altogether equal to meaner men in some beaten 
 tracks and pathways of life, though he was far their superior 
 in all matters requiring an original stress of speculation, an 
 innate energy of thought. 
 
 It may be said, and truly said, that he has been cut off 
 before his time. A youth and manhood so spent as his well 
 deserved a green old age. But so it was not to be. He has 
 left us, quite independently of his positive works, of the repeal 
 of the Corn Laws, of the French treaty, a rare gift the gift of 
 a unique character. There has been nothing before Eichard 
 Cobden like him in English history, and perhaps there will 
 not be anything like him. And his character is of the simple, 
 emphatic, picturesque sort which most easily, when opportuni- 
 ties are given as they were to him, goes down to posterity. May 
 posterity learn from him ! Only last week we hoped to have 
 learned something ourselves. . 
 
 ' But what is before us we know not, 
 And we know not what shall suceed.' 
 
 z 2
 
 340 
 
 LORD PALMERSTON. 
 
 [1865.] 
 
 LORD PALMERSTON only died on Wednesday, and already the 
 world is fall of sketches and biographies of him. It is very 
 natural that it should be so, for he counted for much in English 
 politics : his personality was la power, and it is natural that 
 every one should, at his death, seek to analyse what we used to 
 have, and what we have now lost. We will do so, but, remem- 
 bering how often the tale has been told, we will be as brief as 
 possible. 
 
 Lord Derby happily said that he was born in the ' pre- 
 scientific' period, and Lord Palmerston was so born, or even more- 
 He was, it is true, a boarder atDugald Stewart's, and we believe 
 transcribed at least a part of the lectures on political economy 
 of that philosopher, lately published. But the combined in- 
 fluence of interior nature and the surrounding situation was too- 
 strong. His real culture was that of living languages and the 
 actual world. He was the best French scholar among his con- 
 temporaries so much so that when he went to Paris in 1859, 
 the whole society, which fancied he was an imperious and igno- 
 rant Englishman, was charmed by the grace of his expression. 
 His English in all his speeches was sound and pure, and in his 
 greater efforts almost fastidiously correct. The feeling for 
 language, which is one characteristic of a great man of the 
 world, was very nice in Lord Palmerston, and very charac- 
 teristic. 
 
 It was from the actual knowledge of men from close 
 specific contact that Lord Palmerston derived his data. We
 
 Lord Palmerston. 34 1 
 
 have heard grave men say with surprise, ' He always has an 
 anecdote to cap his argument. He begins, '' I knew a man 
 once," ' and the anecdotes had no trace of the garrulity of age : 
 they were real illustrations of the matter in hand. They were 
 the chosen instances of a man who thought in instances. Some 
 think, as the philosophers say, by * definition,' others by ' type.' 
 Lord Palmerston, like an animated man used to the animated 
 world, thought in examples, and hardly realised abstract words. 
 
 It was because of this that in international matters the 
 only ones for which in youth he cared he was a great prac- 
 tical lawyer. He knew what hardly any one knows, the 
 subject-matter. He knew the cases with which during a long 
 life he had to deal. To most men international law is a matter 
 of precedent and words ; to him it was a matter of personal 
 adventure and reality. Some people not unqualified to judge 
 have said that his opinion on such matters was as good as any 
 law officer's. He might not have studied Vattel or Wheaton 
 so closely as some, but he had, what is far better, followed with 
 a keen interest the actual and necessary practice of present 
 nations. 
 
 It was this sort of worldly sympathy and worldly education 
 which gave Lord Palmerston his intelligibility. He was not a 
 common man, but a common man might have been cut out of 
 him. He had in him all that a common man has, and something 
 more. And he did not at all despise, as some philosophers 
 teach people to do, the common part of his mind. He was 
 profoundly aware that the common mass of plain sense is the 
 great administrative agency of the world ; and that if you keep 
 yourself in sympathy with this you win, and if not you fail. 
 Sir George Lewis used to say that just as Demosthenes 
 declared action to be the first, second, and third thing in a 
 statesman, so intelligibility is the first, second, and third 
 thing in a constitutional statesman. It is to us certainly the 
 first, second, and third thing in Lord Palmerston. This is 
 not absolutely eulogistic. No one resembled less than Lord
 
 3 4 2 Lord Palmerston. 
 
 Palmerston the fancied portrait of an ideal statesman lay- 
 ing down in his closet plans to be worked out twenty years 
 hence. He was a statesman for the moment. Whatever was 
 not wanted now, whatever was not practicable now, whatever 
 would not take now, he drove quite out of his mind. The 
 pre-requisites of a constitutional statesman have been defined as 
 the ' powers of a first-rate man, and the creed of a second-rate 
 man.' The saying is harsh, but it is expressive. Lord Palmer- 
 ston's creed was never the creed of the far-seeing philosopher ; 
 it was the creed of a sensible and sagacious but still common- 
 place man. His objects were common objects : what was un- 
 common was the will with which hs pursued them. 
 
 No man was better in action, but no man was more free 
 from the pedantry of business. People, he has been heard to 
 say, have different minds. ' When I was a young man, the 
 Duke of Wellington made an appointment with me at half- 
 past seven in the morning, and some one asked me, Why, 
 Palmerston, how will you keep that engagement? Oh, I said, 
 of course, the easiest thing in the world. I shall keep it the 
 last thing before I go to bed.' He knew that the real essence 
 of work is concentrated energy, and that people who really have 
 that in a superior degree by nature, are independent of the 
 forms and habits and artifices by which less able and active 
 people are kept up to their labours. 
 
 Lord Palmerston prided himself on his foreign policy, on 
 which we cannot now pronounce a judgment. But it is not 
 upon this that his fame will rest. He had a great difficulty as 
 a Foreign Minister. He had no real conception of any mode of 
 life except that with which he was familiar. His idea, his 
 fixed idea, was that the Turks were a highly improving and 
 civilised race, and it was impossible to beat into him their 
 essentially barbaric and unindustrial character. He would 
 hear anything patiently, but no corresponding ideas were 
 raised in his mind. A man of the world is not an imaginative 
 animal, and Lord Palmerston was by incurable nature a man of
 
 Lord P aimer ston . 343 
 
 the world : keenly detective in what he could realise by expe- 
 rience utterly blind, dark, and impervious to what he could 
 not so realise. Even the best part of his foreign policy was 
 alloyed with this defect. The mantle of Canning had descended 
 on him, and the creed and interests of Canning. He was most 
 eager to use the strong influence of England to support free 
 institutions to aid ' the Liberal party ' was the phrase in those 
 days everywhere on the Continent. And no aim could be juster 
 and better it was the best way in which English strength 
 could be used. But he failed in the instructed imagination 
 and delicate perception necessary to its best attainment. He 
 supported the Liberal party when it was bad, and the country 
 unfit for it, as much as when it was good and the nation eager 
 for it. He did not define the degree of his sympathy, or ap- 
 portion its amount to the comparative merits of the different 
 claims made on it. According to the notions of the present age, 
 too, foreign policy should be regulated by abstract, or at least 
 comprehensive, principles, but Lord Palmerston had no such 
 principles. He prided himself on his exploits in Europe, but 
 it is by his instincts in England that he will be remembered. 
 
 It was made a matter of wonder that Lord Palmerston 
 should begin to rule the House of Commons at seventy, and 
 there is no doubt that he was very awkward at first in so ruling 
 it. Sir James Graham, and other judges of business manage- 
 ment, predicted that ' the thing would fail,' and that a new 
 Government would have to be formed. But the truth is, that 
 though he had been fifty years in the House of Commons, Lord 
 Palmerston had never regularly attended it, and even still less 
 attended to it. His person had not been there very much, and 
 his mind had been there very little. He answered a question 
 on his own policy, or made a speech, and then went away. 
 Debate was not to him, as to Mr. Pitt or Mr. Gladstone, a 
 matter of life and pleasure. Mr. Canning used to complain, ' I 
 can't get that three-decker Palmerston to bear down.' And 
 when he was made leader of the House, it came out that he
 
 344 Lord Palmerston. 
 
 hardly knew, if he did know, the forms of the House. But it 
 was a defect of past interest, not a defect of present capacity. 
 He soon mastered the necessary knowledge, and as soon as 
 he had done so the sure sagacity of his masculine instincts 
 secured him an unconquerable strength. 
 
 Something we wished to say more on these great gifts, and 
 something, too, might be said as to the defects by which they 
 were alloyed. But it is needless. Brevity is as necessary in a 
 memorial article as in an epitaph. So much is certain, we 
 shall never look upon his like again. We may look on others 
 of newer race, but his race is departed. The merits of the new 
 race were not his merits ; their defects are not his. England 
 will never want statesmen, but she will never see in our time 
 such a statesman as Viscount Palmerston.
 
 345 
 
 THE EARL OF CLARENDON. 
 
 [1870.] 
 
 THE late Lord Clarendon belonged to a very small and very 
 remarkable class of peers. There are many peers, as the 
 lawyers, who have no birth, but who worked hard in their 
 youth ; and there are also many who have the highest birth, 
 and have never worked the least. There are many who have 
 earned rank, and many who have inherited rank. But it is 
 rare to find a peer who inherits his rank, and yet who has 
 known what it is to earn his bread. Of eminent peers there is 
 perhaps hardly more than one now living of whom this is true. 
 Lord Salisbury has indeed a right to feel that circumstances 
 cannot ruin him, that a revolution may come, that the House 
 of Lords may perish, that estates may be confiscated, but that 
 his abilities as a popular writer will earn him his living as they 
 did before. Though in a different way Lord Clarendon was of 
 this class also. When he was in the Excise Office in Dublin, and 
 all through his younger life, there was but a distant probability 
 of his coming to the title ; and he had to work really for his 
 bread. And the training of his youth was probably of use to 
 him always. To the last week of his death he was a curiously 
 unremitting worker. With somewhat peculiar hours and times, 
 he got through more work probably in the twenty-four hours 
 than most administrators of his time, and finished it all with 
 care and accuracy. There were none of the gratuitous blunders 
 and hurried errors which mostly characterise the work of one 
 who is much praised for great activity ; everything was carefully 
 considered and carefully executed.
 
 346 The Earl of Clarendon. 
 
 Perhaps it is not unconnected with this praise, that there 
 was an indescribable repose about Lord Clarendon's manner and 
 appearance. No one who saw him, in his later years at least, 
 would have ever thought him a specially active man. He 
 seemed a very calm, sensible, and singularly courteous old 
 gentleman ; and it would scarcely have occurred to a casual 
 observer that he was an exceedingly indefatigable worker. 
 But those who have watched the habits of men of business in 
 politics and out of it will have seen many cases in which a still 
 and quiet man who does not seem to be doing much, and pro- 
 bably is talking of something quite different, has in matter of 
 fact and at the week's end accomplished much more than the 
 * rushing mighty wind ; ' the very energetic man who is never 
 idle or at rest and who has no thought but his office business. 
 A still man like Lord Clarendon has time to think what he will 
 do, and most incessant men are apt to act before they have 
 thought, and therefore land where they should not, or else lose 
 half their time in sailing back again. 
 
 It was, perhaps, the result of Lord Clarendon's early training 
 that he always took great interest in commerce, and whenever 
 he had the power, steadily used the agency of the Foreign 
 Office for its advantage. He was much too thoroughly on a 
 level with his time to to this by an aggressive foreign policy. 
 The old notion of fighting for foreign markets, or of intriguing 
 for their exclusive use, had so completely died out that he 
 cannot be praised for being exempt from it. Lord Clarendon 
 used only the legitimate functions for trade purposes. He was 
 especially eager for the collection of actual statistical informa- 
 tion by our foreign consuls and embassies. The commencement 
 of their reports on these subjects, and the establishment of the 
 statistical department of the Board of Trade, were largely owing 
 to his great interest in these objects. 
 
 That Lord Clarendon showed great originality as a Foreign 
 Minister will hardly be contended, and some, among whom the 
 present writer is to be counted, have grave doubts whether ex-
 
 The Earl of Clarendon. 347 
 
 treme originality in such an office is either possible or desirable. 
 Examples of great inventiveness are rare in all business, but they 
 are particularly rare in those kinds of business which require 
 the constant consent of many persons and of these the Eng- 
 lish foreign policy is one. Not, indeed, that at the moment of 
 taking his decision, the Foreign Minister is particularly tram- 
 melled. In great cases he must consult the Prime Minister 
 and perhaps the Cabinet. But if these stood by themselves, 
 having the power of peculiar information, he could probably 
 mostly carry with him the minds of men occupied with near 
 and pressing questions, and not in general ready to master 
 disagreeable and uncertain detail as to remote topics and 
 strange events. But the great obstacle to originality is the 
 English nation. In a free country a minister can only do that 
 which the nation is prepared for, and if he tries to do more the 
 nation will disown him. Within special limits, and on minor 
 questions, he can give an effectual guidance and control the 
 decision, but beyond those limits, and. on vital matters, he has 
 no power at alL The subtle power which we call 'opinion,' 
 which is the product of so long a history and the offspring of so 
 many causes, hems him in, and he cannot do as he would ; but 
 if he stays, he must act as he would not. An irritable, far-seeing 
 originality is commonly a vice in business, and in a Foreign 
 Minister it would be an intolerable nuisance. It was exactly 
 because Lord Clarendon had a delicate instinct of the limits of 
 his power, that he was so truly useful and so really influential. 
 In one respect we are not inclined to join in the universal 
 praise which within the last few days Lord Clarendon has re- 
 ceived. He has been greatly praised as a writer, and no doubt 
 he wrote not only with great facility but with much elegance. 
 But there is one great difficulty about almost all his despatches. 
 Each sentence is clear, and no word brings you to a stop ; but 
 yet after a few paragraphs a careful reader suddenly pauses to 
 think where he is and what he has assented to. And even 
 when he reads the paragraphs over again he will not always
 
 348 The Earl of Clarendon. 
 
 find it easy to be sure that he sees the limits of what was 
 meant and the limits of what was not meant. The limpid 
 flow of delicate words takes him steadily on ; but where at any 
 precise instant he is, he cannot be very confident. For the 
 former intercourse of foreign Courts this sort of style had im- 
 mense advantages ; it gave no offence, and, having no marked 
 sentences, left no barbed words for after irritation. And in 
 Lord Russell we had a warning of the evils of the opposite 
 style. He wrote as he used to speak in the House of Commons 
 With a certain cold acumen he 'pitched' (there is no less 
 familiar word adequate) ' into ' the foreign Courts, as he used 
 to ' pitch into ' Sir Robert Peel ; and not being used to Parlia- 
 mentary plainness, the foreign Courts did not like it. Lord 
 Russell hardly conducted a foreign controversy in which the 
 extreme intelligibility of his words did not leave a sting 
 behind them. Of Lord Clarendon the very contrary may be 
 said he scarcely ever left a sting, never an unnecessary one. 
 But, on the other hand, Lord Russell's despatches, hard and 
 unpleasant as they often are, never left anyone in doubt as 
 to their precise meaning. If they did mislead some foreign 
 Courts it was because they could not understand that a Minister 
 would blurt out all his meaning in that gauche manner ; but 
 to a common reader they are as plain as words can make them. 
 And, as in the present day, great despatches, being published, 
 are really addressed to whole nations of common readers as well 
 as to small Courts of special training, they ought to be so 
 written as to combine the gentle suavity that suits the one 
 with the unmistakeable plainness which is essential to the other. 
 It was exactly the gliding urbanity of Lord Clarendon's style 
 which pleased the Courts while it perplexed the common 
 people. 
 
 But we do not need now to dwell at length on a point so 
 subordinate. It is much for a man of Lord Clarendon's 
 standing to have written nearly perfectly in the old style ; it 
 is no ground for serious blame to him that he did not invent a
 
 The Earl of Clarendon. 349 
 
 new style. He will be remembered by posterity as a Minister 
 singularly suited to the transition age in which he lived, and, 
 as possessing both the courtly manners which are going out 
 and also the commercial tastes and the business knowledge 
 which are coming in. Some critics will, as we have said, find 
 fault with his want of special designs and of a far-reaching 
 policy. But to this generation of Englishmen this was no 
 fault at all. We wish that foreign nations should, as far as 
 may be, solve their own problems ; we wish them to gain all 
 the good they can by their own exertions, and to remain all 
 the evil. But we do not wish to take part in their struggles. 
 We fear that we might mistake as to what was best ; we fear 
 that in so shifting a scene we might find, years hence, when the 
 truth is known, that we had in fact done exactly the reverse of 
 what we meant, and had really injured what we meant to aid. 
 We fear that, amid the confusion, our good might turn to evil, 
 and that our help would be a calamity and not a blessing. 
 And for an age like this Lord Clarendon was a fitting Minister, 
 for he had a wise sagacity which taught him to interfere as 
 little, and to refrain from acting as much, as prudence rendered 
 possible.
 
 350 
 
 MR. LOWE AS CHANCELLOR OF THE 
 EXCHEQUER. 
 
 [1871] 
 
 * AN oak,' said a great Irish orator, who did not succeed so well 
 as he expected in England, ' an oak should not be transplanted 
 at fifty.' And we believe that to be the reason why Mr. Lowe 
 though in many respects he has shown great ability as 
 Finance Minister upon the whole has not, as yet, succeeded 
 better than many much stupider men, nor as well as his genius 
 deserved. Mr. Lowe, before he began his finance studies, had 
 already ' invested ' so much mind that most men would have 
 had no more left. His career at Oxford was unusually long ; 
 he was not a mere student who took high honours. After that 
 he stayed several years as a working tutor, and has described 
 to a Royal Commission how steadily he worked for ten hours a 
 day as a ' coach,' and how little in consequence he accepts the 
 'romance ' of tuition. And the inevitable result has been that 
 Mr. Lowe has become a scholar, not only as young students 
 become such, but as men of maturer years, who mean to earn 
 money by it, become scholars. A certain part of the substance 
 of his mind is embarked in that pursuit, and cannot now be 
 transferred to any other. After leaving Oxford, Mr. Lowe made 
 himself not only an excellent English lawyer, but an admirable 
 general jurist. He is acquainted not only with the techni- 
 calities of English law, but with the structure of other systems 
 of law, and with the principles of scientific jurisprudence. He 
 has studied what Kentham said law ' ought ' to be, and what
 
 Mr. Lowe as Chancellor of the Exchequer. 351 
 
 Austin said law ' must ' be. And this too is a very exhausting 
 study, requiring, if the knowledge is really to be acquired as 
 Mr. Lowe has acquired it, and retained as he retains it, a great 
 1 capital ' of mind. No one can wonder that, when on the 
 verge of threescore, he was suddenly made Finance Minister, he 
 should not possess or display so much free and applicable mind 
 as some younger men. Great mind he must always display. 
 But he had not displayed proportionate mind proportioned, 
 we mean, to the immense abilities which everyone knows he 
 has. After all, there is only room in even the largest head for 
 a certain number of thoughts, and Mr. Lowe had crowded his, 
 long before he had tried finance with many dissimilar and 
 occupying ideas. 
 
 It is true that under our Parliamentary system, Ministers of 
 as mature an age as Mr. Lowe are not unfrequently transferred 
 from post to post, and are placed in charge of offices with whose 
 subjects they have no knowledge. No one supposes that Mr. 
 Cardwell knew much of military business before he was made 
 Secretary for War ; and yet unquestionably he has pulled the 
 Army Eegulation Bill better through Parliament than the 
 planners who contrived it, or the soldiers who will act on it. 
 But these transferable statesmen commonly belong to a different 
 class from Mr. Lowe. Like Mr. Cardwell, they are trained 
 Parliamentary advocates. They have learned to know the 
 House of Commons, and the way of putting an argument so as 
 to suit the House of Commons, as a long-practised advocate 
 knows the sort of arguments which suit a jury, and the most 
 telling way in which to state them to a jury. Sir Eobert Peel 
 was once said to know how to ' dress up a case for Parliament ' 
 better than anyone else. And in this art these are two secrets, 
 of which Mr. Cardwell is an eminent master. The first is 
 always to content yourself with the minimum of general maxims 
 which will suit your purpose and prove what you want. By so 
 doing, you offend as few people as possible, you startle as few 
 people as passible, and you expose yourself to as few retorts as
 
 352 Mr. Lowe as Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 
 possible. And the second secret is to make the whole discus- 
 sion very uninteresting to leave an impresion that the sub- 
 ject is very dry, that it is very difficult, that the department 
 had attended to the dreary detail of it, and that on the whole 
 it is safer to leave it to the department, and a dangerous 
 responsibility to interfere with the department. The faculty of 
 disheartening adversaries by diffusing on occasion an oppres- 
 sive atmosphere of business-like dulness is invaluable to a 
 Parliamentary statesman. 
 
 But these arts Mr. Lowe does not possess. He cannot 
 help being brilliant. The quality of his mind is to put every- 
 thing in the most lively, most exciting, and most startling 
 form. He cannot talk that monotonous humdrum which men 
 scarcely listen to, which lulls them to sleep, but which seems 
 to them the ' sort of thing you would expect,' which they 
 suppose is ' all right.' And Mr. Lowe's mode of using general 
 principles not only is not that which a Parliamentary tactician 
 would recommend, but is the very reverse of what he would 
 advise. Mr. Lowe always ascends to the widest generalties, 
 The axiomata media, as logicians have called them the 
 middle principles, in which most minds feel most reality and 
 on which they find it most easy to rest have no charms for 
 him. He likes to go back to the bone, to the abstract, to the 
 attenuated, and if he left these remote principles in their 
 remote unintelligibility, he would not suffer so much. But he 
 makes the dry bones live. He wraps them in illustrations 
 which Macaulay might envy. And he is all the more effective, 
 because he uses our vernacular tongue. The phrases that * the 
 money market must take care of itself,' and that ' it was not 
 the business of the Treasury to cocker up the Bank of England,' 
 will long be remembered, and will longer impair his influence 
 with grave, quiet, and influential persons. Mr. Lowe startles 
 those who do not like to be startled, and does not compose 
 those who wish to be composed those who need a little com- 
 monplace to assure them that they are acting on safe principles
 
 Mr. Lowe as Chancellor of the Exchequer. 353 
 
 that they are not, according to the saying, ' lighting the 
 streets with fireworks.' 
 
 These defects would be felt in any new office ; hut besides 
 these, Mr. Lowe has one a physical one to which he has 
 often himself alluded, and which hampers him beyond expres- 
 sion. In our younger days he would have been cited in books 
 of ' entertaining knowledge ' as a conspicuous instance of the 
 * pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.' Being almost unable 
 to read books with his own eyes, he knows more about books than 
 almost anyone who has eyes. A wonderful memory, and an 
 intense wish to know the truth, have filled his head with know- 
 ledge ; but though great powers may compensate for inherent 
 defects, none, not even the greatest, can annihilate those 
 defects. They are ineradicable, and the consequences of them 
 will come back again to lessen every victory, and to enhance 
 every disaster. It is so with Mr. Lowe in this case. A man 
 who cannot easily read figures for himself, who cannot manipu- 
 late them for himself, who cannot throw them into various 
 shapes, as it were, on trial for himself, cannot be a great 
 financier. Our greatest financiers, Pitt, Peel, and Gladstone, 
 have all of them been men who did not take their figures from 
 others, but who spent a great almost an excessive labour on 
 the minutiae of them for themselves. It is from no lack of 
 labour, and no lack of mind, that Mr. Lowe does not do this. 
 By physical constitution he is incapable of it. 
 
 Something of this is at the bottom of Mr. Lowe's occasion- 
 ally defective dealing with small financial forms, which was the 
 only point that Mr. Disraeli made against him in criticising his 
 Budget. It is hardly possible that a man with such immense 
 disadvantages for business can have his tackle quite as ready 
 and quite as perfect as those who are more fortunate. And 
 Mr. Disraeli is scarcely the man who ought to have made the 
 taunt. No one regards these legal forms with more sublime 
 indifference than he does when it suits his object. ' Gentlemen 
 of the long robe,' he used to say when in office, ' will attend to 
 
 A A
 
 354 Mr. Lowe as Chancellor of tJie Exchequer. 
 
 these details ; ' and he would have deemed it absurd that u 
 .Minister, charged with the fate of Cabinets and the policy of 
 measures, should even consider them. And perhaps he was 
 right ; perhaps it would have been absurd. But what is un- 
 necessary for one Minister cannot be incumbent on another 
 similar Minister. It was not for Mr. Disraeli, who has scarcely 
 seemed to be able to see details and technicalities (so exclu- 
 sively did he look on them from the most elevated heights of 
 policy), to reproach Mr. Lowe with a few trivial, innocuous, and 
 excusable deficiencies in them. 
 
 The result of all this is very plain. It is that Mr. Lowe is 
 under peculiar difficulties in finance that it is not a region in 
 which his great powers can ever show to the best advantage 
 that, on the contrary, it is a region in which they will frequently 
 be seen to the greatest disadvantage. But there is a profound 
 truth in the saying that ' men of pre-eminent ability are 
 always safe ; ' not of course that so wide a phrase is to be taken 
 exactly to the letter, but that there is a * reserve fund ' in the 
 highest ability which will enable it to pull through scrapes, to 
 remedy errors, to surmount disasters, which would ruin and 
 bury common men. Mr. Lowe will certainly not have an un- 
 chequered reign at the Exchequer ; but he may reign long, 
 he may do much good, and notwithstanding many failures and 
 defects, may leave the special stamp and impress of his mind 
 on many great Budgets and important measures.
 
 55 
 
 MONSIEUR GUIZOT. 
 
 [1874] 
 
 THE announcement of the death of M. Gruizot will take the 
 minds of many back to the cold February evenings in 1 848, 
 when London, long used to political calm, was convulsed by 
 a new excitement, when we heard cried in rapid succession, 
 ' Kesignation of Gruizot,' ' Flight of Louis Philippe,' ' Pro- 
 clamation of the Kepublic,' and when the present chapter 
 of European politics began. M. Gruizot lived to see many 
 events and many changes, but none which restored him to 
 pre-eminence, or which made him once more a European 
 personage. His name was never cried in the London streets 
 again. M. Gruizot was in most respects exactly the opposite of 
 the common English notion of a Frenchman. There floats 
 in this country an idea that a Frenchman is a light, changeable, 
 sceptical being, who is fond of amusement, who is taken with 
 childish shows, who always wants some new thing, who is in- 
 capable of fixed belief on any subject, and on religion especially. 
 But Gruizot was, on the contrary, a man of fixed and intense 
 belief in religion, who was wholly devoted to serious study, 
 who probably cared as little for the frivolous side of life as any 
 human being who ever lived, who was stiff in manner and sedate 
 in politics to a fault. A Puritan born in France by mistake, is 
 the description which will most nearly describe him to an ordin- 
 ary Englishman, for he had all the solidity, the solemnity, and 
 the energy of Puritanism, as well as some of its shortcomings. 
 And it is very natural that such should be his character, for he 
 came of a Huguenot family, who really were French Puritans. 
 
 AA2
 
 356 Monsieur Guizot. 
 
 The French national character is much more various than it is 
 supposed to be according to common English ideas, and the 
 stern variety which M. Guizot represents is one of the most 
 remarkable. 
 
 Indeed, in the special peculiarity which coloured his 
 political life, he was a most characteristic Frenchman. He 
 represented their excessive propensity to political fear. As we 
 all know, a principal obstacle to good Government in France 
 is a deficiency in political courage. At the present moment 
 a very considerable part of the nation are inclined to return 
 to the Empire not that they are attached to the Empire, 
 not that they do not see its defects, not that they are not 
 ashamed of its end, but because they are so impressed by the 
 difficulties of making any other strong Government that their 
 heart fails them. They want something which will save 
 them from the Commune, and they are disposed to run 
 back to what saved them from the Commune before, without 
 any sufficient inquiry whether a better safeguard cannot be 
 found, or whether this one will be effectual. The excess of 
 their apprehension dims their eyes and distorts their judg- 
 ment. Guizot had no partiality for the Empire, or for anything 
 like the Empire,but nevertheless his whole political life rested on 
 a similar feeling and aimed at a similar end. He, too, was fright- 
 ened at revolutionary excess ; his father perished in the first 
 revolution. He was born in 1787, and consequently began his 
 intellectual life about 1800, just when the reaction against the 
 revolution was the strongest, when its evil was most exaggerated, 
 and when its good was most depreciated. A strong, serious, un- 
 original mind and such was M. Guizot's which receives such 
 penetrating impressions early in life generally holds them on, in 
 one shape or another, till the end. And so it was in this case. 
 Guizot was devoted through life to what he called the * Con- 
 servative ' policy ; he was always endeavouring to avert revolu- 
 tion ; he was incessantly in dread of tumult ; he saw attack and 
 commotion everywhere. But he had no notion what was the 
 real counterforce in France to the revolutionary force. We
 
 Monsieur Gidzot. 357 
 
 now know from experience that that force, though it calls itself 
 the force of numbers, can be controlled by appealing to 
 numbers ; that the peasant proprietors, who are the majority 
 in France, hate nothing so much and fear nothing so much ; 
 that they think revolution may take from them their property, 
 their speck of land, their * all ' ; and, therefore, they will resist 
 revolution at any time and on any pretence, and will support 
 any power which they think can prevail against it. But 
 Guizot did not perceive this great force. His great recipe for 
 preventing revolution was not by extending the suffrage, but 
 by restricting it. He did not see that the masses in France, 
 having property of their own, were only too likely to be timid 
 about property. His scheme was to resist revolution by keep- 
 ing the suffrage so high that it included only a few in the towns, 
 that it scarcely included any of the masses in the country. 
 He proposed to found the throne of constitutional liberty 
 on a select bourgeoisie few in number, moderate in disposi- 
 tion, easily conciliated by their interests. The revolution of 
 1848 might have been avoided if he had been willing a little 
 to extend the suffrage, but he would not extend it. The 
 proposals then made for so doing seem now trivial and un- 
 important, but Gruizot sincerely believed that they would ruin 
 the country ; sooner than grant them he incurred a revolution. 
 He was so perturbed by the excessive dread of revolution that 
 he could not see what was the true power with which to oppose 
 it that he threw away a mighty power that he relied solely 
 on a weak one that he caused the calamity he was always 
 fearing. 
 
 It is this great misfortune which will always colour any re- 
 trospect of M. Gruizot's career, and render it a melancholy one. 
 In many minor ways he accomplished much good. As a 
 minister of public instruction he did much much, perhaps, 
 which no other man at that time could have done for educa- 
 tion in France. When ambassador in England he did much 
 to prevent a war which was then imminent, and which M. 
 Thiers would have hurried on ; through his whole career, by
 
 358 Monsieur Guizot. 
 
 a lofty scrupulosity, he did much to raise the low level of 
 morality in French public life. As an orator he had great 
 triumphs at the tribune, though his eloquence is too" little 
 business-like and too academical for our English taste. But 
 notwithstanding these triumphs and these services, his political 
 career must ever be held to be a complete failure, for he failed 
 in the work of his life in the aim he had specially chosen as 
 his own. His mission he would have accepted the word was 
 to avert revolution, and he caused revolution. Nor is the 
 failure one which was slight in its effects, or which history can 
 forget. On the contrary, every page of present French poli- 
 tics bear witness to its importance. No French Republic and 
 no French Monarchy can now have nearly as much strength or 
 nearly as much chance of living as the Monarchy of July which 
 Guizot destroyed. 
 
 Of his literary productions, this is not the place to speak. 
 Nothing can be more unlike ordinary Parisian literature than 
 they are. That literature generally reminds its readers of the 
 old saying ' That the French would be the best cooks in Europe 
 if they had got any butcher's meat.' Of French cookery nothing 
 can be more libellous ; but of much French literature it would 
 be quite true to say that the writers would be the first in Europe 
 if they only knew anything about their subject. The power of 
 expression has been cultivated to an extreme perfection, but 
 unfortunately the writers have neglected the further task of 
 finding anything true and important to say. But M. Guizot's 
 works are the reverse of all this. A work of more solid erudition 
 than the ' History of French Civilisation ' was never written by 
 a German professor, and few Germans have ever written any- 
 thing so accurately matured, and so perfectly mastered. In 
 this respect he contrasts admirably with his great rival. There 
 used to be a story a just story in the main we believe of a 
 critic who betted that he would find five errors in any five pages 
 of Thiers' great history of the Revolution. Even his warmest 
 admirers indeed have never contended that M. Thiers had a
 
 Monsieur Gziizot. 359 
 
 scrupulous love of truth, was a careful collector of evidence, or 
 a fine judge of it when collected. But M. Cruizot was all three. 
 The labour expended on his books must have been very great, 
 and much more than it would be now, for he has himself 
 helped his successors certainly to arrive at his own conclu- 
 sions with greater ease, and perhaps also to arrive at improved 
 conclusions. 
 
 From our peculiar view, as an economical statesman, M. 
 Guizot has, we are sorry to say, no title to respect. He and 
 his fellow-ministers under Louis Pnilippe left it to the Empire 
 to improve the material condition of the French people. He 
 did little to promote railways, and he objected to the English 
 treaty of 1860 because it was an approach to Free-trade, because 
 it would enable ' the English manufacturers, after an English 
 commercial crisis, to export their goods to France and to swamp 
 the French manufacturers.' The real principles of Free-trade 
 had never penetrated into his mind, any more than into the 
 minds of Louis Philippe's other ministers, and partly on that 
 account France now looks back to the time of the Empire as to 
 the ' golden age ' of wealth and industry, and not to the time 
 of the free Monarchy. 
 
 We are sorry to have to write so much of blame of one 
 whose character all Europe respected, and some of whose virtues 
 were so valuable to France. But it is one perhaps painful con- 
 sequence of prolonged old age that a man's character at death is 
 estimated with perfect partiality. Those who most hated him 
 and those who most loved lim are mostly passed away or super- 
 seded in the scene of affairs. And if, as in M. Gruizot's case, 
 the good which he did was mostly one of temporary moral im- 
 pression, and the evil which he caused one of lasting political 
 result, there will be always more blame than praise to say. 
 The impalpable virtues can hardly be described and are mostly 
 forgotten, but the indelible consequences of the political errors 
 are fixed on the face of the world ; they cannot be overlooked, 
 and they must be spoken of.
 
 360 
 
 PROFESSOR CAIRNES. 
 
 [1875] 
 
 WE cannot attempt at this moment to give anything like a full 
 estimate of Mr. Cairnes's character, either as a political econo- 
 mist or a political writer. The first few days after the death of 
 one so eminent and so peculiar, are never favourable to such a 
 task ; and the difficulty is always greater when, as in this case, 
 he wiote much on topics on which public opinion is still divided. 
 We can only attempt a few descriptive words. 
 
 The characteristic of Mr. Cairnes's mind was a tenacious 
 grasp of abstract principle. He applied to the subjects of his 
 life exactly the sort of mind with which a great judge applies 
 the principles of law to the facts before him ; and he applied 
 it under more difficult circumstances, for, in the principles of 
 positive law, a judge can absolutely be guided by previous 
 precedent, whereas a thinker in the moral sciences has to make 
 his principles, as well as to apply them 'to find,' at least 
 often, * the dream as well as the interpretation.' This quality 
 is not common in any age, but it is particularly uncommon 
 now. The habit of popular writing a habit which is apt to 
 grow on all who deal with political and moral subjects, for it is 
 only by being in some degree popular that you will be read or 
 can be influential has a contrary influence. It generates a 
 habit of leaving out difficulties, of saying that which is easy 
 rather than that which is true, that which is clear rather than 
 that which is exact. There are a great many parts of political 
 and economical truth which are in their nature very complex, 
 just as many parts of science are so, and, in these cases, extreme
 
 Professor Cairnes. 361 
 
 easiness of comprehension in a writer is a quality to be sus- 
 pected ; for, probably, it arises from his leaving out a part 
 frequently the most difficult part of the subject. Mr. Cairnes 
 never does this ; he takes his readers through the subject, 
 just as it seemed to him to be. He did not make it artificially 
 easy, or attempt to please them by lessening its intricacies. 
 And he showed himself even more careless of popularity in 
 another way. The curiosity on such subjects is now far greater 
 than the capacity for gratifying it ; severe and abstract leason- 
 ing is necessary before they can be mastered, and there are 
 many who dislike severe and abstract reasoning. Accordingly, 
 something else is often put forward, as if it would do as well. 
 ' Figures ' are used instead of reasoning. But, as Mr. Cairnes 
 always contended, the figures of an instance do not of them- 
 selves prove anything beyond that instance. They are most 
 valuable in illustrating a distinct argument, but that argument 
 must accompany them. But, as the argument is often more 
 difficult than the illustration, it is apt not to be used, and 
 * political economy ' is in danger of dissolving into ' statistics,' 
 which is much as if anecdotes of animals were substituted for 
 the science of biology. 
 
 The constant rigour with which Mr. Cairnes withstood these 
 temptations, has given his writings a very peculiar character. 
 There is a Euclidian precision about them which fits them for 
 a tonic lor the mind, and which makes much other writing 
 seem but ' soft stuff' after we have been reading them ; at any 
 rate, you feel that you have seen, in all likelihood, the worst 
 of the subject. You have been in company with one who did 
 not spare himself anything, and who despised readers that 
 wished to be spared anything. Heading his works is like 
 living on high ground ; the ' thin air of abstract truth ' which 
 they give you, braces the mind just as fine material air does 
 the body. 
 
 The wonder that this incessant intellectual vigour was 
 displayed for years by a wasting invalid, hardly able to move,
 
 362 Professor Cairnes. 
 
 and often in the most intense pain, has long been familiar to 
 his friends, and has now been published to the world. Much 
 as those who read his writings valued his life, they felt almost 
 forbidden to grieve when they heard of his death ; for it 
 seemed selfish to wish that their instruction should be pur- 
 chased at the cost of such pain as his. Why a mind like his 
 should have been created, and then the power to use it at all 
 fully withheld, is one of the mysteries of which in this world 
 we have no solution. 
 
 By far the most remarkable of Mr. Cairnes's writings, in 
 our judgment, are his ' Logic of Political Economy ' and his 
 essays on some of the ' Unsettled Questions,' recently pub- 
 lished. In the first he defines better, as we think, than 
 any previous writer, the exact sort of science which political 
 economy is, the kind of reasoning which it uses, and the nature 
 of the relation which it, as an abstract science, bears to the 
 concrete world. Those who know how many different opinions 
 have been held on this, and how difficult a part of the subject 
 it is as a rule, prize, we think, most highly what Mr. Cairnes 
 has said on it. In his recent essays on * Unsettled Questions ' 
 in political economy, Mr. Cairnes takes up the hardest parts 
 of the subject and discusses them with a consistent power it 
 might almost be said with an enjoyment which is scarcely 
 given to any one who now remains to us. As the questions 
 with which he deals are ' unsettled,' it would be premature to 
 assume the truth of his conclusions; but this may be said, that 
 all who hereafter write on these problems, not only ought to 
 study what he has said, but also to reply to it, if they do not 
 agree with it, a process which if we may speak from some 
 experience they will not find at all easy. 
 
 We do not mean that Mr. Cairnes has conclusively solved 
 these problems; there are several on which our opinions are 
 not his. And all will agree that the recluse life which his 
 health compelled him to lead, deprived him of information, 
 and especially of a sort of easy familiarity with the course of
 
 Professor Cairhes. 363 
 
 business, which the greatest ability could not wholly make up 
 for. But under such circumstances the wonder is, not that 
 what he did was sometimes imperfect, but that he was able to 
 do anything. 
 
 We have spoken of Mr. Cairnes principally as an economist, 
 partly because that is more especially our own province, but 
 partly also because we think that was the capacity in which 
 his powers were, best fitted to work, and by which he will be 
 most remembered. But his other writings have much and 
 characteristic merit, though this is not the time to attempt an 
 estimate of them. In the presence of great difficulties, silence 
 is ' better than many words ; ' and there are few greater diffi- 
 culties than that a mind so strong and pure should have been 
 so thrust aside from life and subjected to so much pain.
 
 3 6 4 
 
 MR. DISRAELI AS A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF 
 
 COMMONS. 
 
 [1876.] 
 
 NOTHING could be more out of place or premature than to 
 review as yet Mr. Disraeli's career. That career is not yet 
 ended. But some remarks may be made on him as a member 
 of the House of Commons, in which he has sat for forty years, 
 and where he obtained his political eminence and power. That 
 part of his career is certainly over, for he has chosen to leave 
 its peculiar scene. 
 
 During this long period Mr. Disraeli has filled four parts. 
 First that of a political free-lance or outsider. And it was 
 in this that he first obtained fame. The best opportunity for 
 such a man is, when parties are breaking up; when secret 
 feelings are in many minds ; when cautious men do not know 
 what to say. The latter part of Sir Robert Peel's ministry 
 was such a period. From the time when he became con- 
 spicuously and obviously a Free-trader, there was always a 
 secret anger in the Conservative ranks which craved for an 
 outlet, but which no 'regular man' could express. This Mr. 
 Disraeli spoke out. From the time of Mr. Milne's sugar 
 amendment, in 1844, till the completion of the disruption of 
 the Tories, in 1846, Mr. Disraeli poured epigram upon epigram 
 and innuendo on innuendo on the ' organised hypocrisy ' of his 
 professed leader ; and there is no doubt that Sir Robert Peel 
 suffered exceedingly under the smart. He was, in every way, 
 a most sensitive man, and he was especially sensitive in all 
 that related to the House of Commons, which was the scene
 
 Mr. Disraeli as a Member of the House of Commons. 365 
 
 of his life, and to his position there. But now he was, for 
 the first time in his life, exposed to a style of attack to which 
 he had not the sort of power to reply, but which was for the 
 moment the most effective style of any ; and he was pained 
 accordingly. No ' free-lance,' perhaps, has ever achieved so 
 much and so suddenly as Mr. Disraeli then did. Upon this 
 part of his career an historical examiner would give him 
 first-rate marks much greater than he would give to any 
 competitor. 
 
 The next, and far the longest, of Mr. Disraeli's Parlia- 
 mentary parts is that of Leader of Opposition. And in this he 
 showed eminent mind not equal to that of his iree-lance 
 period, but still very great. His powers of epigram and 
 amusing nonsense gave infinite aid, year after year, to a party 
 that was to be beaten. And, after his fashion, he showed a 
 high magnanimity and conscience in not opposing or hamper- 
 ing the Ministry on great questions say of foreign policy, 
 when his so doing would hurt the country. But this praise 
 must end here. On all minor Parliamentary questions, Mr. 
 Disraeli has simply no conscience at all. He regards them as 
 a game as an old special pleader regarded litigation, to be 
 played so as to show your skill, and so as to win, but with- 
 out any regard to the consequences. Indeed, Mr. Disraeli, at 
 bottom, believes that they have no consequence that all is 
 settled by questions of race, * Caucasian or Semitic,' and that it 
 is simple pedantry in such things to be scrupulous. And still 
 worse than this, which is an amusing defect after all, and 
 excusable (for there are many deeper issues and causes than 
 are dreamed of in Parliamentary philosophy) Mr. Disraeli 
 often showed in Opposition a turn for nonsense, which was not 
 amusing. He has many gifts, but he has not the gift of think- 
 ing out a subject, and when he tries to produce grave thought 
 he only makes platitudes. And some of his 'mare's nests,' 
 like his diffiulty in the Franco-German War, arising out of 
 our guarantee to the Saxon provinces of Prussia, have been
 
 366 Mr. Disraeli as a Member oj the House of Commons. 
 
 almost incredible, and could only have been discovered by a mind 
 which, with many elements of genius, has also an element of 
 hare-brained recklessness. Drearier hearing, or drearier read- 
 ing, than Mr. Disraeli's Opposition harangues, when they were 
 philosophical, can hardly anywhere be found. But still, though 
 with these and other defects, he did lead the Tory Opposition 
 through long melancholy years, when one did not know who 
 else could have or who would have led it. 
 
 The next of Mr. Disraeli's Parliamentary parts was that of 
 Leader of a Ministry in a minority, where again he was first- 
 rate. He showed sometimes in 1852, in 1858, and in 1866 
 a nimbleness, a tact, and dexterity far surpassing, probably, 
 anything that Parliament has ever seen of a similar kind. He 
 ' hit the House ' to use a phrase which Burke used of a like 
 but very inferior person he ' hit the House between the wind 
 and the water,' and cut with a light witticism knots insoluble 
 by solemn argument. If, by a series of * selections,' nature had 
 made a man so fit for this kind of work, it would have been a 
 marvel. But Mr. Disraeli drifted into it, as if by chance, from 
 quite another calling and another sphere. 
 
 Lastly, Mr. Disraeli has been lately, and was but yester- 
 day, Leader of a Ministry in a majority. And here there was a 
 wonderful contrast. So far from being first-rate, he was ninth- 
 rate. He seemed to resemble those guerilla commanders who, 
 having achieved great exploits with scanty and ill-trained 
 troops, nevertheless are utterly at a loss and fail when they are 
 placed at the head of a first-rate army. In 1867 he made a 
 minority achieve wonderful things, but in 1876, when he had 
 the best majority the most numerous and obedient since 
 Mr. Pitt, he did nothing with it. So far from being able to 
 pass great enactments, he could not even despatch ordinary 
 business at decent hours. The gravest and sincerest of Tory 
 members men who hardly murmur at anything have been 
 heard to complain that it was hard that, after voting so well 
 and doing so little, they should be kept up so very late. The
 
 Mr. Disraeli as a Member of the House of Commons. 367 
 
 Session just closed will be known in Parliamentary annals as- 
 one of the least effective or memorable on record, and yet one 
 of the most fatiguing. And this collapse is no accident in Mr. 
 Disraeli's career, but a thing essentially characteristic of the 
 man, and which might have been predicted by any one who had 
 analysed the traits whicli he had shown before. If we may be 
 pardoned the metaphor though his chaff is exquisite, his 
 wheat is poor stuff. The solid part of his mind the part fit 
 for regulating bills and clauses is as inferior to that of an 
 ordinary man of decent ability, as the light and imaginative 
 part is superior. An incessant and almost avowed inaccuracy 
 pervades him. And if you ask such a man to regulate the 
 stupendous business of Parliament to arrange, and if possible 
 effect, the most complex agenda that ever was in the world 
 failure is inevitable. It is like entering a light hack for a 
 ploughing match. In the last Parliamentary situation, Mr. 
 Disraeli has scarcely seemed to be what he used to be, and this 
 because that situation was the one for which he was the least 
 suited, and the last in which he should have been placed. As 
 so often happens, having obtained the ambition of his life 
 to be a minister with power he found he had only got 
 where he ought not to be he found that he could not wield 
 the power. 
 
 And two things have been common' to Mr. Disraeli all 
 through these positions. In them all he has charmed the 
 House, and has given debates in which he took part a kind of 
 nice literary flavour which other debates had not, and which 
 there is no one left to give to them. He was the best representa- 
 tive whom the ' Republic of Letters ' ever had in Parliament, 
 for he made his way by talents especially by a fascina- 
 tion of words essentially literary. And on the other hand, 
 though he charmed Parliament, he never did anything more. 
 He had no influence -with the country. Such a vast power 
 over Englishmen as has been possessed by Lord Palmerston 
 and by Mr. Gladstone was out of the way altogether. Between
 
 368 Mr. Disraeli as a Member of the House of Commons. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli and common Englishmen there was too broad a 
 gulf too great a difference. He was simply unintelligible to 
 them. ' Ten miles from London,' to use the old phrase, there 
 is scarcely any real conception of him. His mode of regarding 
 Parliamentary proceedings as a play and game, is incompre- 
 hensible to the simple and earnest English nature. Perhaps he 
 has gained more than he has lost by the English not under- 
 standing him. At any rate the fact remains that the special 
 influence of this great gladiator never passed the walls of the 
 amphitheatre : he has ruled the country by ruling Parliament, 
 but has never had any influence in Parliament reverberating 
 from the nation itself. 
 
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 H Classifieb Catalogue 
 
 OF WORKS IN 
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.G. 
 
 AND 15 EAST i6iH STREET, NEW YORK. 
 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 
 
 Page Page 
 
 Page PC, 
 
 Abbott (Evelyn) - 
 
 2, 13 
 
 Dent (C. T.) - - 8 
 
 Leslie (T. E. C.) - 
 
 12 
 
 Seebohm (F.) - - t 
 
 (T. K.) - - - 
 
 10 
 
 De Salis (Mrs.) - - 21 
 
 Lewes (G. H.) 
 
 II 
 
 Sewcll (Eliz. M.) - 
 
 (E. A.) - 
 
 10 
 
 De Tocqueville (A.) - 2 
 
 Leyton (F.) - 
 
 H 
 
 Shakespeare - - 5, 
 
 Acland (A. H. D.) 
 
 2 
 
 Devas (C. S.) - - 12 
 
 Lodge (H, C.) 
 
 
 Shand (A. J. I.) - 
 
 Acton (Eliza) 
 
 21 
 
 Dougall(L.)- - - 15 
 
 Loftie (VV. J.) - 
 
 t 
 
 Sharpe (R. R.) - 
 
 Acworth (H. A.) - 
 
 14 
 
 Dowell (S.) 12 
 
 Longman (C. J.) - 8, 9 
 
 2~- 
 
 Shearman (M.) 
 
 /Eschylus - 
 
 13 
 
 Doyle (A. Conan) - 16 
 
 Longman (F. W.) 
 
 S 
 
 Sheppard (Edgar) 
 
 Allingham (W.) - 
 
 14, 22 
 
 Dyke (J. C. Van)- - 22 
 
 Lubbock (Sir John) 
 
 13 
 
 Shirres (L. P.) - 
 
 Anstey (F.) - 
 
 15 
 
 Ewald (H.) - - - 2 
 
 Lyall (Edna) 
 
 16 
 
 Sinclair (A.)- 
 
 Aristophanes 
 
 13 
 
 Falkener (E.) 9 
 
 Lytton (Earl of) - 
 
 15 
 
 Smith (R. Bosworth) - 
 
 Aristotle - 
 
 IO 
 
 Farnell (G. S.) - - 13 
 
 Macaulay (Lord) - 4, 15 
 
 31 
 
 (W. P. Haskett) - 
 
 Armstrong (E.) - 
 
 2 
 
 Farrar (Archdeacon) - 12, 16 
 
 Macdonald (George) - 
 
 24 
 
 Solovyofl'(V. S.) - 
 
 (G. F. Savage) 
 
 H 
 
 Fitzpatrick (W. J.) - 3 
 
 Macfarren (Sir G. A.) - 
 
 23 
 
 Sophocles - 
 
 (E. J.) - - 5, 
 
 14, 22 
 
 Fitzwygram Sir F. - 7 
 
 Mackail (J. W.) - 
 
 13 
 
 Southey (R.) 
 
 Arnold (Sir Edwin) 6 r 
 
 14, 2O 
 
 Ford (H.) 9 
 
 Macleod (H. D.) - - 12 
 
 31 
 
 Stanley (Bishop) - 
 
 (Dr. T.) - - 
 
 2 
 
 Forster (F.) 16 
 
 Macpherson (H. A.) 
 
 9 
 
 Steel (A. G.) 
 
 Ashley (W. J.) - 
 
 12 
 
 Fowler (J. K.) - - 9 Maher (M.) - 
 
 ii 
 
 (J. H.) - - - 
 
 Astor (J. J.) - - - 
 
 IS 
 
 Francis (Francis) - 9 Marbot (Baron de) 
 
 5 
 
 Stephen (Sir James) - 
 
 Atelier duLys (Author of) 20 
 
 Freeman (Edward A.) - 3 
 
 Marshman (J. C.) 
 
 5 
 
 (Leslie) 
 
 Bacon - - - - 
 
 5, 10 
 
 Froude (James A.) 3, 5, 16 
 
 Martin (A. P.) - 
 
 6 
 
 Stephens (H. Morse) - 
 
 Bagwell (R.) 
 
 2 
 
 Furneaux (W.) - - 17 
 
 Martineau (James) 
 
 *4 
 
 Stevens (R. W.) - 
 
 Bain (Alexander) - 
 
 IO 
 
 Gardiner (Samuel R.) - 3 
 
 Maskelyne (J. N.) 
 
 9 
 
 Stevenson (R. L.) 15, 17, 
 
 Baker (James) 
 
 15 
 
 Gibson (H.) - - 9 
 
 Maunder (S.) 
 
 *9 
 
 Stock (St. George) 
 
 (Sir S. W.) - 
 
 6, 8 
 
 Gilkes (A. H.) - - 16 
 
 Max Miiller (F.) n, 12, 23, 
 
 24 
 
 ' Stonehenge ' 
 
 Balfour (A. J.) - 
 
 24 
 
 Gleig (G. R.) - - 6 
 
 May (Sir T. Erskine) - 
 
 4 
 
 Stuart-Wortley (A. J.) 
 
 Ball (J. T.) - 
 
 2 
 
 Goethe- - - 14 
 
 Meade (L. T.) 
 
 H) 
 
 Stubbs (J. W.) - 
 
 Baring-Gould (S.) 
 
 22 
 
 Graham (G. F.) - - 12 
 
 Melville (G. J. Whyte) 
 
 16 
 
 Sturgis(J.) - 
 
 Barnett (S. A. and Mrs.) 
 
 12 
 
 Granville(H., Countess) 5 
 
 Mendelssohn (Felix) - 
 
 23 
 
 Suffolk & Berkshire (Earl of 
 
 Battye (Aubyn Trevor) 
 
 22 
 
 Graves (R. P.) - - 5 
 
 Merivale (Dean) - 
 
 4 
 
 Sullivan (Sir E.) - 
 
 Baynes (T. S.) - 
 
 22 
 
 Green (T. Hill) - - 10 
 
 Mill (James) 
 
 ii 
 
 Sully (James) 
 
 Beaconsfield (Earl of) - 
 
 15 
 
 Greville (C. C. F.) - 3 
 
 (John Stuart) - 11 
 
 12 
 
 Sutherland (A. and G.) 
 
 Beaufort (Duke of) 
 
 
 
 Grev (Mrs. W.) 20 
 
 Milner (G.) - ' 
 
 23 
 
 Suttner (B. von) - 
 
 Becker (Prof.) 
 
 13 
 
 Gwi'lt (J.) - - - 22 
 
 Molesworth (Mrs.) 
 
 2O 
 
 Swinburne (A. J.) 
 
 Bell (Mrs. Hugh) - 
 
 14 
 
 Haggard (H. Rider) - 16, 20 
 
 Montague (C.) 
 
 7 
 
 Symes (J. E.) 
 
 Bent (J. Theodore) 
 
 6 
 
 Halliwell-Phillipps (J.) 5 
 
 Montague (F. C.) 
 
 4 
 
 Theocritus - 
 
 Besant (Walter) - 
 
 2 
 
 Harrison (Jane E.) - 13 
 
 Murdoch (W. G. Burn) 
 
 7 
 
 Thomson (Archbishop) 
 
 Bjornsen (B.) 
 
 ' 14 
 
 Harte (Bret) - - 16 
 
 Murray (R. F.) - 
 
 H 
 
 Todd(A.) - 
 
 Boase (C. W.) 
 
 3 
 
 Hartwig (G.) - - 17, 18 
 
 Nansen (F.) - 
 
 7 
 
 Toynbee (A.) 
 
 Boedder (B.) 
 
 ii 
 
 Hassall (A.) 5 
 
 Nesbit (E.) - 
 
 15 
 
 Trevelyan (Sir G. O.) - 
 
 Boothby (Guy) - 
 
 6 
 
 Hawker (Col. Peter) - 9 
 
 O'Brien (W.) 
 
 4 
 
 Trollope (Anthony) 
 
 Boyd (A. K. H.) - 5, 
 
 22, 24 
 
 Hearn (W. E.) - - 3, 10 
 
 Oliphant (Mrs.) - 
 
 16 
 
 Tyrrell (R. Y.) - 
 
 Brassey (Lady) - 
 
 6 
 
 Heathcote(J.M.&C.G.) 8 
 
 Osbourne (L) 
 
 17 
 
 Van Dyke (J. C.) - 
 
 (Lord) - - 2 
 
 ,8, 12 
 
 Helmholtz (Hermann von) 18 
 
 Parr (Mrs.) - 
 
 16 
 
 Verney (Frances P. and 
 
 Bray (C. and Mrs.) 
 
 IO 
 
 Herbert (W. V.) - - 3 
 
 Payn (James) 
 
 16 
 
 Margaret M.) - 
 
 Bright (J. F.) 
 
 2 
 
 Hodgson (Shad. H.) - 10,22 
 
 Pavne-Gallwey (Sir R.) I 
 
 .<) 
 
 Virgil - ... 
 
 Bryden (H. A.) - 
 
 7 
 
 Hooper (G.) - 5 
 
 Peary (J. and R.) - 
 
 7 
 
 Von Hohnel (L.) - 
 
 Buckle (H. T.) - 
 
 2 
 
 Hopkins (F. P.) - 9 
 
 Phillips (M.) 
 
 21 
 
 Wakeman (H. O.) 
 
 Bull (T.) 
 
 21 
 
 Hornung (E. W.) - 16 
 
 Phillipps-Wolley (C.) - 8, 
 
 16 
 
 Walford (Mrs.) - - 6, 
 
 Burrows (Montagu) 
 
 3 
 
 Howard (B. D.) - - 7 
 
 Piatt (S. & J. J.) - 
 
 15 
 
 Wallaschek (R.) - 
 
 Bury (Viscount - 
 
 8 
 
 Hullah (John) - 23 
 
 Plato - 
 
 J3 
 
 Walker (Jane H.) 
 
 Butler (E. A.) 
 
 17 
 
 Hume (David) - - 10 
 
 Pole(W.) - 
 
 9 
 
 Walpole (Spencer) 
 
 (Samuel) 
 
 22 
 
 Hunt (W.) --- 3 
 
 Pollock (W. H.) - 
 
 S 
 
 Walsingham (Lord) - 
 
 Campbell-Walker (A.)- 
 
 9 
 
 Hutchinson (Horace G.) 8 
 
 Poole (W. H. and Mrs.) 
 
 22 
 
 Walter (J.) - 
 
 Chesney (Sir G.) 
 
 2 
 
 Huth (A. H.) - - 13 
 
 Poore (G. V.) 
 
 23 
 
 Watson (A. E. T.) - 8, 
 
 Cholmondeley-Pennell (H.) 8 
 
 Ingelow (Jean) - 14, 19, 20 
 
 Prendergast (J. P.) 
 
 4 
 
 Webb (S. and B.) 
 
 Cicero - - - - 
 
 13 
 
 James (C. A.) - - 22 
 
 Pritchett (R. T.) - 
 
 8 
 
 Webb (T. E.) 
 
 Clarke (R. F.) 
 
 II 
 
 Jefferies (Richard) - 21, 23 
 
 Proctor (R. A.) - 9, 18, 
 
 23 
 
 Weir (R.) 
 
 Clegg (J. T.) - - 
 
 15 
 
 Johnson (J. & J. H.) - 23 
 
 Raine (James) 
 
 3 
 
 West (B. B.) - - 17, 
 
 Clodd (Edward) - 
 
 J 3 
 
 Joyce (P. W.) - - 3 
 
 Ransome (Cyril) - 
 
 j 
 
 (C.) - - - 
 
 Clutterbuck (W. J.) - 
 Comyn (L. N.) 
 
 7 
 
 20 
 
 Justinian 10 
 Kalisch (M. M.) - - 24 
 
 Rhoades (J.) - 13, 15, 
 Rich (A.) 
 
 1 6 
 13 
 
 Weyman (Stanley) 
 Whately (Archbishop)- 
 
 Cochrane (A.) 
 
 14 | Kant (I.) 10 
 
 Richardson (Sir B. W.) 
 
 23 
 
 (E. J.) - . - 
 
 Conington (John) 
 
 13 1 Kendall (May) - - 14 
 
 Rickaby (John) - 
 
 ii 
 
 Whishaw (F. J.) - 
 
 Conybeare ( W. J .)How- 
 
 Killick (A. H.) - - 10 
 
 (Joseph) 
 
 ii 
 
 Wilcocks (J. C.) - 
 
 son (J. T.) - 
 
 20 ! Kitchin (G. W.) - - 3 
 
 Riley (J. W.) 
 
 1 5 
 
 Wilkins (G.)- 
 
 Cox (Harding) 
 
 8 Knight (E. F.) - - 7, 21 
 
 Robertson (A.) 
 
 16 
 
 Willich (C. M.) - 
 
 Crake (A. D.) 
 
 19 Kostlin (J.) - - - 5 
 
 Rockhill (W. W.) 
 
 7 
 
 Wilson (A. J.) 
 
 Creighton (Bishop) 
 
 2, 3 Ladd (G. T.) - - n 
 
 Roget (Peter M.) - - 12, 
 
 I( ) 
 
 Wishart (G.) 
 
 Crozier (J. B.) - 
 
 IO 
 
 Lang (Andrew) 
 
 Romanes (G. J.) - 
 
 13 
 
 Wolff (H. W.) - 
 
 Curzon (Hon. G. N.) - 
 
 2 
 
 3, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 19, 23 
 
 Roberts (C. G. D.) 
 
 15 
 
 Woodgate (W. B.) 
 
 Cults (E. L.) 
 
 3 
 
 Lascelles (Hon. G.) - 8, 9 
 
 Ronalds (A.) 
 
 9 
 
 Wood (J. G.) - - ] 
 
 Dante - 
 
 id 
 
 Lear (H. L. Sidney) - 22 
 
 Roosevelt (T.) 
 
 1 
 
 Wvlied.H.)
 
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