THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 A BOOK. OF SCOUNDRELS 
 STUDIES IN FRANKNESS 
 THE PAGEANTRY OF LIFE 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE 
 THACKERAY 
 
 LITERARY PORTRAITS 
 WILLIAM PITT 
 AMERICAN SKETCHES 
 ESSAYS IN BIOGRAPHY 
 
 LETTERS OF AN ENGLISHMAN 
 
 First and Second Series 
 
POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA . MADRAS 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO 
 DALLAS . SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES WHIBLEY 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1917 
 
/ wish to make due acknowledgments to Mr. 
 
 Messrs. Constable & Co., and the Editor of ' The 
 
 Fortnightly Review ' for permission to reprint the 
 
 chapters of this book which first appeared under tt.eir 
 
 auspices. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THOMAS WOLSEY, MINISTER OF WAR . i 
 
 SHAKESPEARE, PATRIOT AND TORY . . 20 
 
 EDWARD HYDE, EARL OF CLARENDON . 47 
 
 GILBERT BURNET 67 
 
 THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE .... 85 
 
 'THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' ... 107 
 
 CHARLES JAMES FOX 130 
 
 A FAMOUS TSAR 150 
 
 TALLEYRAND 173 
 
 METTERNICH 187 
 
 NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR .... 202 
 
 LORD MELBOURNE 225 
 
 SIR JAMES GRAHAM 243 
 
 THE CORN LAWS: A GROUP . . . . .254 
 
 THE EIGHTH DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE . . 312 
 
THOMAS WOLSEY 
 
 MINISTER OF WAR 
 
 IT has always been the fond boast of the English 
 that they * muddle through,' however hard they 
 are beset. The boast is not the boast of wisdom 
 and courage. He, indeed, is foolish who would let 
 his bravery outrun his prudence ; and there is small 
 merit in success which comes by accident. The truth 
 is that the man who first made a virtue of carelessness 
 deserved very ill of his country. Even if we praise 
 the valour which refuses to acknowledge defeat, we 
 must esteem yet more highly the foresight and design 
 which make defeat impossible from the first. How- 
 ever, our vice and our boast find their origin in the 
 very beginnings of our history. We have always 
 thrown away wilfully our armies and our energies, 
 and not always has a War Minister come in the nick 
 of time to save us from the consequences of our 
 folly. 
 
 One such Minister was Thomas Wolsey, a spiritual 
 ancestor in the direct line of William Pitt, father and 
 son, of Castlereagh, and of other stout contrivers of 
 victory. Born to a great inheritance of wisdom, he 
 was a natural Minister of State, as Shakespeare was a 
 
 A 
 
2 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 natural poet. The genius which God gave him he 
 marvellously perfected, until he lived in treaties and 
 thought in campaigns. The very limitations of his 
 talent favoured his success. Friend as he was of 
 scholars, prodigal founder as he proved himself of 
 learned houses, he was not of the breed of Erasmus 
 and More. A Churchman by profession, he was no 
 profound theologian ; of the Reformation, which in 
 his day tore Europe in pieces, he saw none other than 
 the political aspect. But if his King and his country 
 were touched, he was instant in defence as he was 
 prudent in counsel. So there was a oneness in his 
 character which made him irresistible to England's 
 enemies. Endowed with such a weight of authority 
 as scarce another has ever upheld, he was able by a 
 word or a gesture to enforce his will upon the world. 
 Moreover, as his biographer says, ' he had a special 
 gift of natural eloquence, with a filed tongue to pro- 
 nounce the same, that he was able to allure and per- 
 suade all men to his purpose.' And happy indeed 
 was the monarch who might lean upon his patriotism 
 and experience ! 
 
 When Henry vm. came to the throne he wished 
 nothing so ardently as to distinguish himself in the 
 pageantries of war and peace. His flamboyant de- 
 meanour, the gaiety of his aspect, were as far as the 
 poles apart from the hard, penurious austerity of his 
 father, whose hoarded wealth he was presently to 
 squander with a lavish hand. The testimony of 
 foreigners is unanimous in enthusiasm. To choose 
 
THOMAS WOLSEY 3 
 
 one of many tributes, here is what the oft-cited 
 Giustinian, Venetian ambassador, reported of him to 
 the Seigniory : ' His Majesty,' says he, ' is twenty- 
 nine years old, and very handsome. Nature could 
 not have done more for him. He is much handsomer 
 than any other sovereign in Christendom ; a great 
 deal handsomer than the King of France ; very fair, 
 and his whole frame admirably proportioned. On 
 hearing that Francis i. wore a beard, he allowed his 
 own to grow ; and as it is reddish, he has now got a 
 beard that looks like gold. He is highly accomplished ; 
 a good musician ; composes well ; is a most capital 
 horseman ; a fine jouster ; speaks good French, 
 Latin, and Spanish ; is very religious ; hears three 
 masses daily when he hunts, and sometimes five on 
 other days. He hears the Office every day in the 
 Queen's Chamber : that is to say, vesper and com- 
 pline. He is very fond of hunting, and never takes 
 his diversion without tiring eight or ten horses, which 
 he causes to be stationed beforehand along the line 
 of country he means to take ; and when one is tired 
 he mounts another, and before he gets home they 
 are all exhausted. He is extremely fond of tennis, 
 at which game it is the prettiest thing to see him 
 play, his fair skin glowing through a shirt of the 
 finest texture.' The Venetian's panegyric was well 
 deserved. In brief, it seemed to an expectant Europe 
 that there was nothing which this paragon of all the 
 virtues could not accomplish, with the aid of the 
 wisest of living counsellors. Truly, * my King and 
 
4 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 I ' might have inspired all their adversaries with a 
 salutary fear. 
 
 And yet, at the outset, Henry and his adviser were 
 compelled to set England right in the eyes of the 
 Continent. Her own troubles had driven her from 
 the councils of the great Powers. The Wars of the 
 Roses had taken their toll not only of men but of 
 repute, and upon the seventh Henry had fallen the 
 dull duty of re-establishing the credit of his realm. 
 Henry vin., being rich and ambitious, lost little time 
 in attempting to prove his prowess in the field. His 
 first campaign was a dismal failure. In alliance with 
 Ferdinand, his father-in-law, he devised an attack 
 upon France. An expedition left England in May 
 1512 for Spain, and arrived a month later at Fuenter- 
 rabia. Here disaster upon disaster overtook the 
 English. They were ill-fed, and not housed at all. 
 The Spanish suns burnt them ; the Spanish rains 
 brought pestilence upon them. Deprived of the 
 beef and beer which were the staple of their diet, 
 they had no stomach for the fight. Above all, they 
 clamoured loudly for their beer, of which their normal 
 allowance was but a poor gallon a head daily, and 
 without which they refused to move hand or foot. 
 ' And it please your Grace,' wrote Stile to the King, 
 * the greatest lack of victuals that is here is of beer, 
 for your subjects had lever for to drink beer than 
 wine or cider ; for the hot wine doth harm them, 
 and the cider doth cast them in disease and sickness.' 
 Nor even had they been willing to fight were they 
 
THOMAS WOLSEY 5 
 
 given the opportunity. Ferdinand, after his wont, 
 took refuge in intrigue and delay. And the English 
 soldiers mutinied first, and afterwards went on strike 
 for higher pay. Finally, they threw off all discipline, 
 and sailed for home without orders. The humiliation 
 of England and her King was complete. * You see,' 
 said the Emperor, ' Englishmen have so long abstained 
 from war, they lack experience from disuse.' 
 
 Then it was that Wolsey changed in a flash the 
 whole aspect of affairs. Though he held no higher 
 office than that of King's Almoner, he took sole charge 
 of the campaign which in the following year was fought 
 in France, and proved that he possessed all the qualities 
 of a Minister at War. ' Proceeding thus in fortune's 
 blissfulness,' says Cavendish, Wolsey's biographer, ' it 
 chanced the wars between France and England to be 
 open, in so much as the King, being fully persuaded, 
 and resolved, in his most royal person to invade his 
 foreign enemies with a puissant army, to delay their 
 hault brags, within their own territory : wherefore 
 it was thought very necessary, that this royal enter- 
 prise should be speedily provided and plentifully 
 furnished in every degree of things apt and convenient 
 for the same ; the expedition whereof the King's 
 highness thought no man's wit so meet, for policy 
 and painful travail, as his well-beloved almoner's 
 was, to whom therefore he committed his whole 
 affiance and trust therein. And he being nothing 
 scrupulous in anything that the King would com- 
 mand him to do, although it seemed to other very 
 
6 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 difficile, took upon him the whole charge and burden 
 of all this business, and proceeded so therein, that 
 he brought all things to a good pass and purpose in a 
 right decent order, as of all manner of victuals, pro- 
 visions, and other necessaries, convenient for so noble 
 a voyage and puissant army.' Cavendish was no poli- 
 tician. He knew not why England and France was 
 at war. He did know that, when once war was 
 declared, the King could find no better man to think 
 and to do than his almoner, Wolsey. 
 
 With the expedition of 1512 as a warning before 
 his eyes, Wolsey set himself to create and equip a 
 new army. The rank and file, which refused to bear 
 the yoke of discipline in Spain, the officers who knew 
 not how to command, were replaced by men who 
 had learned to obey, by commanders who insisted 
 upon obedience. The conditions of the time made 
 his duties easier than they would be to-day. His 
 hand was not weakened by the memory of an ancient 
 and obsequious friendship with the enemy. It was 
 not his business to discover the path of popularity. 
 He was not asked to conciliate the rebel or to keep the 
 constituencies in good humour. In brief, he was an 
 autocrat. All the functions of Government were 
 concentrated in him and him alone. He was not a 
 member of a war committee ; he was a whole war 
 committee in his own proper person. 1 Nothing was 
 
 1 Those who would measure the full achievement of Wolsey 
 may be referred to Dr. Brewer's great history of Henry viu., 
 and to Mr. Ernest Law's essay, England's first Great 
 
THOMAS WOLSEY 7 
 
 beyond the scope of his activity ; nothing was too 
 low for the grasp of his intelligence. Whatever men 
 he needed for the campaign were at his disposal. 
 The pitiful divorce of the citizen from the soldier 
 had not been made in Henry vin.'s reign, and nothing 
 was necessary but to issue Commissions of Array to 
 the Sheriffs of the southern counties, ' to make pro- 
 clamations for all males between sixty and sixteen 
 to be in readiness at an hour's warning to resort to 
 such place in the said county as shall be assigned.' 
 The notice, short and sharp, was obeyed perforce, and 
 Wolsey might boast that he sent across the Channel 
 an army of 40,000 men, armed and provisioned the 
 largest force that ever England landed on the Con- 
 tinent before the year 1914. It is not easy to exag- 
 gerate the greatness of Wolsey's achievement. His 
 system of transport fell very far below our modern 
 standard, and the heavy loads put upon our ships 
 were all the heavier, because the warfare of the six- 
 teenth century was in one sense far more elaborate 
 than the warfare of to-day. When the Tudors met 
 their enemies in the field, war was a pageant as well 
 as a business. It was not enough for them to beat 
 their enemies ; they must beat them in accord with 
 the splendid tradition of chivalry. If Henry vm. 
 took the field as a soldier, he must be housed as a king. 
 The tents in which he and his generals lived were 
 
 War Minister, in which the almoner of Henry vm. is set 
 vividly before us, and an appropriate moral is drawn from his 
 career. 
 
8 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 symbols of the royal magnificence, and for the glory 
 and honour of England no detail of display might be 
 omitted. And while Wolsey was asked to remember 
 all the trappings of kingship, he forgot nothing that 
 was needed for the carriage and maintenance of a big 
 army. With a careful foresight, malt, beans, oats, 
 oxen, and lambs were ordered in vast quantities to 
 be collected together at Calais, and so well were the 
 orders carried out, that ' 40,000 men were living in 
 the camp before Tournay in time of war,' Richard 
 Pace tells us, * far more cheaply than they lived at 
 home in time of peace.' And in all these prepara- 
 tions Wolsey played the first, the only part. He 
 became learned in all the matters of commissariat. 
 He was busy, says Brewer, ' with beer, beef, and 
 biscuit, transports, foists, and empty casks.' With a 
 full knowledge that the lack of beer in Spain had 
 caused a mutiny, he was resolved that no English 
 soldier should lack his gallon a day. A campaign 
 thus well organised could have but one end. Terou- 
 enne fell into the hands of the English on August 22 ; 
 Tournay's surrender followed a month later ; and 
 Wolsey, having justified the King's confidence, held 
 and maintained for many a year his supremacy in the 
 council chamber. 
 
 Thus it was that the English army, well trained 
 and well equipped, fought with all the pomp and 
 gallantry ordained by the chivalrous spirit of the age. 
 The aspect and behaviour of the soldiers were the 
 wonder of foreign nations. Here is the testimony 
 
THOMAS WOLSEY 9 
 
 of one enthusiastic Italian : ' Choicer troops, in more 
 perfect order, have not been seen for years. Amongst 
 them are from 9000 to 10,000 heavy barbed cavalry, 
 and 8000 light horse ; the infantry includes 14,000 
 archers, and there are 2000 mounted bowmen. . . . 
 Others have spears, halberts, and axes, and cannon 
 that would suffice to conquer Hell.' So much for their 
 equipment. Their conduct, if we may believe another 
 Italian, fell not below the high level of Henry v.'s, 
 of Cromwell's, or of Kitchener's men. ' They are 
 efficient troops,' we are told, ' well accoutred, not 
 barefooted like those of Italy, men who do not go to 
 rob, but to gain honour, and who march at their own 
 cost. They do not take wenches with them, and they 
 are not profane swearers, like our soldiers. Indeed, 
 there are few who fail to recite daily the office of Our 
 Lady's rosary.' So our soldiers, then as now, ' went 
 into battle as though they were going to a sport or 
 game,' and if they fought always with clean hands and 
 stout hearts, it was due above all to the inspiration 
 of Wolsey. The only blot upon the army was the 
 conduct of our German allies. Nothing could 
 check their ingrained love of rapine and sacrilege. 
 They proved themselves worthy ancestors of the 
 modern Huns, whom we know too well. The testi- 
 mony of an amiable Spaniard cannot be gainsaid. 
 The Spaniard complains, as well he might, of ' their 
 arrogance, ruffianism, and beastliness, which made 
 them firebrands and a source of danger among 
 whomsoever they went.' And that nothing should be 
 
io POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 missing in this prophetic condemnation, the Spaniard 
 asserts that ' such is their greediness that any one of 
 them is ready to run the risk of introducing the 
 plague into the ranks of the army in which they are 
 serving by recklessly entering a village or farmhouse 
 known to be stricken with the disease, simply with 
 the object of stealing a chicken.' Strange, indeed, 
 is the immutability of the Germans, and no better 
 comment can be found for them, as we know them, 
 than the familiar words of Froissart : * Maudits 
 soient-ils, ce sont gens sans pitie et sans honneur.' 
 
 It was, then, the campaign of 1513 which assured 
 the rapid rise of Wolsey. Honours and offices were 
 showered upon him, and at each step he increased 
 marvellously in splendour and esteem. He lived, as 
 I have said, in an age of pageantry, and he outdid 
 even the King his master in the magnificence of his 
 state. He moved always as though upon parade. 
 Poleaxes and golden candlesticks preceded him wher- 
 ever he went. Cavendish, his simple biographer, 
 has enumerated the yeomen, the cooks, the servants 
 of his household, with a proper pride, and makes 
 us wonder that the many-coloured trappings of 
 Wolsey's life did not strangle life itself. The gorgeous 
 tapestries of Hampton Court Palace, which were 
 changed once a week ; the fine cloths of diaper ; the 
 cupboards of plate, parcel-gilt ; the other cupboards 
 of gilt plate, very sumptuous and of the newest 
 fashions ; the lights of wax as big as torches ; the 
 silver and gilt plate, which hung on the walls to give 
 
THOMAS WOLSEY n 
 
 light to the chambers all these marvels surpass the 
 fancies of fairyland. Nor was there any lack at 
 Hampton Court of masks, tourneys, of those sports 
 which were a necessary part of the pomp of the 
 Tudors. And Wolsey's own splendour and solemn 
 cheer must not be mistaken for mere vainglory. 
 They were but images of his inward ambition, the 
 signs of his overweening and justified pride. More- 
 over, there was in them a basis of sound sense. 
 Wolsey knew the English people as he knew the 
 English King, and he saw plainly that he could 
 govern them only by flattering their love of display. 
 The mob might gird at his extravagance, the satirists 
 might hurl their insults at ' the butcher's dog ' ; but 
 Wolsey cared not. He was no butcher's dog, that 
 he should walk in the path of humility. He believed 
 that the highest honours to be won on earth, even 
 the papacy itself, were within his grasp. Wherefore 
 the magnificence of Hampton Court seemed to him 
 a worthy means to a great end, and not the ' fan- 
 tastical dream ' of Cavendish's imagining. 
 
 And Wolsey, for all his splendour, showed himself 
 always the kindly champion of the poor. Gius- 
 tinian, the panegyrist of Henry vni., has sketched 
 Wolsey's portrait also in words. After praising 
 his eloquence, his ability, and his energy ; after 
 admitting that he alone transacted the business, 
 which in Venice occupied all the magistracies, all 
 the offices, and all the councils, he thus describes 
 him : * He is pensive, and has the reputation 
 
12 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 of being extremely just. He favours the people, 
 especially the poor, hearing their suits and seeking to 
 despatch them instantly. He also makes the lawyers 
 plead gratis for paupers. He is in very great repute, 
 seven times more so than if he were Pope.' That 
 was one side of the omnipotent Wolsey. The other 
 side is wonderful indeed, when we remember the 
 arrogance of the King. ' Wolsey is the person,' 
 Giustinian goes on, ' who rules both the King and 
 the kingdom. On my first arrival in England he used 
 to say, " His Majesty will do so and so " ; subse- 
 quently by degrees he went on forgetting himself, 
 and began saying, " We shall do so and so " ; at this 
 present he has reached such a pitch that he says, " I 
 shall do so and so." 
 
 At that pitch he stayed for some twenty years. Not 
 only was he Minister of War, he was also Lord 
 Chancellor and Lord of the Treasury. He held 
 bishoprics, and wore a cardinal's hat at the same time 
 that he governed the country. He was in full charge 
 of foreign affairs, and since it was in them that he 
 was most intimately at home, he made himself arbiter 
 of the destinies of Europe. The most powerful man 
 of his time, not only in England but in the world, he 
 used his influence always like a patriot. His policy 
 of domination was uniformly successful. If we re- 
 member what England was before his Great War of 
 1513, and recall the height to which he raised her, 
 we can measure vaguely the worth of his achievement. 
 In all his thoughts and in all his deeds he was the pious 
 
THOMAS WOLSEY 13 
 
 servant of England, and he had the power to serve 
 her because he was one of those rare men who at the 
 same time could take large views and not overlook 
 the importance of details. Despite the detraction 
 of the chronicles, and the envy of those who presently 
 divided his offices among them, he remains unassail- 
 able in glory and devotion. When he fell, the hopes 
 of England fell for a time with him. The King did 
 not recover from his loss. Without Wolsey's guiding 
 hand to sustain him, he lapsed into the middle-class 
 Bluebeard of popular history, the monarch who saw 
 no other way out from a distasteful marriage than 
 murder. 
 
 That Wolsey should fall was inevitable. In the 
 very heyday of his power he was but preparing the 
 necessary last act of his own drama. That there 
 were contributory causes of disaster is obvious. 
 The part which he had played in the divorce, the 
 hatred of Anne Boleyn, who could not forget or 
 mitigate her resentment, helped in his undoing. 
 Then there was the rise to power of new Ministers, 
 and the King's inherited greed for the possessions of 
 other men two potent influences working against 
 him. But it was chiefly the nemesis which lies 
 in wait for the greatest of men that brought the 
 Cardinal low. So high had he climbed, that no other 
 summit remained within the scope of his vision. 
 And seated upon the topmost pinnacle of fame, he 
 could change neither his purpose nor his method. 
 The young generation misunderstood his pomp and 
 
i 4 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 made light of his services. 'The King has gone 
 beyond me,' he said in Shakespeare's play, in sad 
 explanation of his ruin. And yet the ruin itself was 
 not so sad as the manner of it. Cavendish has left 
 us an imperishable picture of his master's last days. 
 We see sketched with a simple hand the great Cardinal 
 riding up Putney Hill on his mule, and dismounting 
 to kneel in the mire, with bowed head, before Sir 
 Harry Norris. ' I am sorry,' quoth he to Norris, 
 ' that I have no condign token to send to the King. 
 But if ye would at this my request present the King 
 with this poor Fool, I trust His Highness would accept 
 him well, for surely for a nobleman's pleasure he is 
 worth a thousand pounds.' We see six tall yeomen 
 sent to convey the Fool to the Court, for the poor 
 Fool, constant in fidelity, refused except by force to 
 leave his master. And so Wolsey came to his place 
 at Esher, and found no peace there. For his enemies 
 at Court feared him more after his fall than in his 
 prosperity, because they thought that by the King's 
 favour he might be readopted into authority. ' There- 
 fore,' says Cavendish, ' they took this order among 
 them in their matters, that daily they would send 
 something or do something against him, wherein they 
 thought they might give him a cause of heaviness or 
 lamentation.' Thus one day they would persuade 
 the King to dismiss some of his gentlemen, another 
 day they would have him stripped of some of his 
 promotions. But he was a brave and a wise man, and 
 he bore their malice in patience. 
 
THOMAS WOLSEY 15 
 
 The King, wavering always between fear and affec- 
 tion, knew not how to treat his ancient favourite. Once 
 upon a time, when the Cardinal fell sick, he bade his 
 physician, Dr. Butts, go in haste to Esher. Now Dr. 
 Butts told the King that, if he would have the Cardinal 
 to live he must despatch him straightway a comfortable 
 message. * Even so will I,' said the King, ' and by 
 you.' And he sent him as a token of goodwill and 
 favour a ring, which the Cardinal knew well, for him- 
 self had given it to the King, and which contained a 
 ruby, whereon was engraved the King's visage, * as 
 lively counterfeit,' says Cavendish, * as was possible to 
 be devised.' But no favour went with the gift, and 
 Wolsey, still beset by the restlessness of disease, 
 must needs leave Esher at once. And so he began 
 his wanderings, sojourning a while at Richmond, and 
 then setting forth, when money had been found for 
 the purpose, to visit his benefice of York. Wherever 
 he went on his journey he was received with a kindly 
 enthusiasm by the people. When he could, he re- 
 covered something of his old state and much of his 
 ancient charity. Shorn of his honours and his wealth, 
 he took pleasure in the one boon left him, the boon of 
 liberty. To Cavendish, who wondered why he had 
 confessed himself guilty in the praermmire, he replied 
 that he would rather yield and confess the matter, 
 ' committing the sole sum thereof, as he did, unto the 
 King's clemency and mercy, and live at large, like a 
 poor vicar, than to lie in prison with all the goods and 
 honours that he had.' Yet was there no resting-place 
 
16 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 for the poor vicar's head. He travelled, it seems, to 
 escape not from his enemies but from himself. From 
 Peterborough to Southwell he wandered, from South- 
 well to Saxby, and then, about the feast of St. Michael, 
 he took the road towards Cawood Castle, ' where he 
 lay long after with much honour and love of the 
 county, both of the worshipful and the simple.' So 
 he, who yesterday had been the ruler of Europe, 
 spent his days in religious observances and in humility 
 of soul, still dreading and still conscious of an im- 
 pending doom. The omens were bad, and omens 
 meant a vast deal to his pious mind. After dinner 
 upon All Hallows' Day, one Dr. Augustine, physician, 
 ' having a boisterous gown of black velvet upon him,' 
 overthrew a cross which stood in the corner, and 
 which fell upon Dr. Bonner's head, that the blood 
 ran down. ' Hath it drawn any blood ? ' asked the 
 Cardinal. ' Yea, forsooth, my lord,' answered Caven- 
 dish, ' as it seemeth me.' To Wolsey it was a malum 
 omen, for in the signification, which he presently gave 
 it, he was the cross, and Augustine, who overthrew it, 
 was he who should accuse him, which came to pass. 
 So that when the Earl of Northumberland and Master 
 Walshe were sent to arrest him on the false charge of 
 high treason, they met one expecting the worst disaster 
 which might befall him. Yet he kept his courage 
 high, and would not obey the Earl's arrest, because 
 the Earl refused to show his commission. ' I trow, 
 gentleman,' said he to Walshe, ' ye be one of the 
 King's privy chamber ; your name, I suppose, is 
 
17 
 
 Walshe ; I am content to yield unto you, but not to 
 my Lord of Northumberland without I see his com- 
 mission.' And when Cavendish bade him be of 
 good cheer, for he could surely clear himself of all the 
 surmised accusations of his enemies, ' Yea,' quoth he, 
 with the pride of one who had been Lord Chancellor 
 and Archbishop, * if I may come to mine answer, I fear 
 no man alive ; for he liveth not upon the earth that 
 shall look upon this face (pointing to his own face), 
 shall be able to accuse me of any untruth.' And what 
 wonder was it that, at the last dinner which he ate 
 as a free man, there was not a dry eye among those 
 who sat at table with him ! 
 
 When on the morrow he took his departure, riding 
 upon a mule, the people of the county to the number 
 of three thousand bade him farewell, crying with a 
 loud voice, ' God save your Grace.' And as they 
 rode he asked Cavendish whither they led him that 
 night, and when he was told to Pomfret, ' Alas,' said 
 he, ' shall I go to the castle, and lie there, and die like 
 a dog ? ' But it was not at the castle of sinister 
 memories, but at the abbey that they lodged ; and so, 
 still accompanied by thousands of sorrowing people, 
 they came to Sheffield Park, and there abode several 
 weeks, until Sir William Kingston, Constable of the 
 Tower, arrived with a guard to conduct Wolsey to the 
 King's Majesty. His friends hoped that Kingston's 
 coming was a token of the King's favour towards him, 
 who would now at last be heard in his own defence. 
 But in the Cardinal's ears the mere name of Kingston 
 
 B 
 
i8 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 had the sound of doom. The soothsayers had long 
 ago predicted that at Kingston he would have his end, 
 and though he had always avoided the passage through 
 the town of that name, he saw that at last the pro- 
 phecy was coming true. However, he was subject 
 to fortune, as he said, and to fortune he submitted 
 himself. And then disease suddenly overtook him, 
 relieving him of prison and robbing the greedy King 
 of his prey. When he reached Leicester Abbey he 
 knew himself a dying man. ' Father Abbot,' said he, 
 * I am come hither to leave my bones among you.' 
 And as the sickness increased and he found no hope 
 of recovery, he summoned Sir William Kingston to 
 him, and made the speech upon which Shakespeare 
 has conferred a gracious immortality. * Well, well, 
 Master Kingston,' said he, * I see the matter against 
 me how it is framed ; but if I had served God as 
 diligently as I have done the King, He would not 
 have given me over in my grey hairs.' Thereafter he 
 would have Kingston commend him to the King, and 
 warned him to be well advised what matter he put in 
 the King's head, ' for,' said he, ' ye shall never put 
 it out again.' And lastly, he urged the King's 
 Majesty, through Kingston, to keep a vigilant eye 
 upon the pernicious sect of Lutherans, and thus, 
 having delivered his supreme message, he died, in 
 accord with his prophecy, as the clock struck eight. 
 
 When Cavendish brought Henry vm. the tidings of 
 the death of his faithful servant, the King received 
 the news with his wonted composure. He was 
 

 THOMAS WOLSEY 19 
 
 shooting with the bow, and finished his sport before 
 he listened to the tragic story which Cavendish had 
 to tell. And then, having wished liefer than twenty 
 thousand pounds that Wolsey had lived, he asked 
 incontinently for some fifteen hundred pounds, 
 which Wolsey had delivered sealed to a certain priest. 
 When Cavendish had satisfied his avarice, the King 
 demanded that this gear should be kept secret between 
 them, and delivered that homily upon discretion 
 which will be ever memorable. ' Three may keep 
 counsel,' said he, ' if two be away ; and if I thought 
 that my cap knew my counsel, I would cast it into the 
 fire and burn it.' Thus he passed to what he thought 
 were weightier matters, recking not that he had lost 
 the wisest, staunchest counsellor that ever stood 
 by the side of an ambitious king ; and if we read 
 without distaste Cavendish's homily upon the muta- 
 bility of vain honours and the brittle assurance of 
 abundance, those commonplaces of truth which we 
 expect at the end of a Greek tragedy, we may re- 
 member with gratitude that Wolsey, fulfilling his 
 genius in many ways, was one among the greatest of 
 our Ministers of War, and that he still remains to his 
 humbler successors a shining example of lofty courage 
 and tireless energy. 
 
SHAKESPEARE 
 
 PATRIOT AND TORY 
 
 QHAKESPEARE, whose tercentenary we cele- 
 O brated amid the alarums and excursions of 
 war, has paid the full penalty, as he has taken the 
 generous guerdon of his greatness. Standing alone 
 upon the topmost mountain of fame, he has been the 
 mark, since death took him, for the slings and arrows of 
 perverted fantasy. The ' humourists,' as Ben Jonson 
 might have called them, have used his works as the 
 whetstone of their derogating ingenuity. They are of 
 many kinds, these humourists, and of many whims. 
 We all know those painstaking critics who would pluck, 
 if they could, the garland from Shakespeare's brow 
 who, having shaped in their mind some image of the 
 poet, declare irrelevantly that they find not the linea- 
 ments of their ideal in the actor of Stratford. Who 
 are they that they should select the delicate colour 
 of the poet's singing robes, or dare to weigh in their 
 common scales the poet's brain and heart ? Even if 
 history had not taught them that poetry, impartial as 
 death, knocks, if it choose, at the cottage door, they 
 cannot dispute or abolish the testimony of Shake- 
 speare's friends and contemporaries. Was Ben Jonson, 
 
 20 
 
SHAKESPEARE 21 
 
 then, part and parcel of a great conspiracy when he 
 acclaimed the sweet Swan of Avon ? Was he throw- 
 ing dust in posterity's eyes when he recorded the 
 Players' praise of Shakespeare, that ' in his writing 
 (whatsoever he penn'd) he never blotted out a line,' 
 and gave his own answer, ' would he had blotted a 
 thousand ! ' Was he a gross impostor whose memory 
 Ben Jonson honoured ' on this side idolatry as much 
 as any,' and of whom he said, ' he was indeed honest, 
 and of an open and free nature ; had an excellent 
 fancy ; brave notions and gentle expressions ; where- 
 in he flowed with that facility that sometime it was 
 necessary he should be stopp'd ' ? Sujflaminandus erat 
 that is the tribute which scholarship ever pays to 
 inspiration ; and for the rest, Ben Jonson has so 
 clearly described the poet, whom we know, that not 
 all the Inns of Court shall pervert him into a legal 
 monster of their own imagining. That a lawyer 
 should be a great poet is clearly impossible. That a 
 poet's apprehensive mind should acquire, with other 
 vocabularies, the jargon of the courts, is in accord 
 with all the world's experience. 
 
 And then comes the witling, who for his own 
 better advertisement proclaims aloud the inferiority 
 of Shakespeare to the moderns, who complains that 
 the author of Hamlet had not the mind of a parish 
 councillor, and who misses in Macbeth and Othello the 
 subtle psychology of Rosmersholm. The witling 
 matters not ; he is but the symptom of a recurring 
 folly ; and when once his motive of self-aggrandise- 
 
22 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 ment is revealed he should be sent instantly into a 
 deserved oblivion. He does not come for the first 
 time upon the earth, and we may be sure that he will 
 be seen again, unless vanity and stupidity are over- 
 taken by sudden death. Coleridge knew him, and 
 gave his folly a final answer. ' The Englishman,' he 
 wrote, ' who without reverence, a proud and affec- 
 tionate reverence, can utter the name of William 
 Shakespeare, stands disqualified for the office of 
 critic. He wants one at least of the very senses, the 
 language of which he is to employ, and will discourse 
 at best but as a blind man while the whole harmonious 
 creation of light and shade, with all its subtle 
 interchange of deepening and dissolving colours, 
 rises in silence to the silent fiat of the uprising 
 Apollo.' 
 
 The desire of the critics, especially when the critics 
 have themselves essayed the art of drama, comes from 
 the same sort of reaction which persuaded the 
 Athenians to ostracise Aristides. They are tired of 
 hearing Shakespeare's praises sung. So they find 
 him coarse or barbarous, deficient in * psychology ' 
 or clumsy in construction. One insult commonly 
 thrown at him is that he knew not what he did, that 
 he happened upon such mastery of speech and drama 
 as was his by a kind of accident. But in the realm of 
 art there are no accidents. It is absurd to imagine 
 Shakespeare sitting down to the composition of 
 Henry IF '., let us say, and sketching the superb speeches 
 of Falstaff without premeditation. If he never 
 
SHAKESPEARE 23 
 
 blotted a line, how many thoughts, I wonder, did he 
 blot out from his mind ? He came to his writing, 
 ' whatsoever he penn'd,' with the processes of inven- 
 tion complete, and nothing left for accomplishment 
 but the mere breathing of poetry upon paper. And 
 when his work was done he knew better than any 
 other living man that it was good. In truth, none of 
 his time exceeded him in judgment as none excelled 
 him in inspiration. Like the complete artist that he 
 was, he was conscious always of his work's beauty 
 and perfection. Even Jonson, who loved the lamp 
 more piously than did Shakespeare, and disdained 
 not inkhorn terms, gave credit, full and ample, to 
 his master's art : 
 
 ' For though the Poet's matter Nature be, 
 His art doth give the fashion.' 
 
 Even Jonson found words of lofty praise for Shake- 
 speare's * well-tuned and true-filed lines,' and ad- 
 mitted that he was a poet made as well as born. But 
 later writers have grumbled because they have not 
 found in Shakespeare's works what he never purposed 
 to put there. ' The mere dreams of a pedantry that 
 arraigns the eagle because it has not the dimensions 
 of the swan ' ! 
 
 And then comes along another critic, who asserts 
 that Shakespeare lacked invention, that he had 
 ' impulse ' and not * fine thought,' that he lagged 
 sadly behind Ibsen, the belauded poet of the north. 
 Dumas was not of this critic's opinion. Shake- 
 
24 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 speare, said he, ' after the good God, had created 
 the most,' and humbly I range myself on the side of 
 Dumas. The critics who deny Shakespeare ' inven- 
 tion' keep that quality within the narrowest limits. 
 For them it is the mere making up of a story out of 
 the poet's head. There was no such person in real 
 life as Hedda Gabler, they say in effect ; such a person 
 as Falstaff was known to his compatriots ; therefore 
 Ibsen invented and Shakespeare did not. Was ever 
 such nonsense talked in the guise of criticism ? The 
 term ' invention ' may not thus be limited. A single 
 happy phrase may show far more of it than the most 
 elaborately complicated situation. And if, in follow- 
 ing the Greek tragedians, Shakespeare chose for the 
 material of his plays plots and persons familiar to 
 all men, he made whatever he touched his own, he 
 filled with the blood of life the puppets of the 
 chronicles, and showed himself the greatest inventor 
 that ever expressed the emotions of men and women 
 in noble speech and coloured imagery. 
 
 And behind the confused critic stands the sad 
 biographer, who in the act of publishing a solid work 
 laments that we know little or nothing of Shakespeare, 
 because what the newspapers might have said about 
 him, had there been newspapers, has escaped us. So 
 he attempts to fill up the inevitable blank with scraps 
 of conjecture and snippets of old deeds. That much 
 good may be achieved by the industrious hodman 
 none will deny. Nothing that touches Shakespeare 
 is indifferent to us, and there is a certain heroism in 
 
SHAKESPEARE 25 
 
 the struggle which would rescue him from the oblivion 
 of death. But the dryasdust biographer should re- 
 member that the Shakespeare best worth discovery 
 is already known to us more clearly than any of his 
 age and kind. He did not keep a dog in his yard to 
 write his plays for him. He wrote them himself, 
 and it is in them that we shall find the true poet whom 
 we seek. When the pedants are at fault, it is enough 
 to turn to the plays, for in them Shakespeare has 
 revealed what manner of man he was, and has packed 
 for all time the true story of his life. With the poet's 
 text at our elbow, need we regret that we cannot 
 follow his movements from Stratford to London, 
 from London back again to Stratford ? Remember 
 Coleridge's lament : ' O that eternal bricker-up of 
 Shakespeare ! Registers, memorandum books and 
 that Bill, Jack and Harry, Tom, Walter and Gregory, 
 Charles, Dick and Jim lived at that house, but that 
 nothing more is known of them,' and resolve not to 
 lose the substance of the plays for the shadow of 
 archaeology. Shakespeare, in truth, should be the 
 man we know best, because he has said more to us 
 than others, and it is to the plays, not to the bio- 
 grapher, that we must put the question who and 
 what he was. 
 
 In the first place, he was a great Englishman, born 
 at England's heart. He had none of the ' yearning ' 
 and ' passion of revolt ' which some associate to-day 
 with the Iberian fringe. Matthew Arnold did his 
 memory a great disservice when he called his ' open- 
 
26 
 
 ness and flexibility of spirit ' not English. The very 
 fact that it was Shakespeare's makes it English. How 
 shall you form a definition of * English ' and omit 
 Shakespeare's genius from the argument ? The truth 
 is that wherever Shakespeare's fancy seemed to roam, 
 to Athens or to Verona, or to the sea-coast of Bohemia, 
 it was still active at Stratford or on the Cots wolds. 
 The names of distant cities meant nothing to him. 
 He did but take them out of the story-books and make 
 them his own and England's. He cared not a jot for 
 the false ' local colour ' wherewith the actor-manager 
 is wont to over-decorate his plays. * The flowers of 
 Warwickshire,' says Madden, ' blossom in every 
 clime, and we encounter in the most unlikely places 
 the familiar characters of rural life under a pent- 
 house in Messina, in the cottage of a Bohemian 
 shepherd, and in the hall of an Italian noble.' Theseus 
 hunts the country about Athens with English hounds, 
 and even Prospero's spirits are of the true breed, for 
 he sets them on ' by names well known in Gloucester- 
 shire kennels.' Moreover, the characters of Shake- 
 speare's plays are as purely English as the scene which 
 environs them, or as the metaphor which glows in their 
 speech. Troilus and Cressida, for instance, has little 
 touch with Homer save in its names. You must not 
 expect to find in Achilles and Ulysses, in Thersites 
 and Pandarus of Troy, the chaste memory of a 
 Grecian urn. Their origin is romantic ; they bear 
 themselves as true Elizabethans upon the stage. 
 They are the men that Shakespeare met and knew at 
 
SHAKESPEARE 27 
 
 Paris garden or in the taverns of London, genuine 
 contemporaries of English blood and bone. No pale 
 reflection, they, of the classical dictionary. Bravely 
 they ruffle it in galligaskins, and should they ever 
 appear upon our stage again, as I would they 
 might, let them be habited not as Greeks and 
 Trojans, but as the careless venturers of Shake- 
 speare's day. 
 
 And if the English countryside was always a 
 cherished memory to him, Shakespeare was no less 
 loyal in devotion to the London of his time. When in 
 1586 he left Stratford to seek his fortune, London was 
 indeed worthy the worship of a constant lover. It 
 was the moment of England's belated rebirth. The 
 spirit of curiosity, which had already restored the 
 Greek and Latin classics to Italy, and had enriched 
 France with the wisdom of Rabelais, was at last 
 revivifying the wise land of England. And the 
 renaissance took its own shape and form when it 
 came across the Channel. Not only did the English 
 follow eagerly the things of the mind ; they expressed 
 a new-found energy in warlike enterprises and daunt- 
 less adventures oversea. The London to which 
 Shakespeare came was agog with the glory of Drake, 
 who, having singed the Spaniard's beard, had come 
 back laden with the spoils of Cadiz and the isles. Re- 
 turned soldiers were talking with hushed voices of 
 Sir Philip Sidney's valour and sacrifice on the field of 
 Zutphen. The discovery of plots devised against 
 the Queen's safety and the punishment of the rebels 
 
28 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 had strengthened the loyalty of the people. The 
 English sailors were making that conquest of the sea 
 which was to inspire the epic of Hakluyt. The heroic 
 Davys was searching ' for a passage under the frozen 
 zone, by the upper part of America, to East India.' 
 Nor was Cavendish far behind his rival. * At the 
 same time, in another part of the world,' says Camden, 
 ' Thomas Cavendish of Suffolk, who had two years 
 before set sail from England with three ships, passing 
 the Straits of Magellan, fired many petty towns of the 
 Spaniards upon the coasts of Chili, Peru, and Nova 
 Spagnia, took and pillaged nineteen merchant ships, 
 and amongst them a very rich ship of the King's near 
 California, and returned home this year (1587) by the 
 Philippines, the Malaccas, the Cape of Good Hope, 
 and St. Helen's Isle, with a rich booty and great 
 glory, as being the second next after Magellan which 
 sailed about the world.' 
 
 Then came the greatest year of all, 1588 annus 
 mirabilis Camden calls it which the German chrono- 
 logers presaged would be the climacterical year of the 
 world. ' The rumours of war,' says the chronicler, 
 ' which were before but slight, began now to increase 
 every day more and more ; and now not by uncertain 
 fame, but by loud and joint voice of all men, it was 
 noised abroad that a most invincible Armada was 
 rigged and prepared in Spain against England, and that 
 the foremost captains and expertest leaders and old 
 soldiers were sent for out of Italy, Sicily, yea, and out 
 of America, into Spain.' The Spaniard, like many an 
 
SHAKESPEARE 29 
 
 enemy since, found reasons not a few why he could not 
 be cheated of victory ' that England was not fortified, 
 that it was unprovided of leaders, soldiers, horsemen, 
 and munitions, bare of wealth and friends, that there 
 were many in all parts of the realm addicted to the 
 Romish religion, who would presently join their 
 forces with his.' Thus was the old and new story of 
 weakness and dissension told by our foes, and pointed 
 with the same moral. But to those alive in London 
 the years of triumphing adventure brought a pride 
 in which there was no vainglory. It is easy to 
 imagine that Shakespeare's quick and buoyant temper 
 responded to the news of victory. In many a blind 
 ale-house by Thames' side he would drink with sailors 
 home from America or the Spanish Main, with the 
 salt spray still on their beards, and hear the yarns 
 they spun of their ancient captains, Cavendish and 
 Davys. Or he would watch the soldier as he turned 
 back his sleeve to show the wounds he had won in the 
 service of his country. So the pride of England was 
 kindled in his breast. So he became the ardent lover 
 of his land that we know him. It was not for him to 
 disdain what nowadays we call imperialism. He was 
 no ' intellectual,' that he should make the vague 
 brotherhood of man the cloak of cowardice. He sang 
 the glory and valour of his England with a passion 
 and a fervour which make us glad that in days of bitter 
 warfare we were called to celebrate his name and fame. 
 What happier time could we have found to sing his 
 praise than the year in which we were crushing a 
 
30 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 viler, crueller foe than any whom Elizabeth, his 
 Queen, was asked to drive from her shores ? 
 
 The poet of England, he gave to the love of country, 
 to patriotism as nowadays we call it, a voice which 
 never shall be stilled. His histories are, and will 
 ever be, the epic of our race. The great Marlborough 
 confessed that he owed what he knew of England's 
 past to Shakespeare and how many of Marlborough's 
 countrymen have echoed his confession ! The 
 splendid sequence of plays from King John to 
 Henry Fill, has been the breviary of many a gallant 
 captain and wise statesman. And while Shake- 
 speare's pride in England never flags, he does not 
 forget what she owes to the jocund fate which made 
 her an island. His clairvoyant spirit easily discerned 
 the power of the sea. He tires not in celebrating 
 
 ' The natural bravery of our isle, which stands 
 As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in 
 With rocks unscaleable and roaring waters, 
 With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats, 
 But suck them up to the topmast.' 
 
 Many are the happy phrases which he finds for 
 England's insularity : * our salt-water girdle,' * our 
 sea-walled garden ' these are but two of his conceits. 
 But it is in the famous passage of Richard II. that he 
 most loudly acclaims our white cliffs, and pays as 
 lofty a tribute to his England as ever was paid to 
 Athens, the violet-crowned : 
 
 ' This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, 
 This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
 
SHAKESPEARE 31 
 
 This other Eden, demi-paradise ; 
 
 This fortress built by Nature for herself 
 
 Against infection and the hand of war ; 
 
 This happy breed of men, this little world, 
 
 This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
 
 Which serves it in the office of a wall 
 
 Or as a moat defensive to a house, 
 
 Against the envy of less happier lands ; 
 
 This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, 
 
 This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, 
 
 Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth, 
 
 Renowned for their deeds as far from home, 
 
 For Christian service and true chivalry, 
 
 As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry 
 
 Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son ; 
 
 This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, 
 
 Dear for her reputation through the world, 
 
 Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it, 
 
 Like to a tenement or pelting farm : 
 
 England, bound in with the triumphant sea, 
 
 Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege 
 
 Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, 
 
 With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds : 
 
 That England, that was wont to conquer others, 
 
 Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.' 
 
 We, too, in a lawyer-ridden land, know something of 
 ' inky blots ' and * parchment bonds.' But it is char- 
 acteristic of Shakespeare that his love of England did 
 not blind him to her faults. His praise is the better 
 worth hearing, because it discriminates. He knew 
 that even England, perplexed by evil counsellors and 
 untrue to herself, might suffer bitterly for her folly and 
 
32 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 her faults. ' This England never did, nor never shall,' 
 says the Bastard Falconbridge, who incarnates the 
 national virtues of doglike fidelity and blunt courage, 
 
 ' Lie at the proud feet of a conqueror 
 But when it first did help to wound itself.' 
 
 Alas ! does it not still help to wound itself more 
 deeply than ever in the past ? 
 
 It is in Henry V . that Shakespeare fashioned for us 
 the true epic of England. The dramatic form sits 
 very loosely upon it. It is epic in shape as in spirit. 
 Splendid in eloquence, swift in narrative, it is a paean 
 sung in our country's praise. Its noble lines sound 
 in our ears like a trumpet-call, and it has lost not a 
 jot of its force and energy by the passage of three 
 hundred years. We have fought since an enemy 
 who knows nothing of the chivalry which inspired 
 the proud adversary of Henry v. Not with other 
 adversaries can we make peace as we made peace with 
 the French on the very field of Agincourt. But we 
 have fought upon the same ground with a better 
 cause, and Shakespeare's spirit still strengthens our 
 arms and animates our courage. 
 
 Though it is but a cockpit which is asked to ' hold 
 the vasty fields of France,' though ' the very casques 
 that did affright the air at Agincourt ' are crammed 
 within a wooden O, the warlike Harry assumes in 
 every line the port of Mars, and speaks across the 
 centuries with a voice which patriotic Englishmen 
 will always understand. Vividly does the chorus 
 
SHAKESPEARE 33 
 
 sketch the scenes, which we, too, witnessed at Ger- 
 many's first attack : 
 
 ' Now all the youth of England are on fire, 
 And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies : 
 Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought 
 Reigns solely in the breast of every man : 
 They sell the pasture now to buy the horse, 
 Following the mirror of all Christian kings, 
 With winged heels, as English Mercuries.' 
 
 On either day, we doubted our courage as little as we 
 feared our destiny. On either day, the enemy sought 
 with crafty policy to divert English purposes, and 
 found willing instruments ready to his hands. On 
 either day, there were secret leagues and traitorous 
 unions, and Shakespeare divined the danger which 
 lay in England's path : 
 
 ' O England ! model to thy inward greatness, 
 Like little body with a mighty heart, 
 What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do, 
 Were all thy children kind and natural ! 
 But see thy fault ! France hath in thee found out 
 A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills 
 With treacherous crowns.' 
 
 Thus dishonour shamefully recurs. In Shakespeare's 
 time the nest of hollow bosoms was well filled, 
 and we and the enemy alike have known where to 
 find it since. 
 
 King Harry's own speeches might still hearten brave 
 men fighting in the field. He speaks a language which 
 
34 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 soldiers of all ages can echo and understand. * And 
 you, good yeomen,' he cries, 
 
 ' Whose limbs were made in England, show us here 
 The mettle of your pasture ; let us swear 
 That you are worth your breeding ; which I doubt not ; 
 For there is none of you so mean and base, 
 That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. 
 I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 
 Straining upon the start. The game 's afoot : 
 Follow your spirit, and upon this charge 
 Cry " God for Harry, England, and Saint George ! " 
 
 And while the game was afoot, he would have his 
 yeomen respect the laws of chivalrous warfare. He 
 gives them express charge to compel nothing from 
 the villages, to take nothing but paid for, to upbraid 
 or abuse none of the enemy in disdainful language. 
 For, said he with a wisdom which barbarians never 
 learn, ' when levity and cruelty play for a king- 
 dom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.' 
 And, despite their King's lofty courage, the English 
 were already forced to deplore the shirkers who hung 
 back from the martial service of their country. * O 
 that we now had here,' says Westmoreland, 
 
 ' But one ten thousand of these men in England 
 That do no work to-day.' 
 
 So the armourers accomplish the knights, ' with 
 busy hammers closing rivets up.' So the royal cap- 
 tain walks from watch to watch, visits all his hosts, 
 
 ' Bids them good morrow with a modest smile, 
 And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen,' 
 
SHAKESPEARE 35 
 
 and at the last inspires his * ruin'd band ' to victory 
 with the famous speech about St. Crispian's day. 
 He tells his men how those who live this day and see 
 old age, will feast their neighbours on its vigil, and 
 take pride in the wounds they got on Crispin's day ; 
 how their names, familiar as household words, will 
 be freshly remembered in their flowing cups : 
 
 ' We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ; 
 For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 
 Shall be my brother ; be he ne'er so vile, 
 This day shall gentle his condition : 
 And gentlemen in England now a-bed 
 Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, 
 And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks 
 That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day ? ' 
 
 Throughout the play the clear note of patriotism 
 is heard. There is not a scene of it that, in Cole- 
 ridge's phrase, ' does not counteract that mock 
 cosmopolitanism which, under a positive term, really 
 implies nothing but a negation of, or indifference to, 
 the particular love of our country.' For Shakespeare, 
 as I have said, was above and before all things a lover 
 of England. With how bitter a contempt would he 
 have lashed those friends of every country but their 
 own, who nowadays unpack what they have of souls 
 to strangers, and believe that flat treason is a mark of 
 superiority ! And Shakespeare, being a patriot, was 
 a Tory also. He loved not those who disturbed 
 the peace of England. He believed firmly in the 
 
36 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 established order, and in the great traditions of his 
 native land. He was a firm supporter of Church 
 and State. He did not whine about the unfit, nor see 
 salvation in the careful nurture of the imbecile. He 
 had as keen a scent for the demagogue as Aristophanes 
 himself, and his Jack Cade may stand side by side as 
 a companion portrait with the Cleon of The Knights. 
 With a few strokes he has sketched the familiar mis- 
 creant who, in pretending to serve others, serves 
 himself. * There shall be in England seven half- 
 penny loaves sold for a penny,' says Cade ; * the three- 
 hooped pot shall have ten hoops ; and I will make 
 it felony to drink small beer : all the realm shall 
 be in common ; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey 
 go to grass : and when I am king, as king I will 
 be, . . . there shall be no money; all shall eat and 
 drink on my score ; and I will apparel them all in 
 one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and 
 worship me their lord.' The vainglory and false 
 promises of this speech have not lost a jot of their 
 truth and freshness. Many fiery demagogues have in 
 our day spoken to the people with greater rancour 
 and no less ignorance than Cade himself. ' Seven 
 halfpenny loaves for a penny' is near enough to 
 * ninepence for fourpence ' to show that the poli- 
 tician's generosity with other people's money is 
 to-day as large, in word at least, as it was in Shake- 
 speare's time. And nowhere does Shakespeare 
 demonstrate more plainly that ' he was not for an 
 age, but for all time,' than in this immortal sketch of 
 
SHAKESPEARE 37 
 
 Jack Cade, whose raucous voice is still heard at the 
 hustings in our twentieth century. 
 
 But it is in Coriolanus that Shakespeare gives his 
 wisest exposition of political philosophy. Hazlitt 
 said truly enough that he who read this play might 
 ' save himself the trouble of reading Burke's Re- 
 factions or Paine's Rights of Man, or the debates in 
 both Houses of Parliament since the French Revo- 
 lution or our own.' That Shakespeare drew the 
 character of Coriolanus with a sympathy of under- 
 standing is evident ; it is evident also that he turned 
 the wise pages of Plutarch wisely to his purpose. In 
 a vividly dramatic form he has set before us the 
 never-ending struggle between the few and the many, 
 between government and anarchy, between law and 
 licence. His hero is ' the chief enemy to the people,' 
 * a very clog to the commonalty.' Whatever he does 
 he will do by his own strength. In vain does the 
 people burn at his altar the incense of its flattery. 
 Not in response to its will does he consent to fight or 
 die for his country. Like a brave man of independent 
 spirit he detests the doles which purchase the favour 
 of the citizens. The lesson of Athens and her fall is 
 not lost upon him. He knows precisely whither the 
 worship of the incompetent, the loudly advertised 
 cult of * democratic control,' will carry the state : 
 
 'It is a purposed thing, and grows by plot, 
 To curb the will of the nobility ; 
 Suffer it, and live with such as cannot rule, 
 Nor ever will be rul'd.' 
 
38 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 In these lines we may read the history of our modern 
 times, and discover a clear premonition of the nerve- 
 less ineptitude still dogging every movement of those 
 ministers, who, in abasing themselves before the 
 people, have lost the power to rule. 
 
 In the struggle that follows, Coriolanus alone holds 
 himself with dignity. It is not for him, who has 
 never quailed before an enemy, to fear or to wheedle 
 his fellow-citizens, who, to have peace at their own 
 price, would gladly have killed him. The ' dull 
 tribunes ' are as fierce in his dispraise as the ' fusty 
 plebeians ' ; they hate his honours with all the envy 
 of their kind ; as Menenius says, they * knew neither 
 him, themselves, nor anything.' Their sole ambition 
 is * for poor knaves' caps and legs.' Above all, Brutus 
 and Sicinius loathe his grandeur, as tribunes have 
 loathed the grandeur of heroes at all times, and exult 
 in the certainty that his independence of spirit will 
 undo him. * I heard him swear,' says Brutus with 
 smug satisfaction, 
 
 ' Were he to stand for consul, never would he 
 Appear i' the market-place, nor on him put 
 The napless vesture of humility, 
 Nor showing, as the manner is, his wounds 
 To the people, beg their stinking breaths ' ; 
 
 and then hastens to explain, though none but his 
 friend Sicinius is in earshot, that ' it was his word.' 
 
 Thus Coriolanus, true to his word, would not bend 
 the knee to ' the beast with many heads.' When he 
 should have appeased it, he speaks it the truth, ' that 
 
SHAKESPEARE 39 
 
 some certain of your brethren roar'd, and ran from 
 the noise of our own drums.' When he should have 
 asked, with flattering humbleness, the ' sweet voices ' 
 of the citizens, he bids them ' wash their faces and 
 keep their teeth clean.' And Brutus and Sicinius, like 
 the stealthy party politicians that they were, make 
 the most of his candour. Their speeches have the 
 true sound of election-addresses. Coriolanus, as 
 Brutus hints, will take their liberties away, and make 
 them of no more voice than dogs. Sicinius reminds 
 his masters ' with what contempt he wore the humble 
 weed, how in his suit he scorn'd you.' Such as 
 Coriolanus was in the end, so he was in the beginning. 
 His first speech, the best test of his qualities, be- 
 labours the people after the right fashion : 
 
 ' What would vou have, you curs, 
 That like nor peace nor war ? the one affrights you, 
 The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you, 
 Where he should find you lions, finds you hares, 
 Where foxes, geese : you are no surer, no, 
 Than is the coal of fire upon the ice, 
 Or hailstone in the sun. . . . 
 
 Who deserves greatness 
 Deserves your hate ; and your affections are 
 A sick man's appetite, who desires most that 
 Which would increase his evil. He that depends 
 Upon your favours swims with fins of lead 
 And hews down oaks with rushes.' 
 
 Even after the banishment of Coriolanus, the vaga- 
 bond exile, worse than * the steep Tarpeian death,' 
 
40 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Shakespeare will not let the people off. He pursues 
 it with an irony of scorn. ' For my own part,' says 
 one citizen, ' when I said, banish him, I said, 'twas 
 pity.' To which another replies : ' And so did I ; 
 and, to say the truth, so did very many of us : that 
 we did, we did for the best ; and though we willingly 
 consented to his banishment, yet it was against our 
 will.' There in a few lines are expressed the eternal 
 folly and shame of democracy. Ever committed to 
 the worse cause, the people has not even the courage 
 of its own opinions. 
 
 Shakespeare, then, perceiving the permanent, un- 
 changing elements of politics, was a wise Tory. He 
 cherished no superstition of universal brotherhood ; 
 he did not preach equality for a doctrine ; the liberty 
 to which he aspired was liberty of thought, not liberty 
 of the hustings. Everywhere he accepts or implies 
 the true gospel, and nowhere with greater clarity or 
 eloquence than in the famous speech of Ulysses. 
 That wily politician expounds in Troilus and Cressida 
 the truth to Agamemnon. He points out that ' degree 
 being vizarded, the unworthiest shows as fairly in 
 the mask,' that the heavens, the planets, and this 
 centre * observe degree, priority and place,' that when 
 the planets wander to disorder all the worst marks 
 are seen of revolution. ' What plagues, and what 
 portents, what mutiny,' says he, 
 
 ' What raging of the sea, shaking of earth, 
 Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors, 
 Divert and crack, rend and deracinate 
 
SHAKESPEARE 41 
 
 The unity and married calm of states 
 Quite from their fixture ! ' 
 
 Might he not have written these prophetic lines 
 with his mind's eye upon France of the Terror or 
 upon modern Russia. And then he acclaims in a 
 grave and pompous passage the virtues of degree and 
 inequality : 
 
 c O, when degree is shaked, 
 Which is the ladder to all high designs, 
 The enterprise is sick ! How could communities, 
 Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, 
 Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, 
 The primogenitive and due of birth, 
 Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, 
 But by degree, stand in authentic place ? 
 Take but degree away, untune that string, 
 And, hark, what discord follows ! each thing meets 
 In mere oppugnancy.' 
 
 Thus all things merge into appetite, ' an universal 
 wolf,' which * last eats up himself.' 
 
 And Shakespeare, who despised those who truckled 
 to the people, knew how to treat all men with an equal 
 ease and justice. ' He was a handsome well shap't man : 
 very good company and of a very ready and pleasant 
 smooth wit.' So says Aubrey ; and Aubrey, though 
 he was a gossip, cherished .always a pedant's love of 
 accuracy. He did not describe Shakespeare by guess- 
 work. Indeed he went to the best and surest source 
 of knowledge, and that source was William Beeston, 
 whose link with Shakespeare is near and unbroken. 
 For Christopher Beeston, William's father, was a friend 
 
42 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 of Shakespeare, and the two men are mentioned to- 
 gether in the will of Augustine Phillips of the King's 
 Company. And Aubrey's description, which came, 
 with one intervention only, from Christopher Beeston 
 himself, bears upon it the marks of truth. ' A handsome 
 well shap't man,' that we very well believe was Shake- 
 speare. No ugly broken casket ever carried so precious 
 a jewel as was his genius. ' Very good company, and 
 of a very ready and pleasant smooth wit.' How better 
 should a friend depict one who always bore himself 
 among men as a gentleman ? And Ben Jonson, in the 
 brief character he has left us of the poet, agrees with 
 Beeston. * He was indeed,' says he, * honest, and of 
 an open and free nature.' It is but the same truth 
 set in another light. Moreover, the evidence of the 
 plays chimes with the evidence of the gossips. None 
 but a gentleman could have drawn, with large and 
 lavish hand, the women of Shakespeare. Miranda 
 and Rosalind, Constance and Imogen, Perdita and 
 Viola, Isabella and Cleopatra, far apart as they are one 
 from another, could have been created only by an 
 artist, in whom there was no touch of meanness or of 
 guile. And that grim, strange world, inhabited by 
 such heroes as Falstaff and Poins, as the incomparable 
 clowns, even as the great Barnardine himself, could 
 have been depicted by none but a gentleman. Here 
 there is no stooping as to inferiors ; one and all of 
 them, transcending the common measure of mankind 
 as they do, are seen with sympathy, and fashioned 
 without a gesture of contempt. 
 
SHAKESPEARE 43 
 
 Again Shakespeare proves himself a gentleman in 
 his moderation. He does not insist. He harbours 
 no inapposite desire to make us better. Some of his 
 critics have been saddened by the thought that his 
 plays solve no moral problems and preach no obvious 
 sermons that, in fact, he is content to be a mere 
 master of the revels, a purveyor of joy and pleasure. 
 His refusal to preach is but another title of honour. 
 Shakespeare was no provincial, to whom the potting- 
 shed was an essential temple of light. He brushed 
 aside as unimportant the tea-table squabbles of 
 country towns. He was quite incapable of putting 
 upon paper such a note as this of Ibsen's : * These 
 women of the present day, ill-used as daughters, as 
 sisters, as wives, not educated according to their gifts, 
 prevented from following their inclination, deprived 
 of their inheritance, embittered in temper it is 
 these who furnish the mothers of the new generation. 
 What is the result ? ' Or this other project : ' The 
 keynote is to be. The prolific growth of our intel- 
 lectual life, in literature, art, etc. and in contrast 
 to this : the whole of mankind gone astray.' To all 
 such transitory subtleties as these Shakespeare was 
 deaf and blind. He saw only the larger, plainer 
 emotions love, hate, jealousy, envy, ambition, 
 cruelty but he saw them with the clear eye of sim- 
 plicity, and treated them with the knowledge and 
 insight of one as far removed from littleness as from 
 cynicism. 
 
 And Shakespeare, the poet of England, patriot 
 
44 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 and Tory, has been pronounced a German by our foes ! 
 By what right do they claim possession of a dramatist 
 removed from them by a whole world of poetry and 
 romance, a dramatist whose amplitude and generosity 
 must be for ever unintelligible to them ? They 
 claim him for theirs, I suppose, because they have 
 heard about him in their schools and debauched him 
 in their universities. They have made him the poor 
 victim of their Jahrbiicher ; they have permitted the 
 ineffable Reinhardt to bury him, as he has buried 
 Sophocles, beneath the weight of his hideous vulgarity. 
 They have counted the syllables in his lines, and 
 anatomised his words. They have gained no touch 
 of his humanity or his good sense, and he remains, 
 despite their anxious ministrations, the implacable 
 foe of Teutonic pedantry and discipline. 
 
 Why, then, should the Germans have attempted to 
 lay violent hands upon our Shakespeare ? It is but 
 part of their general policy of pillage. Stealing comes 
 as easy to them as it came to Bardolph and Nym, who 
 in Calais stole a fire-shovel. Wherever they have 
 gone they have cast a thievish eye upon what does not 
 belong to them. They hit upon the happy plan of 
 levying tolls upon starved Belgium. It was not enough 
 for their greed to empty a country of food; they 
 must extract something from its pocket, even though 
 it be dying of hunger. We all know that the wagons 
 which brought shells to the trenches were sent back 
 laden with the spoils of German thievery. The 
 strange lust which the Germans betrayed in 1870 for 
 
SHAKESPEARE 45 
 
 clocks and watches did not leave them, and if ever 
 they fail to tell the hour again, it will not be for lack 
 of French and Belgian timepieces. Unfortunately 
 for them, they have not yet been able to strip England 
 bare of her treasures. ' Neptune's garden ' still eludes 
 their rifling hand. No doubt, if they came to these 
 shores, they would feed their fury by scattering 
 Shakespeare's dust to the winds of heaven. As they 
 are unable to sack Stratford, they do what seems to 
 them the next best thing : they hoist the Jolly Roger 
 over Shakespeare's works. 
 
 Their arrogance is busy in vain. Shakespeare shall 
 never be theirs. He was an English patriot, who 
 would always have refused to bow the knee to an 
 insolent alien. The vulgar brutality, which the 
 Germans mistake for warfare, would have been odious 
 to his chivalrous mind. In his own phrase, he had 
 no love of men who, * having before gored the gentle 
 bosom of peace with pillage and robbery, make wars 
 their bulwark.' And the noisy apostles of Kultur 
 would find for him a second home in Leipzig ! 
 
 However, it is clear that ever since Gervinus made 
 his fatuous discovery that Shakespeare was German, 
 the Germans have affected to admire our national 
 poet. He did not reciprocate the admiration. When 
 Nerissa asked Portia what she thought of the young 
 German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew, she got such 
 an answer as to-day would be regarded as lese-majeste 
 in Germany. * Very vilely in the morning,' said she, 
 ' when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon, 
 
46 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 when he is drunk : when he is best, he is a little worse 
 than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better 
 than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope 
 I shall make shift to go without him.' Truly Portia 
 might have been describing the horde of Huns who 
 in August 1914 poured into Belgium and Northern 
 France. 
 
 Germany, then, would be wise if she kept her hands 
 off poets who do not belong to her. Even if she 
 could kidnap the genius of France and England, it 
 would not profit her. Hers is not a soil upon which 
 poets thrive easily. She has always looked with sus- 
 picion upon Heine, and since Heine's death she has 
 nothing better than grammarians to set against the 
 literary splendour of France and Russia and England. 
 Maybe, when her arrogance is abated through suffer- 
 ing, when she discovers that other and greater 
 countries live and are happy without her borders, 
 that her ' civilisation ' is not destined to absorb the 
 whole world, she may discover in humility of spirit a 
 literature of her own. Meantime she must know 
 that she cannot invade poets, as by stealthy prepara- 
 tion she has invaded provinces, and that Shakespeare's 
 priceless folio is a tabernacle, which must not be 
 touched by hostile undiscerning hands, 
 
EDWARD HYDE 
 
 EARL OF CLARENDON 
 
 HYDE, Earl of Clarendon, has always 
 L/ stood in especial need of defence. The Whigs, 
 and Gardiner among them, have dealt hardly with 
 him. They have cast upon his character the dust 
 of misunderstanding and detraction. The consistency 
 and loyalty which were among his virtues have seemed 
 to them detestable. He has been belittled for the 
 mere reason that he was a staunch upholder of the 
 monarchy by those who forget that by his innate love 
 of monarchy, and by nothing else, must he be tried. 
 For a statesman of Hyde's temperament the smallest 
 defection from kingly allegiance would have been a 
 political crime, and his enemies have found fault even 
 with his austere sincerity. But it is better to look 
 at the hero as he was, than to reply to the aspersions 
 of his opponents. And if only he be set against the 
 proper background of his time, then all men who are 
 not ' impartial,' with the impartiality of the Whigs, 
 will recognise in the portrait a brave, wise, and 
 dignified gentleman. 
 
 Born of an ancient family at Dinton, near Salisbury, 
 in 1609, Edward Hyde grew to manhood under the 
 
 47 
 
48 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 best auspices. The sketches which he has left of both 
 his parents help to explain the plain, unswerving 
 honesty of his own career. His father had served 
 Elizabeth in Parliament, and had also indulged ' his 
 inclination to travel beyond the seas.' But not even 
 a sojourn in the Rome of Sixtus v. had made him a 
 wanderer, and he settled down early in life to the 
 simple pursuits of a scholar and a country gentleman. 
 * He lived,' says his son, * with great cheerfulness and 
 content, . . . being a person of great knowledge and 
 reputation, and of so great esteem for integrity, that 
 most persons near him referred all matters of con- 
 tention and difference which did arise amongst them 
 to his determination ; by which that part of the 
 country lived in more peace and quietness than many 
 of their neighbours.' Henry Hyde, then, saw most 
 clearly the duty which lay at his feet, and ' his wife, 
 who was married to him above forty years,' as her son 
 tells us, ' never was in London in her life ; the wisdom 
 and frugality of that time being such, that few gentle- 
 men made journeys to London, or any other expen- 
 sive journeys, but upon important business, and their 
 wives never ; by which providence they enjoyed and 
 improved their estates in the country, and kept good 
 hospitality in their houses, brought up their children 
 well, and were beloved by their neighbours.' The 
 training which he received in this home of well-ordered 
 simplicity had an influence upon Hyde unto the end. 
 What his early life lost in movement and variety it 
 gained in intensity, and the characteristics which 
 
EDWARD HYDE 49 
 
 marked his maturity were already evident when he 
 first went to seek his fortune in London. 
 
 The first lesson which he had learned, was that 
 he had ' to make his fortune by his own industry ' ; 
 and when he had renounced an early design of taking 
 orders, it was natural that he should look to the law 
 for an avenue of preferment, so that with as much 
 lightness of heart as was possible to him he became 
 a student at the Inns of Court. At the outset it was 
 life rather than law that he studied, and he threw 
 himself into the society of the Temple, intent upon 
 amusement, with considerable zest. But he did not 
 wholly forget the claims of study. ' When he did 
 indulge himself in the liberty,' he wrote many years 
 afterwards, ' it was without any signal debauchery, 
 and not without some hours every day, at least every 
 night, spent among his books.' It was in these days 
 of irresponsibility that he learned to know the wits 
 of the town, and even sat in the ' Old Devil Tavern ' 
 at the feet of Ben Jonson himself. He was too young, 
 as yet too remote from letters, to stand high in that 
 great man's intimacy. Nor was he ready to sacrifice 
 all to win the approval of the literary dictator. To 
 know Ben Jonson was in Ben Jonson's eyes a liberal 
 profession. But ' Mr. Hyde,' he tell us, ' betook 
 himself to business,' not being able to endorse the 
 poet's belief ' that business ought never to be 
 preferred before his company.' However, he was 
 familiar enough with the * Old Devil Tavern ' to 
 cherish a pious memory of its wits, and to indite 
 
 D 
 
50 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 many years after a wise and flattering character of 
 Ben Jonson, its supreme arbiter. 
 
 Far nearer to his heart and mind was the judi- 
 cious Selden, whose friendship he prized above all 
 things, and whose conduct he always excused, even 
 when he did not approve it. The passage in which 
 he does honour to Selden does honour to himself. 
 * Mr. Selden was a person,' he wrote, ' whom no 
 character can flatter, or transmit in any expressions 
 equal to his merit and virtue. He was of so stupen- 
 dous learning in all kinds and in all languages, that a 
 man would have thought he had been entirely con- 
 versant amongst books, and never spent an hour but 
 in reading and writing ; yet his humanity, courtesy, 
 and affability was such, that he would have been 
 thought to have been bred in the best courts, but 
 that his good nature, charity, and delight in doing 
 good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded 
 that breeding. . . . Mr. Hyde was wont to say that he 
 valued himself upon nothing more than upon having 
 had Mr. Selden's acquaintance from the time he was 
 very young ; and held it with great delight as long as 
 they were suffered to continue together in London.' 
 The influence of Selden's wisdom and intelligence is 
 seen in all that Hyde wrote and thought, and he 
 exaggerates not a jot the worth of the philosopher's 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Throughout his life Hyde was a loyal and faithful 
 friend. His belief in the sanctity of friendship was 
 whole-hearted. He knew how much might be learned 
 
EDWARD HYDE 51 
 
 of humour and manners from the company of good 
 and wise men. By their learning and instruction he 
 formed his studies and mended his information. 
 With that touch of priggishness which was not always 
 absent from his reflections, he declared * that he was 
 never so proud, or thought himself so good a man, 
 as when he was the worst man in the company.' 
 This is a boast not always possible even for the most 
 modest or most fortunate of men. It was not 
 beyond the reach of the friend of Lucius Gary, Sidney 
 Godolphin, Edmund Waller, John Earle, John Hales 
 of Eton, and William Chillingworth. For Hyde, 
 too, was of the privileged scholars admitted to 
 Gary's house at Tew, whither they came ' to study 
 in a better air, finding all the books they could desire 
 in his library, and all the persons together, whose 
 company they could wish, and not find in any other 
 society.' 
 
 So it was that when Hyde threw himself into the 
 noisy battle of politics, he was conscious of a fair 
 equipment. He had the valuable experience which 
 comes of converse with poets and scholars. He pos- 
 sessed a set of political principles which were destined 
 to stand him in good stead, even in times of civil 
 strife. He was a staunch upholder of King and 
 Church, and though his eyes were never blinded to 
 the faults of Charles i. or of Laud, he was ever ready 
 to condone the faults of those whose sacred offices 
 he revered. He was an aristocrat, who believed de- 
 voutly in the principle of aristocracy, and though he 
 
52 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 might deplore the injudicious counsels of his King, 
 he could not tolerate for a moment what seemed to 
 him the excesses of the King's adversaries. On which 
 side he would fight there was never a doubt. Mean- 
 while he was a zealous member of Parliament. ' He 
 was very much in the business of the house ' to 
 use his own words ; * the greatest chairman in the 
 committees of the greatest moment ; and very- 
 diligent in attending the service both in the house 
 and at committees.' It was at a committee appointed 
 to examine the enclosure of certain lands that he first 
 encountered the redoubtable Cromwell. Mandeville, 
 the most courteous of men and rebels, was defending 
 the enclosure, when Cromwell broke in upon the 
 debate with great violence. ' In the end,' says Hyde, 
 ' Cromwell's whole carriage was so tempestuous, and 
 his behaviour so insolent, that the chairman felt him- 
 self obliged to reprehend him, . . . which he never 
 forgave ; and took all occasions afterwards to pursue 
 him, with the utmost malice and revenge, to his 
 death.' 
 
 When Hyde espoused the King's cause, the only 
 cause possible for a statesman of his strong opinions 
 and unswerving honour, he stood at the zenith of 
 prosperity. He was rich, fortunate, and highly 
 esteemed. * Under this universal acquaintance and 
 general acceptation,' he writes with a proud candour, 
 ' Mr. Hyde led for many years as cheerful and pleasant 
 a life as any man did enjoy, as long as the kingdom 
 took any pleasure in itself. His practice grew every 
 
EDWARD HYDE 53 
 
 day as much as he wished, and would have been much 
 more, if he had wished it ; by which he not only sup- 
 ported his expense, greater much than men of his 
 rank and pretences used to make, but increased his 
 estate by some convenient pieces of land adjoining 
 to his other.' His character had hardened with 
 prosperity. Though in his youth he had been a 
 complacent witness of gaming and debauchery, * he 
 had, by God's immediate blessing, disentangled 
 himself from these labyrinths, . . . and was enough 
 composed against any extravagant excursions.' With 
 an amiable insight into his own character he confesses 
 that he had ambition enough ' to raise his spirit to 
 great designs of raising himself, but not to transport 
 him to endeavour it by any crooked and indiscreet 
 means.' It was his just boast that ' he was never 
 suspected to flatter the greatest man, or in the least 
 degree to dissemble his own opinions or thoughts.' 
 Though he knew perfectly well that he was inclined 
 to pride and passion, though his love of wrangling 
 and disputing was troublesome enough, he was clear- 
 sighted as to his own virtues. In a passage all the 
 more welcome because the most of men make a 
 practice of dissembling their good qualities, he says 
 boldly and aloud : ' That which supported him and 
 rendered him generally acceptable was his generosity 
 (for he had too much a contempt for money), and the 
 opinion men had of the goodness and justice of his 
 nature, which was transcendent in him, in a wonderful 
 tenderness and delight in obliging. His integrity 
 
54 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 was ever without blemish, and believed to be above 
 temptation. He was firm and unshakable in his 
 friendships.' 
 
 Such was the man who opposed with what energy- 
 he could the encroachments of Parliament. Openly 
 conscious of his virtues, he could not and did not 
 betray them. His career was one of singular even- 
 ness and uprightness. When Gardiner says that he 
 had none of ' the larger qualities of statesmanship,' 
 he means, no doubt, that he was not prepared to 
 sacrifice his Tory principles upon the hastily con- 
 structed altars of new ideas. He was neither a 
 Marten nor a Harry Vane. He believed that any 
 attack upon the person or sovereignty of Charles i. 
 was an unforgivable crime. But there is as much 
 room for the exercise of the larger qualities of states- 
 manship in the adherence to monarchy and the 
 monarchical principle as there is in revolution. And 
 had Hyde been cordially supported by the King and 
 the King's army, he might have proved himself able to 
 stem the tide of rebellion, and to reform the Govern- 
 ment without bloodshed : if he did not overestimate 
 the value of that vague thing called personal liberty, 
 he saw no sanctity in an overturned throne. Had 
 he had his way, he would have given relief to 
 the people and done no violence to the established 
 order. ' This, at least, is certain,' says Sir Henry 
 Craik, his last biographer, ' that out of the countless 
 actors in that great drama there was not one who 
 steered his course more straight, who was more 
 
EDWARD HYDE 55 
 
 honest in his first choice of adherence, or maintained 
 more unchangeably the principles which he had set 
 before himself, than Edward Hyde.' 
 
 Unhappily when the crisis came in England's fate 
 there was no room for Hyde's dextrous moderation. 
 The Constitutional Monarchy which he advocated was 
 shaped in accord with Conservative principles, and 
 was unacceptable to the reckless spirit of the time. 
 But the war made quite clear the path which he should 
 follow. With Falkland and Colepepper he gave 
 counsel to the King, and remained till the end his 
 Master's faithful servant and friend. The King gener- 
 ously acknowledged his devotion. * I must make Ned 
 Hyde Secretary of State,' he wrote in a hapless letter, 
 which fell into the wrong hands, ' for the truth is, I 
 can trust no one else.' And it was not long before 
 Hyde encountered a universal jealousy. ' He had 
 great enviers,' he wrote, ' of many who thought he 
 had run too fast.' If he ran too fast, it was in a 
 hopeless race. The best advice which he or others 
 could give the King was powerless to save him. 
 Those who commanded what Hyde described as ' a 
 dissolute, undisciplined, wicked, beaten army, only 
 terrible in plunder and resolute in running away,' 
 were one and all unfit for their trust. Goring did 
 little else than drink and play. ' For God's sake,' 
 Hyde wrote to him in a memorable letter, * let us not 
 fall into ill-humours which may cost us dear. Get 
 good thoughts about you, and let us hear speedily 
 from you to a better tune.' Goring could play no 
 
56 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 better tune than intrigue and debauchery. Sir 
 Richard Grenville, on the other hand, was busy with 
 extortion. Few of the others thought of their 
 cause or their King. When the Court repaired to 
 Oxford, it went thither to pursue the familiar path 
 of luxury. The courtiers found pleasant quarters in 
 the ancient colleges, and counted rather for mouths 
 to feed than for arms to fight. Ruin and defeat were 
 inevitable, and they came with sure foot. Disaster 
 upon disaster overwhelmed the unfortunate King. 
 The rout of Naseby was followed by the surrender of 
 Bristol a surrender all the harder to bear because 
 it was due to the folly and inaction of Rupert. There 
 seemed no hope in any quarter of the sky, and the 
 King did his best to save his house from extinction 
 by sending Prince Charles across the sea. 
 
 With the Prince went Hyde, as tutor and counsellor, 
 and for sixteen years he did not revisit his native 
 land. However much he deplored his absence from 
 the conduct of affairs, he turned his mind to history, 
 and it is perhaps to his exile that we owe an imperish- 
 able record of the Civil War. He lived in Jersey 
 with his friends Hopton and Capel, and was treated 
 by Sir George Carteret, the Deputy-Governor, with 
 the utmost cordiality. It was a thrifty life they led, 
 and if they could afford only one good meal in the 
 day, they had abundant consolations. Hyde enjoyed, 
 as he was wont to say, ' the greatest tranquillity of 
 mind imaginable.' When his friends were called 
 to serve the cause elsewhere, he took up his abode 
 
EDWARD HYDE 57 
 
 with Sir George Carteret at Castle Elizabeth. There 
 he built for himself a small lodging against the wall 
 of the church, on which he inscribed the motto fitted 
 for his quiet retreat, ' Bene vixit qui bene latuit.' 
 Lonely otherwise, he had the companionship of his 
 books and papers, and ten hours every day went to 
 the compiling of the first part of his great history in 
 its original form. Presently his calm was disturbed 
 by an order to join the Prince in France, and there- 
 after he wandered up and down Europe, an unsuccess- 
 ful envoy. Spain knew him, and Holland, until at 
 last he accompanied King Charles n. on his restora- 
 tion to the throne. 
 
 The hopes of a happy return, which Hyde had 
 cherished through the long years of exile, were 
 speedily disappointed. He came to an England which 
 he knew not, a strange, dismoded man. He sketched 
 the change which had overtaken the realm in a passage 
 of despair. ' In a word,' said he, ' the nation was 
 corrupted from that integrity, good nature, and 
 generosity, that had been peculiar to it, and for 
 which it had been signal and celebrated throughout 
 the world ; in the room thereof the vilest craft and 
 dissembling had succeeded. ... In the place of 
 generosity, a vile and sordid love of money was enter- 
 tained as the truest wisdom, and anything lawful that 
 would contribute to being rich. There was a total 
 decay, or rather a final expiration, of all friendship ; 
 and to dissuade a man from anything he affected, or 
 to reprove him for anything he had done amiss, or to 
 
58 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 advise him to do anything he had no mind to do, was 
 thought an impertinence unworthy a wise man, and 
 received with reproach and contempt.' Such, as 
 Hyde conceived it, was the result of the Rebellion, is, 
 indeed, ever the result of democracy, and Charles n. 
 did little to repair ' these dilapidations and ruins 
 of the ancient candour and discipline.' The austere 
 Hyde could not expect to find sympathy or support 
 in the courtiers and mistresses of Whitehall. Nor 
 was his position relieved of embarrassment when his 
 daughter was secretly married to the Duke of York. 
 His influence with the King speedily decreased. 
 Charles n., never eminent for gratitude, soon forgot 
 the devotion of his ancient tutor, who had endured 
 exile and privation in his service. He saw in Hyde a 
 Minister inflexible alike in candour and honesty, and 
 therefore disinclined to tolerate his extravagance or 
 to condone his follies. At last Hyde's very presence 
 at Court irked the King, and he bade the Duke of York 
 * to advise the Chancellor to be gone.' Another term 
 of exile seemed preferable to prison or Tower Hill, 
 and once more Clarendon, as he had now become, 
 landed on French soil, which he was never destined 
 to leave. For a while he sojourned at Avignon, and 
 was driven thence ' by the multitude of dyers and 
 silk manufacturers, and the worse smell of the Jews.' 
 Finding Montpelier better suited to his taste, he 
 there dwelt with dignity and in good repute. When 
 any English came thither, none forbore to pay 
 respect to the Chancellor. But the appreciation 
 
EDWARD HYDE 59 
 
 of Montpelier was not enough for him. He was 
 homesick for England, and in 1671 he made a last 
 appeal to the King, to whose service he had devoted 
 his life. ' It is now full seven years,' he wrote to 
 Charles, ' since I have been deprived of your Majesty's 
 favour, with some circumstances of mortification, 
 which have never been exercised towards any other 
 man, and therefore I may hope from your good nature 
 and justice, that a severity which you have never 
 practised upon any other man for half the time, may 
 be diminished in some degree towards me.' And he 
 concluded his piteous appeal by praying that the King 
 would ' at least signify his consent that he might 
 return to beg his bread in England, and to die amongst 
 his own children.' It is in perfect consonance with 
 Charles ii.'s character that he left this letter without 
 an answer. When Clarendon died three years later, 
 it was at Rouen, which was nearer to his native land 
 than Montpelier, and where the long-wished-for sum- 
 mons to return might more speedily have reached him. 
 Eminent as he was in council, it is as the historian 
 of his time that Clarendon will be ever remembered. 
 His book has its faults and limitations, no less than 
 the masterpieces of Thucydides and Tacitus. Those 
 who look upon history as a mere means of strengthen- 
 ing the Whig position will doubtless convict Clarendon 
 of monstrous partiality, and it may be confessed that 
 he thought it no part of his duty to look back upon 
 events with the eyes of a Roundhead. It has been 
 pointed out that he had little sense of natural scenery 
 
60 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 or of history's dramatic elements. He did not set the 
 persons of his drama against any background, natural 
 or artificial. His world has not houses, nor courts, 
 nor fields. The personages of his drama seem to 
 move hither and thither in vast, vacant spaces. He 
 was interested supremely in men, not things, in the 
 conflict of wills and the passions of the mind. Above 
 all, he was interested in character. History for him 
 was ' character in action,' and as he had known all 
 the actors in the drama which unfolded itself before 
 his eyes, and in which he had played a foremost part, 
 he could measure their motives and discern their 
 traits. And in this love of character he was true to 
 the fashion of his time. Sir Thomas Overbury and 
 John Earle, faithful disciples of Theophrastus, had 
 not worked in vain. They had shown that it was 
 not romantic incident alone which could move the 
 curiosity of men. Divination of character held sway 
 in their minds and in the minds of their readers. 
 Clarendon did but transfer their method from the 
 delineation of types to the delineation of individual 
 men, and he did it with a surety unequalled save in 
 the ancients. 
 
 So firm a foe was he to the picturesque that he is 
 seldom familiar. He does not descend easily to those 
 small traits which separate one man from another. 
 He does not often describe outward appearances ; 
 he turns his eyes aside resolutely from the details, 
 which we should have prized, of looks and habits. 
 He thought it no part of his business to paint costume 
 
EDWARD HYDE 61 
 
 pieces. When he tells us that Sir Henry Vane the 
 younger ' had an unusual aspect, which, though it 
 might naturally proceed both from his father and 
 mother, neither of which are beautiful persons, yet 
 made men think there was something in him of extra- 
 ordinary,' he tells it us not because he is interested 
 in the ' unusual aspect,' but in the ' something of 
 extraordinary ' which it foreshadowed. He has small 
 traffic with wit or humour. It is with surprise that 
 you encounter in his pages epigram or antithesis. 
 Surely he was in a happy, unaccustomed mood when 
 he sketched the Earl of Arundel's pride : ' He re- 
 sorted sometimes to the Court, because there only 
 was a greater man than himself; and went thither 
 the seldomer, because there was a greater man than 
 himself.' With the same happy touch he sketches 
 the weakness of Strafford, ' whose pride was by the 
 hand of Heaven strongly punished by bringing his 
 destruction upon him by two things that he most 
 despised the People and Sir Hary Vane.' He 
 loved imagery as little as he loved epigram, and his 
 metaphors have all the more force from their rarity. 
 ' He did swim in those troubled and boisterous 
 waters,' he writes of Sir Richard Weston, ' in which 
 the Duke of Buckingham rode as Admiral with a good 
 grace ; when very many who were about him were 
 drowned or forced on shore with shrewd hurts and 
 bruises.' Thus his very economy of thought and 
 speech has its due effect upon his readers. 
 
 For him, indeed, the heroes and villains of his time 
 
62 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 are moving bundles of moral qualities and moral 
 defects. And since lists of the virtues must be tinged 
 always with a certain inhumanity, it is rather by their 
 faults that we shall recognise as real men those whom 
 Clarendon portrays. His panegyric of Charles i., for 
 instance, would tell us little of the King, whom he 
 worshipped as he worshipped none other, were it not 
 for the just censure, which gives it a reality. Thus, 
 when we are told that Charles i. was the worthiest 
 gentleman, the best master, the best husband, the 
 best Christian, we are convinced only of Clarendon's 
 admiration. If we did not take the praise for granted, 
 as we should, it would not explain the King to us, 
 since it is not distinctive. The mere hint that ' he 
 did not love strangers, nor very confident men,' helps 
 us to know him more intimately than would a dozen 
 pages of praise. Is it not a relief to hear that * his 
 kingly virtues had some mixture and alloy which 
 hindered him from shining in full lustre . . . that 
 he was not in his nature bountiful . . . and that he 
 paused too long in giving, which made those to 
 whom he gave less sensible of the benefit ' ? The 
 mixture and alloy need give us no pleasure. The 
 admission that the King, too, was a man with a 
 man's failings helps us, as mere panegyric seldom 
 helps us, to understand his character. 
 
 Here, too, in the phrases that follow, we catch sight 
 of a real King, not a merely virtuous epitome : * He 
 was very fearless in his person ; but, in his riper years, 
 not very enterprising. He had an excellent under- 
 
EDWARD HYDE 63 
 
 standing, but was not confident enough of it ; which 
 made him oftentimes change his own opinion for a 
 worse, and follow the advice of men that did not judge 
 so well as himself. This made him more irresolute 
 than the conjuncture of his affairs would admit : if 
 he had been of a rougher and more imperious nature, 
 he would have found more respect and duty.' This 
 passage not only sets the King before us, on the 
 ground and not on a pedestal ; it reveals, in a flash, 
 the causes of his defeat and of his unhappy fate. 
 
 Indeed, while in politics Hyde naturally and 
 rightly took the view of an honest partisan, in the 
 drawing of character he was just even to his foes, 
 unjust, sometimes, by the desire of impartiality, 
 to his friends. If he could not choose but find 
 a few blemishes upon the silver shield of Montrose's 
 magnanimity, he saw the rough breastplates of the 
 Puritans flecked with light. He hated Oliver Crom- 
 well, the one man of genius, in peace and war, who 
 emerged in the Civil Wars, with the hatred of a con- 
 vinced Royalist. Yet he did not withhold from him 
 the tribute of his lofty praise. If Cromwell could 
 not but be a criminal in his eyes, he was a criminal 
 whose grandeur dazzled the onlooker. Here are a few 
 sentences, culled from Clarendon's character, which 
 prove his fair sense of history. Some words are 
 charged with malice, it is true. But the recognition 
 of Cromwell's greatness is unstinted. ' He was one 
 of those men whom his very enemies could not con- 
 demn without commending him at the same time ; 
 
64 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 for he could never have done half that mischief with- 
 out great parts of courage, industry, and judgment. 
 . . . He achieved those things, in which none but a 
 valiant and great man could have succeeded. . . . 
 When he was to act the part of a great man, he did it 
 without any indecency, notwithstanding the want of 
 custom. ... In all matters which did not concern 
 the life of his jurisdiction, he seemed to have great 
 reverence for law. . . . His greatness at home was 
 but a shadow of the glory he had abroad. . . . He 
 was not a man of blood, and totally declined Machia- 
 vel's method.' Here are some fragments of a tribute 
 paid to grandeur which does as much honour to 
 Clarendon's insight as to his good faith. 
 
 In the same spirit of impartiality he has painted 
 for posterity the friends of Cromwell Pym, * the man 
 of greatest experience in Parliament, where he had 
 served very long, and always a man of business, being 
 an officer in the Exchequer, and of a good reputation 
 generally, though known to be inclined to the Puritan 
 faction ' ; and Hampden, ' a man of much greater cun- 
 ning, and, it may be, of the most discerning spirit, and 
 of the greatest address and insinuation to bring any- 
 thing to pass which he desired, of any man of that 
 time, and who laid the design deepest.' So much is 
 said in Hampden's favour, and then Clarendon reveals 
 the other side : ' No man ever had a greater power 
 over himself, or was less the man he seemed to be ; 
 which shortly after appeared to everybody, when he 
 cared less to keep on the masque.' Even to Sir Harry 
 
EDWARD HYDE 65 
 
 Vane the younger the elder he condemns utterly 
 he allows ' great natural parts, a very profound dis- 
 simulation, a quick conception, a very ready, sharp, 
 and weighty expression.' And so it is that his 
 characters are neither black nor white. He paints 
 in streaks of light and dark colours, and he chooses his 
 tints with so nice a discrimination, with so fine a 
 taste, that you accept his portraiture as just. Falk- 
 land, his friend, is the one man in whom he sees no 
 spot. ' Thus fell,' he writes after the battle of New- 
 bury, ' that incomparable young man, in the four and 
 thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched 
 the true business of life, that the eldest rarely attain 
 to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter 
 not into the world with more innocency : whosoever 
 leads such a life, needs be the less anxious upon how 
 short warning it is taken from him.' And by way 
 of contrast look upon this other portrait, unlightened 
 by a single touch of hope or praise : * Goring . . . 
 would, without hesitation, have broken any trust, or 
 done any act of treachery to have satisfied an ordinary 
 passion, or appetite ; and, in truth, wanted nothing 
 but industry (for he had wit, and courage, and under- 
 standing, and ambition, uncontrolled by any fear of 
 God or man) to have been as eminent and successful 
 in the highest attempt of wickedness, as any man in 
 the age he lived in, or before. Of all his qualifications 
 dissimulation was his masterpiece ; in which he so 
 much excelled, that men were not ordinarily ashamed, 
 or out of countenance, with being deceived but twice 
 
 E 
 
66 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 by him.' Here we find a touch of irony, but even 
 this presentment has a certain dryness, despite its 
 invective. Clarendon is content to persuade us of 
 Goring's wickedness. If only he had given us speci- 
 mens of his evil-doing we, too, should have been 
 content. But he disdained anecdote, and left his 
 readers to take his judgments as they are. 
 
 In composing history, Clarendon followed the 
 best models. He admits in a letter that Livy and 
 Tacitus were his masters, and then adds an apology : 
 ' I am contented you should laugh at me for a fop,' 
 he says, ' in talking of Livy and Tacitus, when all I can 
 hope for is to side with Hollingshead and Stowe, or 
 (because he is a poor knight, too) Sir Richard Baker.' 
 There was no need of an apology. Clarendon has 
 nothing in common with such patient workmen 
 as Hollingshead and Stowe. The only link which 
 binds him to Sir Richard Baker, who composed his 
 chronicles in prison, is misfortune. In aim, as in 
 achievement, he is of the grand school. Even his 
 faults of style came from an exuberance of mind. He 
 uses too few words, and uses them too often. That 
 is to say, his diction is verbose, and yet lacks variety. 
 The compensations are obvious. As Dr. Johnson 
 says, ' there is in his negligence a rude, inartificial 
 majesty, which, without nicety of laboured eloquence, 
 swells the mind by its plenitude and effusion.' On 
 all counts his memory is entitled to our respect. He 
 was a faithful public servant, a sound Tory, the vivid 
 painter of a vivid age. 
 
GILBERT BURNET 
 
 ILBERT BURNET, the son of Scottish parents, 
 was born in 1643. On either side he was of 
 gentle lineage, and the spirit of independence was in 
 his blood. His father, a lawyer, * learned in his pro- 
 fession, who did not rise up to the first form in 
 practice,' was an Episcopalian of a moderate cast. 
 His mother, in the words of her son, whose love of 
 character-writing did not spare his own house, ' was 
 a good, religious woman, but most violently engaged 
 in the Presbyterian way.' With such a parentage, 
 Gilbert Burnet could not but come to preferment, 
 and, that his natural qualities might not rust from 
 neglect, he submitted to a discipline as severe as that 
 which darkened the childhood of John Stuart Mill. 
 He went to no school, * but was taught Latin by his 
 father with so much success that before he was ten 
 years old he was master of that tongue and of the 
 classic authors.' In 1652 he entered the University 
 of Aberdeen, studied the Aristotelian philosophy at 
 an age when most boys are content with a primer, and 
 took the degree of Master of Arts before he was four- 
 teen. ' All that while,' says he, ' my father super- 
 intended my studies, making me rise at four o'clock 
 
 67 
 
68 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 in the morning.' With the modesty that was more 
 often on his tongue than in his heart, he confesses 
 also that his father increased his vanity by overloading 
 him with learning. But his keen vitality and tireless 
 strength enabled him to carry the burden lightly 
 enough, and if a lack of judgment prevented him from 
 winning a reputation for profound scholarship, it 
 cannot be said that he made small use of his hastily 
 acquired knowledge. 
 
 For a brief space he intended to adopt the profession 
 of the law, for which his disputatious temper well 
 fitted him. Had he followed his first intent, no 
 scruple would have withheld him, even for a year, from 
 political affairs, which were the true passion of his 
 life, and he might have played an earlier, more 
 dangerous, part in the history of his time. But he 
 had not travelled far on the road of law when he 
 changed his mind, and, to the bitter indignation of 
 his mother, determined to become an Episcopalian 
 minister. He precipitated himself upon theology 
 with the same activity wherewith he had rushed upon 
 the study of law. He read more than twenty volumes 
 in folio of school divinity, the result of which, as he 
 tells us ingenuously, ' was to heighten his vanity and 
 make him despise and triumph over all who had not 
 suffered themselves to be entangled with that cobweb 
 stuff.' 
 
 Meantime he was taking his first steps in the world, 
 to dominate which was always his greatest joy 
 and pride. He possessed in liberal measure the 
 
GILBERT BURNET 69 
 
 qualities which, govern society a handsome pres- 
 ence, a quick invention, indomitable courage. A 
 copious talker, he was never at a loss for a word 
 or a topic. Delighting frankly in grandeur, he was 
 seldom obsequious, and he was arrogantly convinced 
 that he carried into every company far more than he 
 took out of it. * Now I began to be known to great 
 men ' thus he wrote with a pompous ingenuousness 
 of his twentieth year ' and I have ever since been 
 much in their company, which has brought much 
 envy and censure upon me from other clergymen, 
 who fancied that I used odd arts to compass it. But 
 I can give no other account of the matter than this. 
 I never sought the acquaintance of a great man in 
 my whole life, but I have often declined it. ... I had 
 a facetiousness and easiness in conversation that was 
 entertaining ; I had read a variety of things, and 
 could dress them in easy words, so that many liked 
 my company. I never imposed it on any, but I do 
 not deny that I had a great vanity in finding my 
 company so much desired.' . These are the words of 
 truth of truth wholly divorced from humour. 
 Burnet could conceal his satisfaction neither from 
 himself nor from others. He affected a kind of sur- 
 prise at what a wiser man would take for granted. 
 Until the end of his life he was always a little unhappy 
 if he were not directing the talk in the presence of 
 ' the great,' and his engaging simplicity dictated so 
 full a confession of this foible that his pride seemed 
 sometimes very near humility. 
 
70 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Nor did he always produce the effect which he hoped 
 upon others. He is described by one who heard 
 him discourse in 1664 in by no means sympathetic 
 terms. ' He talked all the time,' said John Cockburn, 
 ' and didn't suffer any of you to speak a dozen words, 
 and he rambled from one thing to another.' Indeed 
 he fell complacently into all the pitfalls which beset 
 the copious and greedy talker, and forgot that he 
 was not incapable even of boredom. Once upon a 
 time it was in 1683 Louis xiv. took Burnet into 
 his coach at Versailles, and the Scot's cicerone was 
 horrified to find that though * he spoke the French 
 tongue very ill, his confidence and assurance bore 
 him fully out, and he talked for ever and as much 
 before the King as in his own room. The courtier 
 remonstrated, but Burnet did not amend, and the 
 King bore all ' ! He was not the only king who was 
 asked to bear the assured eloquence of Burnet. 
 
 And side by side with this love of the world there 
 grew up in Burnet a subdued passion for mystic 
 theology. He fell beneath the calm influence of 
 Lawrence Charteris, an amiable minister, who fer- 
 vently believed that ' it was a vain thing to dream of 
 amending the world.' Burnet, who never dreamed 
 of anything else, who was never happy unless he were 
 attempting to do good to somebody, fondly thought 
 that he too might find comfort in this quiet doctrine. 
 Nothing was further remote from his hard, positive 
 intellect. But as in later years he took refuge from 
 the stress of affairs in algebra and chemistry, so in 
 
GILBERT BURNET 71 
 
 his youth he boldly argued himself into the opinion 
 that the proper attitude of a divine was a constant 
 tranquillity. He did not long preserve this attitude. 
 He had not been minister of Saltoun for more than 
 a year, when, forgetting the teaching of Charteris, 
 he made a bold attempt to amend the Bishops of 
 Scotland by a memorial. The memorial is emin- 
 ently characteristic of its author bold and vain- 
 glorious. A keener sense of humour than Burnet 
 had might have suggested that it was an impertin- 
 ence in a youth of twenty-three to assault at a single 
 blow all the dignitaries of the Church. 
 
 But in the end his attempt was not taken amiss. 
 The spectacle of a David attacking not one but many 
 Goliaths, was at once fresh and exhilarating ; and 
 though Burnet' s memorial drove him for a while to 
 retirement and asceticism, he emerged, as always, 
 into the world again. In 1669 he was appointed 
 Professor of Theology at the University of Glasgow, 
 where, as always when he had a definite duty to per- 
 form, he displayed a genuine zeal and industry. 
 He was the most energetic professor of his time, as 
 he was presently the most sedulous bishop ; and 
 ardent though his passion for politics was becoming, 
 he honestly put the welfare and the training of his 
 pupils before the pursuits which pleased him better. 
 
 It was during his sojourn in Glasgow that he made 
 his first open incursion into public affairs, and it 
 cannot be said that he came well out of the encounter. 
 In 1671 the King had been married for nine years, 
 
72 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 and the Duke of York, an avowed Roman Catholic, 
 was heir to the throne. In the eyes of Lauderdale 
 and Moray the State was in danger, and they gravely 
 asked Burnet whether a childless woman might be 
 justly divorced, or whether polygamy was in any case 
 lawful under the Gospel. Burnet, proud to display 
 his learning, answered * Yes ' to either question, and 
 he must bear whatever blame attaches to the indis- 
 cretion. It is not enough to say in excuse that he 
 was intimidated by Lauderdale. He was arrogant by 
 disposition and an egoist by habit. He would not 
 bend his will to another's, either from weakness or 
 complacency. But he was a politician who in serving 
 others hoped to serve himself. He was no mere 
 sycophant. His character was far more complicated 
 than mere sycophancy would imply. He did not 
 hesitate to speak roughly, even to the highest. Never- 
 theless, he had a natural love of policy, and if he saw 
 a chance of advancing himself without too great a 
 sacrifice of pride and independence, he took it. And 
 he took it, with disastrous effect, when he admitted 
 to Lauderdale the equal justice of divorce or 
 polygamy. Yet for the moment his rash opinion 
 strengthened the bonds which bound him to the 
 most powerful man in Scotland, and made the way 
 easy for his reception at Court. 
 
 The first appearance of Burnet at the Court of 
 King Charles n. was an event in both their lives, 
 and each conducted himself on this great occasion 
 with characteristic simplicity. 'His Majesty,' wrote 
 
GILBERT BURNET 73 
 
 Burnet, ' ordered me to be sworn a chaplain, and 
 admitted me to a long private audience that lasted 
 above an hour, in which I took all the freedom with 
 him that I thought became my profession . . . with 
 relation to his course of life. . . . He bore it all very 
 well and thanked me for it.' The humour of the 
 situation is exquisite. Charles was not a man to be 
 preached at wantonly, and Burnet, as Charles Lamb 
 said of Coleridge, was never heard to do anything 
 else than preach. To censure the conduct of his 
 King at a first meeting was rash even for Gilbert 
 Burnet, who doubtless lived to regret his temerity. 
 But the habit was too strong for resistance. He was 
 obliged at all costs to improve the occasion. He 
 was a kind of Mr. Barlow, always ready with precept 
 or anecdote to correct the morals of his auditor, and 
 even though that auditor were a monarch of infinite 
 humour, he did not hesitate to give his advice. 
 
 The indiscretion was as great as the courage. 
 Burnet had lived long in the world, and had not 
 vanity blinded his eyes he might have seen the hope- 
 lessness of his mission. And he was conscious of 
 nothing save an amiable reception. The King, always 
 master of himself, sent Burnet away convinced that 
 he had done his monarch good, and prepared still to 
 serve him with all the eloquence at his command. 
 Emboldened by the King's complaisance, Burnet, 
 five years later, ventured upon another remonstrance, 
 which was his undoing. In 1679 ^ e addressed a 
 letter to the King, which bears in every line the marks 
 
74 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 of a reckless sincerity. No one who has read this 
 document can charge Burnet with subserviency. 
 It is officious and impertinent, if you will, but its 
 very truth is disconcerting, and Burnet, vain as he 
 was, proud as he was of what he believed his former 
 triumph, could hardly have expected Charles to make 
 a public repentance at the mere sight of his burning 
 words. That Burnet's intentions were honourable 
 is obvious. It is obvious also that his complete lack 
 of humour once more led him astray. The King 
 ignored the remonstrance, and ever after spoke of 
 Burnet with great sharpness. When Rochester 
 4 wondered why he would use a writer of history ill, 
 for such people can revenge themselves,' Charles with 
 his own good sense replied that Burnet durst say 
 nothing while he was alive, and that when he was 
 dead he should not be the worse for what he said. 
 The revenge which Burnet took is known to all, and for 
 nothing that he said is Charles n. one whit the worse. 
 In truth, Burnet must have had within him the 
 seeds of greatness to have survived his love of intrigues 
 and his ill-guarded tongue. So much pleased was he 
 to be the repository of other men's secrets, that he 
 could not help betraying them. His habit of talk 
 fell away into reckless garrulity, and he lost friends 
 by the same gift whereby he won them. After his 
 first sight of the King, he boasted to the Duchess of 
 Lauderdale of the freedom he had used with him 
 upon his course of life. And the King was naturally 
 incensed when the rumour was brought to him. He 
 
GILBERT BURNET 75 
 
 listened patiently to Burnet's defence, and then said, 
 with an admirable appreciation of the divine's char- 
 acter, that ' he was afraid he had been too busy, and 
 wished him to go home to Scotland and be more 
 quiet.' He counselled what was impossible. Burnet 
 was incapable of tranquillity, as none knew better 
 than himself. Conscious of his besetting sin, he did 
 his best to cure it, and failed utterly. ' The truth is,' 
 he wrote in 1675, ' I had been for about a year in a 
 perpetual agitation, and was not calm nor cool enough 
 to reflect upon my conduct as I ought to have done. 
 I had lost much of a spirit of devotion and recollection; 
 and so it is no wonder if I committed great errors.' 
 And having made full confession, he pursued his old 
 evil course of interference. He presently estranged 
 Sir Harbottle Grimston, a loyal friend, by revealing 
 to the King what he had told him ; and many years 
 later, still ardent with the spirit of reform, he 
 allowed himself to be * set on to speak to William in. 
 to change his cold way.' William did not dismiss 
 him with Charles's nonchalant wit. He called him 
 * een rechte Tartuffe,' and proved that he understood 
 only one side of Burnet's duplex character. 
 
 For there was one province in which Burnet was 
 supreme. He was the greatest preacher of an age 
 which delighted in sermons. ' The pulpit was,' as 
 a biographer says, ' Burnet's most appropriate sphere. 
 An orator by temper and training, he found there 
 ample scope for his religious fervour and his childlike 
 love of display, his talent as an expositor, and his 
 
76 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 passion for giving advice.' The actor that was in him 
 took full advantage of the opportunity. His gesture 
 was as flamboyant as his style. With his unfailing 
 naivete he confesses that he ' took a tincture of the 
 French way more than Scotland could well bear.' 
 As preacher at the Rolls Chapel, he won an instant 
 victory. He was always best when he struck off 
 his work at a single blow ; and in the pulpit his energy 
 of mind, his unstemmed eloquence, his quick ima- 
 gination, had their fullest scope. ' I never heard 
 a preacher equal to him,' wrote Speaker Onslow. 
 ' There was an earnestness of heart and look and voice 
 that is scarcely to be conceived, as it is not the fashion 
 of the present times, and by the want of which, as 
 much as anything, religion is every day failing with 
 us.' And the same writer tells a story which explains 
 Burnet's talent more clearly than pages of adulation. 
 The orator once upon a time ' preached out the hour- 
 glass.' Thereupon ' he held it aloft in his hand, and 
 then turned it for another hour ; upon which the 
 audience, a very large one for the Rolls Chapel, set 
 up almost a shout for joy.' What preacher has ever 
 received so lofty and sincere a compliment ? 
 
 If Burnet had a passion for intrigue, there is one 
 subject upon which his opinion was always stoutly 
 maintained. In hostility to what he called Popery he 
 never wavered. He fought the battle of Protestantism 
 with the courage that we expect of him. He was 
 dismissed from the Rolls Chapel for preaching a bold 
 and outspoken sermon against popish cruelty. When 
 
GILBERT BURNET 77 
 
 James n. came to the throne, Burnet found safety in 
 a wise flight. He was among the first to believe that 
 the hope of England lay in placing William and Mary 
 upon the throne ; and though he did not play so 
 large a part in the drama as he supposed, he accom- 
 panied the Dutch prince to England, and offered 
 him much unacceptable counsel. He was rewarded 
 by the see of Salisbury, which he ruled with equal 
 zeal and wisdom. He preached the Coronation 
 sermon, in which, with memorable words, he 
 denounced both Tyranny and Anarchy, of which 
 ' the one makes men beasts of prey, the other of 
 burden. Happy we, whose laws are neither writ on 
 sand nor with blood.' To sustain the burden of 
 episcopal duties was perhaps the task for which he was 
 best fitted ; and the years which he spent at Salisbury, 
 far removed from the turmoil of a Court which asked 
 not his advice, were years of dignity. 
 
 For twenty-six years he administered the affairs 
 of his diocese, and yet kept his hand and his eye 
 fixed upon the great world. He took William and 
 Mary under his direct patronage, and sketched, as 
 only he could sketch them, the relations which should 
 exist between them. When Peter the Great visited 
 these shores, Burnet, with characteristic inappro- 
 priateness, compared ' the great Northern Emperor ' 
 with the Queen of Sheba, and gave him ' such infor- 
 mations of our religion and constitution as he was will- 
 ing to receive.' In 1701 he settled with Leibnitz the 
 vexed question as to who should succeed to the English 
 
78 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 throne, and was rewarded by an amiable letter from 
 the Electress Sophia. When William in. died, Burnet 
 found another deathbed suitable for his ministrations, 
 and presently wrote a character of his King, which 
 did not fail from lack of candour. He preached the 
 first sermon to which Queen Anne was asked to listen, 
 and improved the occasion by reminding ' Solomon ' 
 that * Saul's party was still very strong.' He died 
 opportunely, in 1715, just before James Edward made 
 a hopeless attempt to seize the crown, and was buried 
 to such an uproar of honour and ridicule as would 
 have soothed his flattered soul. The pamphleteers, 
 on either side, made busy with his reputation, and 
 the wittiest of them all, John Arbuthnot, not only 
 described * the six days preceding the death of a late 
 Right Reverend ' prelate, but composed his epitaph 
 in Latin and English. Here is the English version : 
 
 Beneath 
 There lies, against his own Wishes, 
 
 A man at last in PEACE. 
 He was Master of a Cunning, various Wit, 
 
 Agreeable to his own COUNTRY. 
 Great was he in Divinity, in Fable Greater, 
 IN POLITICS (if you '11 believe himself) greatest. 
 
 So faithful a Lover of Truth, 
 That it equally appears in his Life, 
 
 And Writings. 
 
 A violent, weighty, unwearied Preacher ; 
 Many have had purer Doctrine, 
 
GILBERT BURNET 79 
 
 No one stronger sides, and Lungs. 
 So averse to ROME in all Points 
 
 That he almost approached GENEVA. 
 He died, to the universal grief of the 
 Dissenters on the Kalends of March. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is not as a preacher, despite his 
 oratorical gifts ; it is not as a politician, despite his 
 faculty for intrigue, that Burnet is most happily re- 
 membered. He survives, as perhaps he expected to 
 survive, by his writings, which gave him a place apart 
 in our history. He was not a great man of letters. 
 Singularly insensitive to aesthetic impressions, he 
 wrote well rather by the stress of dramatic emotion 
 than by a conscious effort. The best passages in his 
 History, such as his account of Lord William Russell's 
 last days and death, were composed at a time of 
 keen excitement. He had attended him on the 
 scaffold, and felt that he had a share in his glory, if 
 not in his punishment. His literary masterpiece, 
 Some Passages of the Life and. Death of the Right 
 Honourable John Earl of Rochester, is quick with an 
 unforgotten experience. Within its brief compass 
 the interlocutors, Rochester and Burnet himself, are 
 sketched with a rare discernment. Dr. Johnson's 
 praise is apposite and not exaggerated. With con- 
 fidence he commends it to ' the critic for its elegance, 
 the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for 
 its piety.' But it was written and published within 
 a few months of Rochester's death, and was neither 
 
8o POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 spoiled by thought nor enfeebled by correction. 
 Moreover, it indulged Burnet's dominant passions, 
 always to be in at the death, and most zealously to 
 improve the occasion. Indeed there is no doubt 
 that he exaggerated Rochester's ' licentiousness ' in 
 order to enhance the virtue of his conversion. 
 
 As a serious historian, Burnet has a double claim 
 upon our regard. On the one hand, as Professor Firth 
 has pointed out, he was the first of the moderns 
 to make an adequate use of documentary evidence, 
 and his History of the Reformation is still esteemed an 
 authority. On the other hand, he wrote, in the 
 History of My Own Time, of the men whom he knew, 
 of the events whereof he was witness. He was at 
 once archivist and journalist, and by a wanton para- 
 dox it is his journalism to which he owes his immor- 
 tality. The merits and faults of Burnet's most 
 familiar book are the merits and faults of the man 
 himself. It is vivid, energetic, and picturesque. It 
 is never dull, and it is never tired. It carries the 
 reader along its stream of words with as little resist- 
 ance as Burnet's audience opposed to his sermons. 
 And the ease of its style is matched by an ease of 
 fancy. Burnet was a gossip in an age of gossips. He 
 had the same curiosity, the same love of the trivial, as 
 obsessed Aubrey and Anthony a Wood. He did not 
 disdain to record the tricks of manner and speech 
 which differentiate one man from another, and which 
 graver historians omit. For instance, he tells us that 
 Lauderdale's ' tongue was too big for his mouth, 
 
GILBERT BURNET 81 
 
 which made him bedew all he talked to ' ; that 
 Shaftesbury ' depended much on what a drunken 
 physician had predicted ' ; that Orrery ' pretended 
 to wit, but it was very luscious ' ; that Buckingham 
 ' has no manner of literature, and all he knows is in 
 chemistry.' So much may be set down to his credit. 
 On the other hand, his book is, like himself, garru- 
 lous, reckless, and undisciplined. He still preaches 
 to the personages of his History as he preached to 
 them, if he might, when he and they were alive. 
 Withal he was a finished eavesdropper, who com- 
 bined the keen scent for news with the tireless 
 indiscretion of the modern reporter ; and it may 
 be said that there is no side of his own various 
 character that is not illustrated in the History of My 
 Own Time. 
 
 His honesty and good faith have been sharply 
 questioned. Political opponents have found in his 
 work not a few traces of deceit and vindictiveness. 
 But their discoveries are not justified. Burnet was 
 an advocate who had persuaded himself that he was 
 honest, and cared not what the others said. He did 
 not often lie wilfully. His errors proceeded rather 
 from want of judgment or personal vanity than from 
 any love of falsehood. Johnson says ' he was so much 
 prejudiced that he took no pains to find out the truth,' 
 and compares him most wittily to * a man who resolves 
 to regulate his time by a certain watch, but will not 
 inquire whether the watch is right or wrong.' That 
 is perfectly true, but it is not the whole truth. It 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 leaves Burnet's stupidity out of the account, and 
 Burnet's faults sprang as much from stupidity as 
 from prejudice. He did not see all that he thought 
 he saw, and he understood only half that he saw. 
 His conclusions, therefore, were often as incorrect as 
 his impressions ; and his authority, first-hand as it 
 is, is by no means impeccable. It is difficult, for in- 
 stance, to defend Burnet's character, or characters, of 
 Charles n. The earlier draft is just and discerning. 
 It does not hide the truth either for good or evil, 
 and it sets the witty, pleasure-loving sovereign in not 
 too dark a light. The later describes a monster, not a 
 man. It introduces an infamous comparison with 
 the Tiberius of Suetonius, for which the facts give 
 no warrant. It brings a wicked charge against the 
 Duchess of Orleans, for which there is not a shadow of 
 foundation. That this change of view was not without 
 a motive is evident, nor can we doubt that the motive 
 was revenge. The King had not treated Burnet with 
 the distinction which the preacher thought due to 
 him. Burnet, in abasing himself before the King 
 after the suicide of Essex, knew that he had been 
 guilty of a mean action, and kept within his mind a 
 rancour against the man who was the unwitting cause 
 of his degradation. In any case, the offence is one 
 which partiality cannot excuse, and which the King 
 himself expected and discounted. 
 
 However, it is the admirable series of characters 
 which give the greatest value to Burnet's History. 
 Happily, the seventeenth century had not been taught 
 

 GILBERT BURNET 83 
 
 the heresy, that great men were powerless to direct 
 the course of affairs that events were the inevitable 
 result of natural forces or sudden upheavals ; and 
 Burnet, like the best of his contemporaries, gave 
 generous credit to the captains and statesmen of his 
 time. He believed, and he believed rightly, that if 
 you would understand history, you must understand 
 the characters of those who directed the councils or 
 fought the battles of the State. Moreover, not 
 merely was character-drawing the fashion in his own 
 country ; it is certain that Burnet had encountered 
 the works of La Bruyere. And he has given us such 
 a gallery of portraits as you will not find outside the 
 pages of Clarendon. He was not so fine a painter as 
 his great rival, whose scrupulous tact in the selection 
 of virtues and vices was beyond his reach. He was 
 familiar, where Clarendon was austere, happily trivial 
 and even witty, where Clarendon was pompous or 
 priggish. He obtained his results not by choice and 
 omission, but by a careless profusion of detail, and 
 despite his lack of artistry, despite his prejudice, he 
 bears indispensable witness to one of the most 
 interesting periods of our history. 
 
 He has told us what he thought concerning the 
 greatest of his contemporaries. By way of contrast, 
 we will set down the opinion which two persons, who 
 knew him well, held of his character. His mother 
 declared that he * would be a bee-headed man all his 
 lifetime.' The King, who, if he did not know him 
 as well as his mother, had the talent of swifter 
 
84 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 judgment, thus summed up his arrogance : ' I be- 
 lieve he would be content to be hanged to have the 
 pleasure to make a speech on the scaffold ; but I 
 would order drums to be beat, so that he should not 
 be heard.' Fortunately Burnet eluded the scaffold. 
 But had he come within the shadow of the tree he 
 would have been equal to the emergency. ' I would 
 have put my speech,' said he, ' in such hands that 
 the world should see it if they could not hear it ' ; 
 and no doubt the last dying speech of Gilbert Burnet 
 would not have been without edification. 
 
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 
 
 To any politician : 
 
 Mutaio nomine de te 
 Fabula narratur. 
 
 THOSE who believe that the world is governed 
 with very little wisdom can find few better 
 examples of incompetence in our annals than the Duke 
 of Newcastle. For forty-six years he interfered wan- 
 tonly in the government of Great Britain ; he well- 
 nigh succeeded in driving his country upon the rock 
 of destruction ; and he died still affecting, to himself 
 at least, the vain and pompous manners of the heaven- 
 sent statesman. He had made no attempt to fit 
 himself for the discharge of the onerous duties he 
 lightly assumed. Knowledge and intelligence were 
 completely lacking to him. The education which 
 Westminster School and the University of Cambridge 
 had offered him were thrown away upon his barren 
 mind. To the end of his life he kept unsullied an 
 inveterate ignorance. He believed that Cape Breton 
 was not an island, and he was once found looking for 
 Jamaica in a map of the Mediterranean. When, in 
 1755, he was asked at a meeting of the Council, what 
 
86 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 was a squadron, he replied, ' three ships or more ! ' 
 George n. said, with perfect truth, that Newcastle 
 was unfit to be the chamberlain of a petty German 
 prince. He could not think ; he kept Stone and 
 Murray to do his thinking for him. Irresolute and 
 incapable, fussy and dishonest, he was indefatigable 
 in the discussion of small things. On one occasion 
 he argued for many hours whether the original or the 
 translation of a certain document should be placed 
 in the paper on the right or left of two parallel columns. 
 At the same time he so bitterly disliked the trans- 
 action of real business that the discipline of the army 
 was long suspended, because (in 1729) he would not 
 take the trouble to countersign the King's order for 
 holding courts-martial. ' Who would not laugh,' 
 said Horace Walpole, ' at a world where so ridiculous 
 a creature as the Duke of Newcastle can overturn 
 Ministries ? ' 
 
 It seemed idle to laugh. With all his folly, New- 
 castle not only overturned Ministries, but made them 
 anew. The scorn of patriotism or the censure of 
 honourable men availed not to move him from his 
 high offices. And it must be admitted that he took 
 a low view of his own job. If he lacked talent himself 
 he did not expect it in those whom their interest or 
 his complaisance had advanced. ' It would be a very 
 bad precedent,' he said in 1737, ' to punish everybody 
 in office for not acting as if they had sense ... for 
 everybody knew that there might be very good reasons 
 for giving people employment in the State besides 
 
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 87 
 
 their having sense : they might have great titles, 
 great estates, great property, great zeal to serve who- 
 ever was in power : nay, some I won't say all may, 
 with very little sense, have great integrity and good 
 characters ; and such men it may be very proper for 
 a Government to employ in offices, where sense is 
 not much wanted. . . . But if such men were to see 
 that they were to be responsible for not acting with 
 all the circumspection of able men, when everybody 
 knows that they might as well pretend to infallibility 
 as ability, I think it would prevent many people from 
 entering into the service of the Government whom 
 it is very right from their property to attach to the 
 interest of the Government : and I think besides 
 that it would be as great an injustice for the House 
 of Lords to punish a man for being a fool as for 
 having the gout ; they are both infirmities, not 
 faults ; they are the misfortunes, not the trans- 
 gressions, of those who are infected with them, and 
 make them much more objects of compassion than 
 resentment.' The candour of this amazing harangue 
 was obviously inadvertent and unconscious. Never 
 once did it occur to Newcastle's cloudy mind that a 
 man should be chosen to do the King's business or to 
 serve his country merely because he was fitted by 
 natural gifts for those pursuits, that it would not be 
 prudent to enter a gouty man for a hundred yards' 
 race. He smiled at those who thought that the world 
 should be governed by a succession of talents. ' I 
 don't know,' said the ironic Walpole, ' whether there 
 
88 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 are not more parts in governing without genius.' At 
 any rate the Houses of Parliament acquiesced in their 
 ridiculous leader, and believed, no doubt, that Pitt's 
 gout was a worse infirmity than Newcastle's folly. 
 
 So he fumbled through life with hands ' that are 
 always groping and sprawling, and fluttering and 
 hurrying on the rest of his precipitate person,' un 
 certain tatillonnage, a Frenchman called it ; and so 
 long as he remained in office, which he did with 
 eminent success, he cared not what happened to his 
 country. He had no skill in legislation. As an ad- 
 ministrator he justly earned the contempt of all his 
 contemporaries. He was idle, dilatory, and irresolute. 
 He was determined that he would never do to-day 
 what he might put off until to-morrow. Content to 
 wait upon events, he thought there was always a 
 chance of something favourable turning up. One 
 desire dominated him, and one desire only : to 
 remain in office. His ambition, restless and untiring, 
 was satisfied with nothing less than political dominion. 
 And for this dominion he had all the gifts that were 
 necessary. He was intimately at home in the coulisses. 
 A master of intrigue, he was at his best in the secret, 
 corrupt management of the two Houses, in playing 
 off one group against another, in distributing places 
 and pensions. In a debased age, he sank triumphantly 
 beneath the level of his kind. Not even the infamous 
 Bubb Dodington, who knew to a penny the market 
 value of a borough, was a match for him. 
 
 And in the purchase of votes he was never, I think, 
 
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 89 
 
 disturbed by a false shame. He was incapable, for 
 instance, of the hypocrisy which persuaded Dodington 
 to confide to his journal in the midst of an election 
 that he had spent three days ' in the infamous and 
 disagreeable compliance with the low habits of venal 
 wretches.' He expected to be asked for posts and 
 pensions, livings and bishoprics, and if they were 
 handy he gave them. Were he indifferent to the fate 
 of England, at least he cherished a proper respect 
 for a man * who could give his Majesty six members 
 for nothing.' Nor was there any move in the game 
 to which he would not willingly stoop. To counter 
 intrigue with intrigue, trick with trickery, was an 
 achievement best suited to his temper, and in this 
 sport, wherein alone he excelled, he spared neither 
 friend nor foe. How he must have laughed when 
 Halifax, having conspired with Dodington to contrive 
 a Cabinet of their own, not merely told Newcastle all 
 about it, but took measures with him to defeat his 
 and Dodington's own design ! And surely Dodington 
 should have known better than to be surprised at the 
 manoeuvre, because at that very time, and ever since, 
 Halifax had spoken of Newcastle to him and to others 
 ' as a knave and a fool.' There is a point at which 
 the ingenuousness of politicians becomes intolerable. 
 In war or in peace the Duke of Newcastle had but 
 one aim and one ambition to purchase a general 
 support at the expense of the country. His power, 
 says Lecky, rested upon this ignoble basis ' upon 
 the uniform employment of all the patronage of the 
 
90 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Crown, and of a large proportion of the public money 
 at his disposal, for the purpose of maintaining a 
 parliamentary majority.' England might be beaten 
 on land or sea the Duke of Newcastle was indifferent 
 to her lot. What he could not bear was that any 
 other than he should dip his fingers in the national 
 purse. He clung to the secret service money with 
 the feverish despair with which a drunkard clings to 
 the key of a wine-cellar, and in a crisis of his, and in- 
 cidentally of England's fate, he deprived himself of 
 Fox's aid, for what it was worth, because he would 
 not surrender, and Fox, a greedier man than himself, 
 would not forgo the control of that delectable fund. 
 At another time, when all honest men trembled for 
 England's safety, he would not consent to the addition 
 of some necessary regiments to the British Army, 
 because he could not bear to think that the Duke of 
 Cumberland should have the privilege of appointing 
 officers to them. Indeed, the two strongest passions 
 of his soul were jealousy and fear. If he were unable 
 to accomplish anything worth doing himself, he was 
 filled with alarm at the deeds of others. Throughout 
 a long life he pursued always the same policy of in- 
 triguing against those whom he served, or those who 
 served him, as soon as he thought their influence 
 too great. 
 
 He owed his first advance to Walpole, who made 
 him Secretary of State in 1724, because he thought 
 that the boroughs he commanded would be valuable 
 to his interests, and because he was convinced that 
 
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 91 
 
 Newcastle's lack of understanding would prevent him 
 from growing into a dangerous rival. For once the 
 astute Walpole allowed himself to be deceived. He 
 reckoned not with Newcastle's cunning and effrontery, 
 and before he could take steps to guard himself, he 
 found Newcastle linking himself with anybody who 
 would help him to stand upon his feet independently 
 of Walpole. Thus he did his best to win Carteret 
 to his purpose, and once when he was half-drunk 
 for he did not disdain the lesser vices he waited 
 upon Walpole with an offer of Carteret's services, 
 and promised to go bail for Carteret's good behaviour. 
 Walpole curtly bade him choose between him and 
 Carteret, and presently was made the victim of New- 
 castle's malevolence. Lord Harvey sketched the 
 politician's position at Walpole's fall in terms of 
 the bitterest contempt. ' The Duke of Newcastle,' 
 said he, ' whose envy is so strong that he is jealous 
 of everybody, and whose understanding is so weak 
 that nobody is jealous of him, is reciprocally made use 
 of by these two men (Pulteney and Carteret) to 
 promote their different ends ; and being jealous of 
 Lord Carteret from feeling his superior interest with 
 the King, and jealous of Mr. Pulteney from his 
 superior interest with his brother (Mr. Pelham) in 
 the House of Commons, is like the hungry ass in the 
 fable between the two bundles of hay, and allured by 
 both without knowing which to go to, tastes neither, 
 and will starve between them.' Alas ! he did not 
 starve. With equal greed he seized both bundles, 
 
92 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 and was thus supported in his career of mischief. So 
 in the same spirit of jealousy he quarrelled with his 
 brother, whose influence in the House of Commons 
 was too great for his endurance, and presently betrayed 
 Pitt to Bute in bitter envy of the victories won by 
 the British arms. Bute, in whom at last he met his 
 match, assailed him pitilessly, expelled him from all 
 the offices which he held, degraded those whom he 
 had advanced, and left him to nurse his jealousy in 
 retirement. 
 
 But fear was a stronger passion of Newcastle's 
 mind even than jealousy. There was nothing of 
 which he was not afraid. When he was in office 
 and he was always in office he dreaded the mere 
 possibility of resignation. He feared to go to war ; 
 he feared to remain at peace. He was terrified by 
 the clamour outside the Houses of Parliament, and 
 had Byng shot to appease the people. He was afraid 
 of the rebellious Scots, trembled before the Pretender, 
 and in 1745 shut himself up for days in a state of 
 doubting timidity. If only he had been sure that 
 the Pretender would win, he would have joined him, 
 since Great Britain without Newcastle was a thing 
 he could not contemplate. ' The other day,' wrote 
 Walpole, ' I concluded the Ministry knew the danger 
 was all over, for the Duke of Newcastle ventured to 
 have the Pretender's declaration burnt at the Royal 
 Exchange.' Indeed this aspen of politics must have 
 been very sure before he dared to take so desperate 
 a step. But what frightened him most of all was 
 
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 93 
 
 the threat of a French invasion. He went about his 
 business in a shaking tremor at the mere thought of 
 France. And worse still, he infected his countrymen 
 with the poison of his own cowardice. Fox declared 
 in 1745 that ' had 5000 Frenchmen landed in any part 
 of this island a week ago, I verily believe the entire 
 conquest of it would not have cost them a battle.' 
 Ten years later, Newcastle in a panic fear hurried over 
 Hessians and Hanoverians to England rather than 
 employ Hawke and his fleet in their proper business 
 of defence. Well might Pitt attempt, in denouncing 
 the cowardice of Newcastle, his ' little frivolous love 
 of power, his ambition of being the only figure among 
 ciphers,' to rally the English people. ' I want,' said 
 he, ' to call this country out of that enervated state 
 that twenty thousand Frenchmen can shake it. The 
 maxims of our Government have degenerated, not 
 our natives. I wish to see that breed restored, which 
 under our old principles carried our glory so high.' 
 
 Even had Newcastle's irresolution not prevented 
 him from making up his mind, his pusillanimity would 
 have forced him to inaction. Horace Walpole said 
 that he was * always at least as much frightened at 
 doing right as at doing wrong.' Perhaps the distinc- 
 tion between right and wrong was not clear in his 
 mind. And the fear which haunted him in public 
 pursued him to the retirement of his home. When 
 Dr. Shaw, the King's physician, ate some mushrooms 
 and was ill for a few hours, ' the catastrophe so much 
 alarmed the Duke of Newcastle, that he immediately 
 
94 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 ordered all the mushroom beds to be destroyed, and 
 even the toadstools in the park did not escape scalping 
 in the general massacre.' So even to the hour of his 
 death the passion of his life pursued him. He died, 
 as he had lived, in a panic, surrounded himself 
 with doctors, and hoped perhaps that this last lavish 
 expenditure might save him from the grave. 
 
 There was one thing only of which he was not 
 afraid Parliament. The bright, well-drilled Houses 
 presented no terror to the mind of this finished poli- 
 tician. The Commons and the Lords were alike his 
 henchmen, for he had purchased most of them with 
 public money, and the rest were looking eagerly for 
 promotion. When Shelburne was beginning a career 
 of politics, Henry Fox summed up in a single letter 
 of advice the whole gospel of Newcastle. ' It is in 
 place that I long to see you,' said he to Shelburne ; 
 ' and it is the place-man, not the independent Lord, 
 that can do this country good.' There in a sentence 
 is displayed the complete ' statesman.' To be sure, 
 there were not many independent Lords or Com- 
 moners either in the middle of the eighteenth century. 
 Parliament itself, falling into a pit of corruption, was 
 the slave of the Cabinet. If it had opinions, it found 
 it profitable to suppress them, and incurred the 
 danger of * becoming in time rather the oppressor 
 than the representative of the people.' As Pitt said, 
 the House of Commons had ' degenerated into a little 
 assembly, serving no other purpose than to register 
 the arbitrary decrees of one too powerful subject.' 
 
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 95 
 
 The record of Newcastle's life is the record of the 
 offices that he held, and the Ministries which he made 
 and unmade. Office was essential to him ; he could 
 not live without it. The service of his country would 
 not have interested him, even had he been capable of 
 it. But he delighted in comings and goings ; in 
 setting up A against B or C, and then betraying all 
 three ; in involving his nearest colleagues in intrigue, 
 and sacrificing them without a murmur to the popular 
 clamour. Nor for more than forty years was he long 
 deprived of the office, essential to his own poor 
 happiness, fatal to the poorer destiny of his country. 
 From the time when, in 1724, Walpole made him a 
 Secretary of State, unto his unlamented death in 
 1768, he was seldom without a seat in the Cabinet. 
 He served with Walpole, with Wilmington, with his 
 brother, Henry Pelham, with Pitt, and was disloyal 
 to every one of them. Upon whatever he touched 
 he left the mark of his incompetence. In 1743 he 
 made the battle of Dettingen of no effect by refusing 
 to assent to the Treaty of Hanau. A year earlier he 
 had ensured the failure of an expedition to Cartagena 
 by his meddling and muddling. Yet so tight was 
 his hold upon the public purse, so well skilled was he 
 in conciliating or dividing groups, that no disaster 
 could shake his supremacy. 
 
 At the death, in 1754, of Henry Pelham, his brother, 
 whom he had ever pursued with envy and malice, 
 he became all-powerful in England, and continued 
 within the space of three or four years to depress 
 
96 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 his country to the very depths of ignominy. * The 
 poor Duke of Newcastle,' wrote Horace Walpole, 
 ' conquers the torrent of his grief, and . . . rather 
 than abandon England to its evil genius, will submit 
 to be Lord Treasurer himself.' He was more than 
 this : be became universal Minister, that he might 
 mismanage all things. ' The Duke is omnipotent ' 
 again it is Walpole who speaks ' and to show that 
 power makes use of nothing but machines.' The 
 failure of his plans did not disturb him. He was 
 determined that Fox should lead the Commons and 
 leave the control of the secret service money to him. 
 Fox declined the dubious honour. He was deter- 
 mined that Pitt should resign. Pitt refused to resign. 
 Newcastle remained ' affronted and omnipotent.' 
 And it was, in Dodington's phrase, ' all for Quarter 
 Day.' 
 
 Moreover, Newcastle could do no more in an hour 
 of stress and danger than carry the shifts and dodges 
 of peace into a great war. He hoped that all would 
 be well so long as Bubb Dodington and Halifax and 
 Legge and Robinson and Fox played the old game 
 of in and out with all the old skill, and let him draw 
 whatever profit he could from their dissensions. 
 What did it matter that France armed, so long as 
 there were boroughs to be bought or given away ? 
 When Pitt declared that ' to times of relaxation should 
 be left that fondness for disposal of places ; wisdom 
 should meet such rough times as these,' he was speak- 
 ing a language which Newcastle could not understand, 
 
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 97 
 
 and which, when once it had caught the popular ear, 
 forbade the * shifty old jobber,' for a while at least, 
 to touch anything but the public money-bag. 
 
 The times, in 1755, were rough indeed. War with 
 France, as any statesman would have seen plainly, 
 was inevitable. It needed but a spark to set America 
 in a blaze. The peace had already been broken in 
 many a skirmish, and Newcastle refused not only to 
 take action himself, but to see that the country was 
 ready for action. Hungrily though he clung to power, 
 he could not make up his mind, and let things drift as 
 they would. In either House his majority was ab- 
 solute, and he left his majority uncontrolled. Even 
 when Braddock had been despatched on his ill-fated 
 expedition, even when Boscawen had captured two 
 ships of the French fleet, Newcastle persisted in the 
 deception that we were not at war. ' There was no 
 violence,' says Dodington, ' no oppression, no par- 
 ticular complaint, and yet the nation was sinking by 
 degrees, and there was a general indisposition pro- 
 ceeding from the weakness and worthlessness of the 
 Minister, who would embrace everything and was 
 fit for nothing.' 
 
 However, in Newcastle's despite, we were soon 
 fighting France all the world over, and the supreme 
 Minister took no steps. As Waldegrave said, * we 
 first engaged in a war, and then began to prepare 
 ourselves.' Newcastle would not prepare, even 
 after hostilities had begun. , Hawke was at S pithead 
 with his fleet, and Newcastle was afraid to give him 
 
 G 
 
98 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 any definite orders. He thought it would be a good 
 plan if ' Hawke took a turn in the Channel to exercise 
 the fleet, without having any instructions whatever.' 
 Thus he hoped to shift his responsibility without 
 losing a single supporter. And when this ingenious 
 suggestion was not approved, he proposed that 
 * Hawke should be ordered not to attack the enemy 
 unless he deemed it worth while ' ; that he should 
 not take their ships unless there were more together 
 than ten that he meant this only of merchantmen, 
 for to be sure he must attack any squadrons of ships 
 of war ; that he should take and destroy all French 
 ships of war, but no merchantmen ; that, finally, he 
 should be restrained from taking any ships except 
 ships of the line. What Hawke, or any one else, made 
 of this jumble of opposites I do not know. It is 
 certain that Newcastle plumed himself on an in- 
 genuity which pretended that England was simul- 
 taneously at war and at peace. 
 
 His indecision at sea was equalled by his indecision 
 on land. While he gave contradictory orders to the 
 Admirals, he was resolved, if he could, to make war 
 without an army. He was quite sure that a little 
 goodwill and hopefulness were sufficient to defeat 
 the most desperate foe. When Pitt proposed to 
 strengthen and to train the Militia, the House of 
 Lords, on Newcastle's order, threw out the Bill. 
 Compulsion and increase were alike distasteful to him. 
 ' We have a Militia Bill,' he wrote, ' which may give 
 us some trouble, as many of our best friends in the 
 
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 99 
 
 House of Commons are for it, from their zeal ; but 
 I am afraid the principles of it may prove dangerous 
 to this country. The expense would be certain 
 and immense viz., ^200,000 per annum at least. 
 The use very uncertain. If the scheme should succeed, 
 it must undoubtedly increase greatly the power of the 
 Crown. But that which of all things I dread, it would 
 breed up our people to a love of arms and military 
 government, and divert them from their true business 
 husbandry, manufactures, etc. ; and I think, upon 
 the whole, would tend more to make this a military 
 country and government than any scheme I have yet 
 heard of.' Zeal, indeed ! What right has a self- 
 respecting politician to show zeal, unless it be a zeal 
 for the pocket ? And for the rest, rather let England 
 perish than see the power of the Crown increased and 
 herself a military nation ready for defence ! Thus 
 has the Whig spoken from the beginning, in those 
 far-off days when he served the Devil, the first of his 
 kind. Thus shall the Whig speak, until with the smug 
 satisfaction of a false martyrdom he beholds his land in 
 ruins. 
 
 The invasion, the thought of which had caused 
 the wretched Newcastle to tremble in his chair of 
 office, turned out to be a false alarm nicely contrived 
 to cover an attack upon Minorca. And the English 
 Minister did everything that was expected of him. 
 He made no attempt to interfere with the French 
 fleet, which set sail under the command of the Due de 
 Richelieu from Toulon. But three days after it had 
 
ioo POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 started he sent Admiral Byng, with an ill-fitted fleet, 
 without marines, and with but a single regiment of 
 soldiers, to defend Minorca against the superior 
 forces of the French. So badly was Byng equipped 
 that he thought himself obliged to linger at Gibraltar 
 longer than was prudent, and when at last he reached 
 Minorca, after an indecisive encounter, he decided 
 to return to Gibraltar, and there to await reinforce- 
 ments. When Byng had sailed away, the Castle of 
 St. Philip could not hold out, and Minorca fell an 
 easy prey to the Due de Richelieu. 
 
 The failure of Byng was turned to excellent and 
 instant account by the adroit Newcastle. A wave of 
 indignation swept over the country. The Admiral 
 was burnt in effigy from one end of England to the 
 other. When a deputation from the City of London 
 waited upon Newcastle to demand vengeance, the 
 Minister showed an indecent haste in promising a 
 scapegoat for his own incompetence. ' Oh, indeed,' 
 he exclaimed, * he shall be tried immediately ; he 
 shall be hanged directly,' and thenceforth the fate of 
 Byng was sealed. He had become a pawn in the 
 political game, and Newcastle was resolved not to 
 lose a piece by attempting to save the life of one who 
 might be innocent. 
 
 No sooner, then, did Byng arrive in England than he 
 was closely imprisoned, and on December 21, 1756, 
 began his trial before a court-martial. The sentence 
 passed upon him was equivocal and half-hearted. 
 He was acquitted of cowardice and disaffection, and 
 
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 101 
 
 found guilty, with many qualifications, of neglect of 
 duty. The Court, moreover, denouncing the great 
 severity of the I2th Article of War, earnestly recom- 
 mended him to his Majesty's clemency. Argument 
 and recommendation were alike useless. For once 
 the King and the mobility were united to demand 
 the punishment of Byng, and at the same time to prop 
 up a tottering Ministry. For Newcastle, indeed, the 
 Admiral's execution was a political necessity. Were 
 he to escape, Lord Anson, the First Lord of the 
 Admiralty, would be no longer secure, and the great 
 Duke himself, the supreme bestower of patronage, 
 would receive such a shock as had never yet fallen 
 upon his corrupt head. So Byng's life became a mere 
 stake in the gamble of politics. The Ministers bribed 
 and promised, according to their wont. They saw 
 with delight the unpopularity which Pitt and Temple 
 incurred by protesting against what they thought a 
 judicial murder. The blood of Byng appeared to be 
 the best cement which could hold together the pieces 
 of a disparted Cabinet. Newcastle, it must be ad- 
 mitted, left nothing undone which might strengthen 
 him and his friends. The Duchess of Newcastle 
 sent Lady Sophia Egerton to the Princess Amelia, 
 begging for the death of Byng, and telling her that if 
 Byng were spared, Lord Anson could not remain at 
 the head of the Admiralty. ' What a complication of 
 horrors,' exclaimed Walpole, ' women employed on a 
 job for blood ! ' More than Lord Anson's position 
 was at stake. As has been said, the great Minister 
 
102 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 himself might have been hanged if Byng had not 
 been shot, and that in his eyes would have been the 
 worst of national calamities. 
 
 That Byng was guilty of neglect cannot be gain- 
 said. As little can it be gainsaid that he ought not 
 to have been shot. He was sent to Minorca, ill- 
 equipped, ill-found, and with a squadron too small for 
 the task entrusted to it. The Governor of Gibraltar 
 refused to part with the troops which he was ordered 
 to furnish. When Byng arrived at Minorca, the 
 French fleet stood on the defensive. As Voltaire 
 said, ' 1'Amiral francais etait aussi loin de 1'Amiral 
 anglais que celui-ci 1'etait de 1'autre.' That is in- 
 contestable, but Byng was sent to relieve St. Philip's 
 Castle and to destroy the enemy's ships, and these 
 objects he had failed to attain. As always happens, 
 the sailor was punished. The politician, to whose 
 incompetence the failure was primarily due, escaped. 
 Long before the court-martial began, it was recog- 
 nised that the sailor's escape meant the fall of the 
 Minister. One thing is abundantly clear : if New- 
 castle prayed for the death of Byng, the Court was 
 very reluctant to condemn him. It passed the 
 sentence ' only because the law, in prescribing death, 
 left no alternative to the discretion of the Court.' 
 
 Newcastle was not hanged. He heard with in- 
 difference the Court's recommendation to mercy ; 
 but not even the sacrifice of Byng availed to avert his 
 fall. For many months Pitt had attacked him with- 
 out mercy and with manifest justice. Now, Pitt was 
 
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 103 
 
 not merely a greater and stronger man than any of 
 those who bowed a willing knee to Newcastle in the 
 two Houses of Parliament. He was made of a differ- 
 ent clay ; he was fulfilled with a different purpose. 
 He alone among his contemporaries had gone into 
 the business of politics without counting what he 
 could get out of it. He was not interested in the sale 
 of boroughs. When he was appointed Paymaster in 
 1746, he had set a noble precedent by refusing to 
 enrich himself at the expense of the nation. To his 
 colleagues, no doubt, his conduct seemed foolish and 
 ostentatious. They could not understand the scruple 
 of a politician who desired simply and solely to serve 
 his country. He appeared especially disgraceful in 
 their eyes because, being a man of no fortune, he had 
 refused to dip his hand in the till, and had thus set 
 an example of political honesty which they had no 
 intention of following. But if Pitt's sacrifice annoyed 
 his fellows, it strengthened his hold upon the country, 
 and gave an added weight to every blow that he struck 
 at the quivering Newcastle. In a series of philippics, 
 which he alone ever equalled, he prepared the way 
 for his own advance. He knew well enough that he 
 could not supersede the ' one too powerful subject ' 
 until he had got him out, and that there was only 
 one means of getting him out by assault. 
 
 His eloquence caught the public ear, his images 
 dazzled the people's eye. When the great conflict 
 was engaged, his famous comparison between the 
 Rhone and the Saone was still remembered. ' I,' he 
 
104 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 had begun with a mock modesty ' I who am at a 
 distance from that sanctum sanctorum whither the 
 priest goes for inspiration I, who travel through a 
 desert and am overwhelmed with mountains of ob- 
 scurity, cannot easily catch a gleam to direct me to 
 the beauties of these negotiations. But there are 
 parts of the address which do not seem to me to come 
 from the same quarter with the rest. I cannot un- 
 ravel this mystery. Yes,' he cried, suddenly striking 
 his forehead, * I, too, am inspired ! Now it strikes 
 me : I remember at Lyons to have been carried to 
 see the conflux of the Rhone and the Saone : the one 
 a gentle, languid, feeble stream, and, though languid, 
 of no depth ; the other, a boisterous and impetuous 
 torrent. But they meet at last, and long may they 
 continue united to the comfort of each other, and to 
 the glory, honour, and security of the nation.' The 
 simile and its irony had an immediate and a lasting 
 effect. The languid Newcastle and the boisterous 
 Fox remained in men's minds, thus characterised, long 
 after the speech had been delivered. The image of 
 the go-cart, sketched while the fate of Byng's expe- 
 dition was still in suspense, was never wholly effaced, 
 and it completed Newcastle's discomfiture. ' If I 
 see a child,' said Pitt, * driving a go-cart close to the 
 edge of a precipice with the precious freight of an old 
 king and his family, I am bound to take the reins out 
 of such hands.' 
 
 But before Pitt could take the reins out of the 
 weak, crafty hands which held them, there were a 
 
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 105 
 
 hundred petty conspiracies to be set on foot and foiled. 
 It is the curse of politics that nothing can be done 
 simply. Even he who would save his country must 
 first wade through the dirty water of intrigue. With 
 the war upon us, Newcastle still deferred the day of 
 salvation. There were secret meetings and furtive 
 plottings. The wily old Minister thought that the 
 game of corruption was not quite played out, and that 
 if he yielded enough to Fox and Pitt he might still 
 retain the pride of his place. But at last, in the stress 
 of danger, the voice of patriotism was heard ; the 
 thing called politics was put roughly aside ; and 
 England, which had clamoured for a man, at last saw 
 its call answered. 
 
 In other words, the incredible happened : New- 
 castle resigned. The cities of England began, with 
 one accord, to bestow their freedom upon Pitt. As 
 Walpole said, ' it rained gold boxes.' But the 
 unanimous wish of the country was not enough to 
 establish Pitt firmly in office. He could not work 
 without the support of Parliament, and Parliament, 
 ingeniously bought, was still in the power of New- 
 castle. And so, to England's shame, Newcastle had 
 to be recalled to the Treasury, and Fox was made 
 Paymaster of the Forces. As Pitt said himself, ' I 
 borrowed the Duke of Newcastle's majority to carry 
 on the business of the country.' Pitt, indeed, had 
 stooped perforce to conquer. He had thrown to the 
 precious pair of dogs the bone which each liked best. 
 By an act of supreme contempt, having stripped New- 
 
io6 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 castle of power, he left him the patronage necessary to 
 support his vanity, and to Fox he gave that oppor- 
 tunity of making money without which he could not 
 live. As for Pitt, he knew that he could save Eng- 
 land, and that no one else could ; he brought her 
 some years of shining victory ; he built up empires 
 for her in India and in Canada ; he changed the very 
 aspect of history ; and he proved, incidentally, that 
 if he had left her to be gambled for by Newcastle and 
 the politicians, she would have come down to us 
 stripped and pilled, the simulacrum of a second-rate 
 Power. 
 
'THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' 
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT, as Lord Rosebery 
 1 has said, is ' in a secular sense the patron saint 
 of Germany.' It is he who has shaped his country's 
 sinister ambition, and who held up for the emulation 
 of future ages the supreme policy of theft. The 
 Kaiser William, who for Frederick's motive, glory, 
 devastated Europe, framed himself consciously and 
 deliberately upon the model of him who delighted 
 to call himself ' the wandering knight ' or ' the Don 
 Quixote of the North.' Of course he fell short of his 
 exemplar, since he was equally remote from the soldier 
 and the pedant, who met, by a strange union, in the 
 heart and mind of Frederick. Nevertheless, the 
 career of Frederick is of the highest interest to us, 
 since it helps us to understand modern Germany, 
 and nowhere shall we find a more vivid portrait of the 
 greatest of the Hohenzollerns than in Catt's plain and 
 honest memoirs. 
 
 Henri de Catt was born at Morges, near Geneva, 
 in 1728, was educated at the University of Utrecht, 
 and was following the craft of a schoolmaster, for 
 which nature had fitted him well enough, when it 
 was in 1755 he encountered Frederick the Great on 
 
 107 
 
io8 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 a boat at Arnheim. Three years afterwards he was 
 in the King of Prussia's service, allowed himself to be 
 absorbed heart and soul for twenty years, and then, 
 the victim of a sudden whim, resumed obscurity. 
 What he did afterwards is of no account, except that 
 he composed his memoirs and amply justified his 
 years of slavery. Such as he was, he was born to be 
 the patient servitor of a tyrant. He was of those to 
 whom sycophancy is no dishonour. He was happy 
 in bending himself to another's will, in living another's 
 life, in thinking another's thoughts. Though he had 
 something of Boswell's willingly subordinate tempera- 
 ment, he was not, as Boswell was, a knowing artist. 
 There is in his book an accidental quality, which by 
 no means impairs its value. He draws up the curtain 
 and sets Frederick the Great upon the stage, not with 
 the gesture of an accomplished showman, but with 
 the simplicity of one who has composed a drama 
 almost without intention. * This is how it all 
 happened,' he seems to say, * and I am as far as any- 
 body from offering a reasonable explanation.' In 
 truth, accident was the mainspring of Catt's life. 
 He met Frederick by accident ; by accident he entered 
 his service ; and in the King's service he would have 
 remained unto the end had it not been for some 
 offence given by accident and without meaning. 
 
 So faithful a character was Catt, that he is able to 
 boast with truth that ' the cooling off of this unique 
 man, so little expected, so little deserved, did not 
 influence his mind and heart.' He was equally 
 
4 THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' 109 
 
 incapable of rancour and falsehood. He tells the 
 story of his first meeting the King with his accus- 
 tomed artlessness. He chanced, as I have said, to 
 be travelling in the same boat which was taking the 
 King to Utrecht, and the King, disguised as the first 
 musician of the King of Poland, invited him into his 
 cabin. There took place the first of many hundred 
 conversations, in which Catt played the part of 
 listener with the greatest skill. Frederick instantly 
 began to criticise the Dutch Government, and was told 
 for his pains that he knew nothing about it. Then 
 he turned lightly to religion, explained to the stern 
 Calvinist, which was Henri de Catt, that ' creation 
 was impossible,' got into a circle and skipped over it, 
 ' thereupon went into such a sally upon kings, as 
 could not in the least lead me to suppose that he 
 was one,' shifted to literature and praised Racine 
 enthusiastically, and when Catt launched out on 
 Frederick's actions, interrupted him rapidly with the 
 words : ' Nothing more of kings, monsieur ! What 
 have we to do with them ? We will spend the rest 
 of our voyage on more agreeable and cheering objects.' 
 At parting the King was careful to discover Catt's 
 name, and, remembering his patience and his tact, 
 invited him to Breslau. Catt entered the King's 
 service under the best auspices and with the best 
 advice. The Marquis d'Argens, who knew ' the 
 crowned philosopher ' as well as anybody, was ready 
 with caution and counsel. He urged the ingenuous 
 young scholar to keep silence, to be composed, to 
 
no POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 enter as little as possible into jests, and to show 
 small eagerness for the confidences which would be 
 forced upon him. ' Do not, for God's sake,' said the 
 Marquis, ' criticise either his prose or his verse ; 
 don't ask him for anything, no money, and see only as 
 far as politeness permits those whom he has decided 
 are fools, rogues, intriguers, and carpers.' 
 
 The excellent Sir Andrew Mitchell, British envoy 
 and Frederick's trusted adviser, showed the same 
 understanding of the King's foible. ' Without 
 becoming too familiar with this Prince,' said he by 
 way of warning, * be yet frank and open with him, 
 and when you are together of an evening, always bring 
 forward questions of literature, of philosophy, and 
 especially of metaphysics, which he likes very much. 
 Discuss the French poets with him, and if he shows 
 you any of his verses, criticise only in so far as he 
 requests. Allow him to speak rather than speak 
 yourself.' Catt took all the advice proffered him 
 with exemplary obedience. For twenty years he 
 listened to the King's voice. He received the title 
 of reader to his Majesty, but it was his Majesty who 
 read. Indeed, from the moment that Catt came to 
 Breslau, he was rather a piece of furniture than a 
 man. Had they gone forth together, he would have 
 played the part of walking-stick to perfection. But it 
 was at the King's quarters that they met, and there 
 he did his duty as a listening, sympathetic chair. At 
 the outset, the King put Catt at his ease by assuring 
 him that he led a dog of a life, and sketched for him 
 
4 THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' in 
 
 the normal progress of his day. He got up at three, 
 so he told Catt, and sometimes earlier, though he 
 owned that it was a painful business. He did his 
 own hair, dressed himself, took a cup of coffee, and 
 read his despatches. While he meditated his answers 
 to the despatches, he played for an hour or more on 
 the flute, an instrument upon which Alcibiades said 
 no gentleman could play, and then gave instructions 
 to his secretaries ; after which he read old books, 
 seldom new ones, and issued the orders of the day. 
 At noon he dined, played again on the flute or read, 
 and was prepared, at four o'clock, to talk with Catt. 
 It was an eager, industrious life, as he lived it. for 
 he read and wrote with fury ; and it says a vast deal 
 for Catt's energy and persistence that for twenty 
 years he was able to share it. 
 
 The advice which the Marquis d'Argens and Sir 
 Andrew Mitchell gave was proved sound in the event. 
 Despite all his professions of modesty, Frederick was 
 one who could brook neither criticism nor contra- 
 diction. Unwilling to meet anybody on terms of 
 equality, the victim always of a sudden caprice, he 
 would set a slight arrogance against the fidelity of a 
 lifetime, and dismiss the oldest of his servants for 
 some paltry, inadequate reason. He lived and died 
 friendless, because he did not understand that friend- 
 ship meant giving as well as taking, and he was content, 
 for the most part, to be surrounded by sycophants, 
 whom he was free to insult either in speech or in the 
 practical jokes of a rare brutality. His passion to be 
 
H2 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 thought a poet made the task of conciliation far more 
 difficult. He allowed himself the freedom of criti- 
 cism ; he allowed it to no other, and the unfortunate 
 Catt was compelled to hear more bad verse and to 
 praise it than ever before had fallen to the lot of man 
 to hear and praise. Nor was Frederick ever tired of 
 repeating such scraps of flattery as Voltaire had thrown 
 to him. With an ingenuous pride he declared that 
 Voltaire had commended the doggerel in which he de- 
 scribes a trip to Strasburg. ' You see from this appro- 
 bation,' said he, * that I am not such a bad poet as you 
 might believe.' One day, as a concession of kindness, 
 he read to Catt some passages of his poem on war. 
 * Nothing is so difficult,' said he by way of comment, 
 ' as to make interesting the precepts of an art, what- 
 ever it is. Voltaire assured me that I had succeeded.' 
 And of course there was no more to be said. Nor did 
 he understand that any higher reward could be given 
 to those who served him than a few verses from the 
 royal hand. These verses were to Frederick what 
 the iron cross is to William n. They were distributed 
 so lavishly, that they were very soon cheapened. He 
 even paid his bets at times in the same currency. 
 When the Empress Elizabeth was lying ill, he made 
 a wager with Catt about her death. The winner 
 was to pay at his discretion. ' I shall make you 
 a present if I lose,' said the King, ' and you 
 what you please if I win.' The Empress died, and 
 all that the wretched Catt got for his present 
 was an epitaph in verse ! He owned to himself 
 
'THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' 113 
 
 that * this was getting off rather lightly for an 
 affair of this importance,' but he was too full of joy 
 to hint, even in jest, that the discretion was very 
 slight. After all, had he not shown a proper admira- 
 tion of the King's poetry, his tenure of office would 
 have been brief indeed. And who would withhold 
 praise when Voltaire had given it Voltaire who, in 
 the King's esteem, was a poet who never flattered, and 
 who was very severe in this matter ? 
 
 So Frederick, by a double error, was sure that, as 
 he had the poet's virtues, teste Voltaire, so he had 
 not the poet's vices. ' Do not think,' he adjured 
 the innocent Catt, ' that I attach any great value 
 to what I do ! Not at all ; if I have the passion 
 for authorship, I have assuredly not its arrogance.' 
 Thus he deceived himself always. If ever there was 
 a man who believed that he, the King, could do no 
 wrong, it was Frederick. He drank in praise with 
 all the eagerness of a thirsty soul. He knew that his 
 verses were masterpieces all, because he had written 
 them. He insisted fiercely upon having his own 
 opinion supported. He was, indeed, an actor, who 
 acted even to himself. He lived as on parade, though 
 none were present save Catt. The slovenliness of 
 his person, the squalor of his dress, were mere versions 
 of his pride. He was, so to say, a dandy upside down, 
 who knew that the Spanish snuff which besmirched 
 his face would call attention to him more loudly than 
 delicately perfumed ruffles. But his own verses apart, 
 he seems to have been honest in his love of letters. 
 
n 4 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Though he had but a smattering of Latin, though 
 he made childish mistakes in spelling, though he had 
 all the faults of the late-learner, he surrendered him- 
 self whole-heartedly to poetry and eloquence. ' With 
 them,' he said, * I am never bored, and I can do 
 without anybody.' It gave him a manifest pleasure 
 to read aloud a pleasure which explains the necessity 
 of the listening Catt. He adored declamation, both 
 for its own sake and as a proper accompaniment of 
 kingship. ' Why should I not declaim,' he asks, 
 * when all Nature declaims ? ' Thus he deceived 
 himself, not seeing that Nature has never declaimed, 
 except in the eighteenth century, when she was 
 neatly clipped and barbered out of herself after the 
 fashion of Potsdam. 
 
 Nevertheless, he carried such baggage on his cam- 
 paigns as no other soldier has carried. Wherever he 
 went, in the field or at winter quarters, a library went 
 with him. * Lucretius,' he boasted, ' is my breviary.' 
 Bacon, Caesar, Tacitus, Plutarch, Cicero these are 
 some of the authors who never left him, and from 
 whom he drew the lessons of his life and trade. Over- 
 come by grief at the death of his sister, the Mar- 
 gravine of Baireuth, he turned for consolation to the 
 funeral orations of Bossuet and Fle"chier, and as he 
 was always intent to imitate what he read, to play 
 ' the sedulous ape,' in fact, he produced himself a 
 funeral oration upon Matthew Reinhart, master 
 shoemaker, and presented it with pomp and circum- 
 stance to Catt. ' That, my dear sir,' said he, ' is the 
 
4 THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' 115 
 
 fruit of the readings which astonished you. Bossuet 
 and Flechier made funeral orations to celebrate the 
 life and death of illustrious men. As for me, not 
 worthy to untie the latchet of the shoes of these 
 great preachers, I have written the funeral praise of 
 a poor shoemaker, who by his abilities, his virtues, 
 and his piety, was more deserving than kings and 
 princes to pass to the most distant posterity.' There 
 in a few phrases you have the real Frederick, a monarch 
 histrionic and insincere, with a rare talent for the 
 trite and a constant love for copybook headings. 
 Fresh from the study of the masterpieces of literature, 
 he could yet murmur in the ear of Catt such maxims 
 as these : ' Mortals, employ your time,' or ' The fate 
 of a king is very sad ' ; and then perplex his hearer by 
 putting the question : * Do you know any prince who 
 is as much of a pedagogue as I am ? ' 
 
 But he cherished one admiration always, which was 
 sincere and complete an admiration of Racine. The 
 works of that great poet could never leave him, 
 because they were stored in his brain. Not only did 
 he know his plays by heart ; he showed at times a 
 clear appreciation of their qualities. Indeed, it was 
 Racine, not Lucretius, who was his true breviary. In 
 Athalie or Britannicus or Mithridate he sought 
 pleasure in his happiest, encouragement in his 
 darkest, moments. 'To rest ourselves,' says he one 
 day, ' let us read the tragedy of Britannicus ; and read 
 it he did, with a pinch of snuff at the end of every 
 act, until his reading was interrupted by the tears 
 
n6 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 which flowed easily at the royal command. He 
 looked even upon defeat through the words of Racine, 
 which were for him at once a consolation and a com- 
 mentary. After the disaster which befell him at 
 Hochkirchen, Catt faced him ' in a state of extreme 
 emotion.' He need not have yielded to his excite- 
 ment. The King came up to him ' with a rather 
 open air,' and in a quiet voice repeated these lines 
 from Mithridate : 
 
 ' Enfin. apres un an, tu me revois, Arbate ; 
 Non plus, comme autrefois, cet heureux Mithridate 
 Qui, de Vienne toujours balancant le destin, 
 Tenais entr'elle et moi 1'univers incertain : 
 Je suis vaincu. Daunus a saisi 1'avantage 
 D'une nuit qui laissait peu de place au courage.' 
 
 Did ever a beaten soldier accept disaster in so 
 strange a spirit of literary detachment ? Frederick 
 was, as he said, ' a poor, conquered man,' and he fell 
 to declaiming the lines of Racine, like the consummate 
 actor that he was. So eager was he to speak and to 
 recite that he left the poor Catt no chance of saying 
 a word ; and presently, in forgetfulness of literature, 
 undid his collar, and pulled out the famous box of 
 gold, containing eighteen opium pills, which he 
 deemed ' sufficient to take him to that dark bourne 
 whence we do not return.' But he was soon back at 
 Racine, invoking God in the words of the poet : 
 
 ' Daigne, daigne, mon Dieu, sur Kaunit^ et sur elle 
 Repandre cet esprit d'imprudence et d'erreur, 
 De la chute des rois funeste avant-coureur.' 
 
'THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' 117 
 
 And truly it was not upon the golden box but upon 
 the golden-tongued poet that he relied for help and 
 succour. 
 
 But there was one poet who exerted a deeper in- 
 fluence upon Frederick even than Racine, and that 
 poet was Voltaire. Voltaire, indeed, was his con- 
 stant obsession. In whatever he did or wrote his 
 first thought was : What will Voltaire think of it ? 
 A word of praise thrown to him by the great writer 
 was as precious to him as victory itself. He treasured 
 piously the poor little verses of his own composing, 
 upon which Voltaire had smiled approval. Before 
 the great man's name he abased himself to others. 
 ' Voltaire has a genius for verse,' he told Catt ; * and 
 I haven't. I am only a poor dilettante, who has 
 great need of indulgence.' Had another dared to 
 hint so much, he would have chased him from his 
 presence with insult. ' By heavens ! a letter from 
 Voltaire,' he exclaims one day, ' what a lucky day ! ' 
 And when he had read the letter, * you must acknow- 
 ledge, my dear sir,' he insisted to Catt, ' that this 
 Voltaire writes like the angels.' And thereafter he 
 expresses his gratitude, like the humblest of mortals. 
 ' This Voltaire is admirable,' he confesses, * to think 
 of me, and with his letters and works to feed my 
 mind, which has great need of good nourishment.' 
 When he was in high spirits he would brag that he 
 had acted the part of critic to the great man himself. 
 * How many times,' he recalls with rapture, ' have I 
 not corrected Voltaire himself, yes, Voltaire.' But 
 
n8 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 while he admitted Voltaire's genius, he never ceased 
 to revile Voltaire the man. His royal vanity had 
 been wounded too deeply for forgetfulness, though 
 his royal taste sternly refused to be perverted. He 
 was never tired of talking about Voltaire's ' diabolical 
 character.' ' When you see him quiet,' says he, ' be 
 assured that he is meditating some wickedness. His 
 great pleasure is to set people at loggerheads, and, 
 when he has succeeded, he roars with laughter, jumps 
 and skips about. " The scamps," he says, with the 
 laugh of a satyr, " the scamps ; that is the way to 
 treat them." ' 
 
 At Catt's first appearance, Frederick had summed 
 up for his profit the opinion which he held of Voltaire. 
 * The world has produced no finer genius than Vol- 
 taire,' he admitted ; * but I despise him supremely, 
 because he is not upright. If he had been, what a 
 superiority he would have had over everything that 
 exists ! ' That Frederick should reproach Voltaire 
 on a matter of conduct is supremely ridiculous, and 
 the reproach puts in question once more the relation- 
 ship which existed between the poet and the King. 
 Truly the poet has the better of it in morals as in 
 genius. It is Voltaire who is cast for the beau role in 
 the tragi-comedy enacted at Potsdam and elsewhere. 
 Manifestly superior in wit and intellect, Voltaire 
 was superior also in the justice of his cause. The 
 friendship which linked the two men together was a 
 friendship of hostility. They thought that they 
 could not live apart from one another, and they knew 
 
4 THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' 119 
 
 that they could not live together amicably. And it 
 was Voltaire who gave far more than he received, 
 who had every claim to regard himself as the 
 victim of autocratic impertinence. In the poor little 
 squabble with Maupertuis, Voltaire was in the right of 
 it, and he covered his assailant with the ridicule which 
 he deserved. Though Frederick desired ardently 
 to be thought a poet, he could not enjoy the equal 
 company of poets, because he never forgot that he 
 was crowned. The friendship which he offered 
 Voltaire was tainted at its source. Here is Voltaire's 
 ' little dictionary as used by kings ' : 
 
 My friend means my slave. 
 
 My dear friend means / am more than indifferent to you. 
 For / will make you happy, read / will endure you as long 
 as I have use for you. 
 
 Sup with me to-night means I will mock at you this evening. 
 
 It is clear, then, that Voltaire had no illusions, even 
 though pride had blinded the eyes of Frederick. As 
 he said himself, if he had no sceptre he had a pen, 
 which he proceeded to use, dipped in gall. And then 
 came the supreme insult of Frankfort, where Voltaire 
 was arrested and imprisoned. Never did a ' crowned 
 philosopher ' so wickedly forget his dignity as when 
 Frederick ordered a clumsy clown called Freytag to 
 maltreat the poet, who had been his guest. That 
 Voltaire should never have forgiven the affront was 
 right and proper. That he gave too violent expression 
 to his malice is perhaps true. But for the King 
 to shed tears over the moral delinquency of a great 
 
120 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 man, whom he thought he could use as he presently 
 used Catt, and whom he exposed to the insolence of 
 a petty official, was a sublime act of hypocrisy. After 
 all, the tragi-comedy could have but one ending. 
 There is even a kind of pathos in the King's lifelong 
 submission to the poet, whose presence he wished for 
 and could not endure. And Voltaire may surely be 
 forgiven if he laughed at the memory of the poor 
 verses and poorer philosophy, upon which he had 
 once smiled with interested benignity. 
 
 The Frederick whom Catt sets before us, then, is 
 Frederick the amateur, the coxcomb, the dilettante. 
 But there is another Frederick altogether, whose policy 
 and depredations help us to understand clearly enough 
 the pretentious infamies of William n. It is not 
 merely that the Kaiser took his great predecessor for 
 his model. He shares the ambition, as he shares the 
 blood, of the marauder. When Frederick the Great 
 succeeded to the throne of his father, a madman who 
 had beaten, imprisoned, and threatened to kill his 
 son, he was known chiefly as the author of a dull 
 refutation of the Machiavellian system. At last, 
 thought Europe, we shall see crowned in Prussia a 
 king who hates craft as he hates flattery, who will 
 expect of governments the same laws of morality 
 which he expects of private gentlemen, and will 
 enstire the peace of the world. With characteristic 
 effrontery Frederick disappointed Europe as soon as 
 ever he mounted the throne. His first act was to 
 invade Silesia, whose integrity along with the other 
 
'THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' 121 
 
 Austrian states his house had guaranteed, for no 
 better reason than that he coveted its possession. 
 For this act of brigandage no excuse can be found. 
 Frederick's motive was the motive of the burglar, 
 and no more. * Ambition, interest, the desire of 
 making people talk about me,' said he, 'carried the day; 
 and I decided for war.' His crime was tenfold the 
 worse, because it was unexpected and unannounced. 
 He invaded the territory of a Queen with whom he 
 had no quarrel and no difference. He tore up the 
 scrap of paper which enjoined friendship and pro- 
 tection upon him with the zest which the Hohen- 
 zollerns have always shown in such enterprises, and 
 stealthily threw an army into undefended Silesia. 
 His troops were across the frontier before Maria 
 Theresa knew that he had made a claim upon her pro- 
 vince. And he completed the injury with an insult- 
 ing message. He told the Queen that if she would 
 grant him Silesia he would defend the rest of her 
 dominions against anybody who should attack them, 
 and, being a Hohenzollern, he did not see that the 
 second promise, like the first, was worth precisely 
 nothing. Nor did the savagery of Frederick find its 
 results only in the province upon which he laid his 
 thievish hand. It disquieted the whole world for many 
 years. All the blood that was shed in Europe from 
 Frederick's accession until 1761 was upon his head. 
 As Macaulay says with justified rhetoric : ' In order 
 that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised 
 to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coro- 
 
i22 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 mandel and red men scalped each other by the great 
 lakes of North America.' Who, remembering the events 
 which followed the outbreak of war in 1914, shall say 
 that history does not repeat herself ? 
 
 Unto the end of his life Frederick remained true 
 to his ideals of perfidy and treachery. Having pro- 
 mised guarantees, ' mere filigree, pretty to look at 
 but too brittle to bear the slightest pressure,' he 
 presently acted towards Poland as he had acted 
 towards Silesia. Eight years after he had guaranteed 
 the rights and liberties of Poland he announced its 
 first partition, on no better plea than that the par- 
 tition would contribute considerably to the prosperity 
 of his realm. And if he were a true Prussian in his 
 policy of aggression, he was a true Prussian in his 
 hatred of the drudgery of war. What he wanted 
 always was the palm without the dust. He had the 
 love of his house for a speedy war against a defenceless 
 country, followed by a tyrant's peace. But in Maria 
 Theresa he met his match. That gallant Queen, if 
 in the end she was doomed to lose Silesia, knew how 
 to fight for her country and her honour. She con- 
 demned Frederick to a life of warfare and hardship, 
 which he did not contemplate at the outset, and 
 which he endured with difficulty. He sighed for the 
 peace, which did not come to him, as bitterly as the 
 Prussians have sighed for peace since. Through all 
 his talks with Catt you may hear him bewail ' the 
 dog of a life ' which he led. His enemies, he com- 
 plains daily, will not give him peace. Having stolen 
 
'THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' 123 
 
 what he wanted, he thought he should be allowed to 
 go off quietly with the swag, and no questions asked. 
 With an hypocritical effrontery, which William n. 
 must have envied, he deplored constantly the death 
 and misery which he brought in his train. ' You will 
 agree that it is cruel,' said he, after he had taken 
 Schweidnitz, ' to send so many brave and worthy 
 people to the other world, and why ? For a few 
 wretched roods of earth and a few huts.' With the 
 tears rolling down his weather-beaten face, he assured 
 his faithful henchman that ' nothing is so cruel as to 
 be compelled to wage war unceasingly,' and he did 
 not see that the responsibility of compulsion lies upon 
 the man who begins it. Even the light of glory paled 
 before his eyes when defeat and destruction threat- 
 ened him. ' Ah, deuce take it ! ' he exclaimed ; * a 
 fine glory indeed of burned villages, towns in ashes, 
 thousands of suffering men, as many massacred, 
 horrors on all sides, and finally finishing oneself off ; 
 speak no more of it ; my hair stands up on end.' He 
 willed it, as his wanton successor willed it, and then 
 let his heart bleed for the sufferings which his greed 
 imposed upon the world, as William n. says that his 
 heart bled for Louvain. 
 
 Thus we see in Frederick the legitimate forerunner 
 of the Germans who have since drenched Europe in 
 blood. He left an unexampled legacy of perfidy, 
 rapacity, and hypocrisy. He committed the same 
 crimes, he indulged the same sentiments, he bleated 
 forth the same excuses as disgraced William n. 
 
124 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Worse than all, he formulated the pernicious doctrine 
 that the Germans can do no wrong, that what is a vice 
 in others is in them a manifest virtue. But in one 
 respect he showed himself a far better man than those 
 who have come after him. He did not always make 
 war upon civilians ; he did not turn his arms against 
 defenceless women and children ; he refused to count 
 rape and pillage among the proper practices of war. 
 ' The first man who pillages or destroys a house will 
 be hung on the spot ' that was one of his orders. 
 Once when a house in which he lodged had been 
 destroyed, and a dead woman had been found 
 in the garden, he confessed that these butcheries 
 horrified him. He did not think that brutality 
 was warfare. * Princes who use such troops,' said 
 he, ' ought to blush with shame. The blame is 
 theirs, and they are responsible before God for all 
 the crimes which their troops commit.' What would 
 he say if he could witness the infamies of which 
 Germany was guilty in Belgium and Serbia, in France 
 and Rumania, in every country which she invaded ? 
 Who knows ? Perhaps he would have found excuses 
 for them as he found excuses for the Russians when 
 they had become his allies. ' The Austrians,' said 
 he, ' made an outcry about barbarities ; yet they 
 had no right to complain, and they did not complain 
 when these Cossacks burned and devastated the 
 King's countries. Are not the horrors which march 
 in the train of war great enough without bringing in 
 people who make it a pleasure, a study, and a law to 
 
1 THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' 125 
 
 leave behind them the traces of destruction, murder, 
 rape, and arson ? ' The apology is half-hearted, and 
 leaves us doubting whether after all he would not 
 have agreed with William u. that the German army 
 of invasion was the poor victim of Belgian treachery. 
 
 Such was the man whom Carlyle set upon the top- 
 most pinnacle of fame and glory, for no better reason 
 than that he might use him for the expounding of a 
 favourite text. In Carlyle's eyes Frederick was a 
 strong man, and therefore justified in all that he did 
 and said. That the panegyrist of Cromwell should 
 make himself also the panegyrist of Frederick might 
 seem incredible, if we did not remember that Carlyle 
 was a slave not of facts, but of preconceptions. 
 Having once seen Frederick in the light of a hero, he 
 would not permit him to be besmirched even by the 
 truth. So he preached the gospel of the Super-man 
 many years before Nietzsche, and did his best to 
 prepare for the doctrine of Pan-Germanism, which 
 came near to destroying the civilisation of Europe. 
 And Carlyle did the world a greater disservice than 
 this. Having misunderstood Germany, he mis- 
 understood France also. How should he understand 
 either, when he knew no more of them than he could 
 see from Ecclefechan and London, or gather from 
 the books of others ? His cloudy vision would not 
 permit him to separate the essential France the 
 France of Rabelais and Racine and Pascal, the France 
 of provincial thrift and industry from the Court of 
 Napoleon in., with its busy pleasures and its restless 
 
126 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 frivolity. Thus it was that, when, in 1871, France 
 was reeling beneath the weight of the blows dealt by 
 Germany, Carlyle took up his pen to plead the cause 
 of the conqueror. To those who asked for mercy on 
 behalf of France he replied with all his rugged scorn. 
 ' The question for the Germans in this crisis,' said he, 
 * is not one of " magnanimity," of " heroic pity and 
 forgiveness to a fallen foe," but of solid prudence 
 and practical consideration of what the fallen foe 
 will in all likelihood do when once on his feet again.' 
 It was not for the Germans to repudiate a sympathy 
 thus eloquently expressed. The golden words of 
 Carlyle were reproduced, by Bismarck's order, in 
 every corner of the European press, and there can be 
 no doubt that they brought the sunlight of satisfaction 
 into unnumbered German homes. 
 
 To critical eyes these words of Carlyle appear 
 dark with falsehood and prejudice. They are not 
 the words of truth. They were inspired by lack of 
 knowledge and by a dim perception. Carlyle's 
 hostility to France was based upon ignorance. He 
 believed simply and devoutly what he, the friend of 
 Germany and the biographer of Frederick, wished 
 to believe. In his eyes France deserved punishment, 
 deserved even the loss of her honour, because she 
 had been the aggressor. ' But will it save the honour 
 of France,' he asked, ' to refuse paying for the glass 
 she has voluntarily broken in her neighbour's window ? ' 
 The attack upon the windows was her dishonour. 
 Alas for the argument ! France broke no windows. 
 
'THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' 127 
 
 How could she, with the watchful eye of Bismarck 
 upon her ? All the breakage that was done lay solely 
 at Bismarck's door, and he was far too cunning to 
 reveal the measure of his guilt to such ardent 
 sympathisers as Thomas Carlyle. At last we have 
 discovered all the truth. By this time the blue- 
 pencilling of the famous telegram is a commonplace 
 of history, and since we know how to apportion the 
 blame, we shall never again reproach France with 
 a catastrophe which was brought about by the 
 cynicism of Bismarck. 
 
 And if Carlyle, from whom the under-world of 
 politics was most delicately hid, misunderstood the 
 cause and origin of the war of 1870, he was yet more 
 profoundly ignorant about the characters of the com- 
 batants. Truly, as a psychologist he was sadly to 
 seek. Exposed to all the pitfalls of half-knowledge, 
 he contrasted the Germans with the French in the 
 easy spirit of the comic press. He vied with Momm- 
 sen in flattery of the Teutonic race. ' That noble, 
 patient, deep, and solid Germany,' he wrote, ' should 
 be at length welded into a nation and become Queen 
 of the Continent, instead of vapouring, vainglorious, 
 gesticulating, quarrelsome, and over-sensitive France, 
 seems to me the hopefullest public fact that has 
 occurred in my time.' How grossly the philo- 
 sopher deceived himself ! The France of the Second 
 Empire was careless and over-sensitive, to be sure ; 
 she had no more talent of government than she has 
 to-day. But that she was supreme in intelligence 
 
128 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 none but a philosopher whose head was packed with 
 German metaphysics would ever have doubted. 
 That Carlyle had an ingrained contempt for what are 
 called belles-lettres is evident to a superficial reader 
 of his works. His condemnation of the French 
 writers of his day is none the less astonishing, as we 
 recall it in the cool blood of a later age. ' To me at 
 times,' wrote Carlyle, ' the mournfullest symptom 
 in France is the figure its " men of genius," its 
 highest literary speakers, who should be prophets 
 and seers to it, make at present, and indeed for a 
 generation back have been making. It is evidently 
 their belief that new celestial wisdom is radiating 
 out of France upon all the other overshadowed 
 nations ; that France is the new Mount Zion of the 
 universe ; and that all this sad, sordid, semi-delirious, 
 and, in good part, infernal stuff which French litera- 
 ture has been presenting to us for the last fifty years 
 is a veritable new Gospel out of Heaven, pregnant 
 with blessedness for all the sons of men.' And 
 assuredly a veritable new Gospel out of Heaven was 
 preached in France, though Carlyle heard it not, and 
 would not have understood it had he heard it. The 
 fifty years of which Carlyle speaks included the 
 Romantic Movement, of all modern movements the 
 greatest, the most keenly stimulating. If Europe 
 had fallen in these times under the spell of France, it 
 was because the intelligence of France exerted without 
 effort and without question its peaceful sway. And 
 Carlyle's error is the less easily forgiven, because had 
 
'THE CROWNED PHILOSOPHER' 129 
 
 he wished he might have seen about him the noble 
 monument which France had raised to intellect and 
 to genius. Balzac, who with his pen had re-created 
 his country, was still an influence. The France of 
 1870 was the France of Hugo and Gautier, of Renan 
 and Taine, of Flaubert and Goncourt and Verlaine 
 and a hundred others. What had Germany to show 
 that might be compared for a moment with all this 
 shining talent ? Yet Carlyle despised all that was 
 not Teutonic, with the same dogged blindness which 
 obscures the sight of the vain professors who boast 
 with frenzy of German Kultur. 
 
 Thus are the minds of men warped by prejudice, 
 befogged by half-knowledge, and dangerously de- 
 ceived. It is not for nothing that Carlyle receives 
 to-day the reverence of Potsdam. He deserves what- 
 ever posthumous benefits the Germany of his wilful 
 adulation and complete misunderstanding can confer 
 upon him. For he preached assiduously to Frederick's 
 text that the deeds of Germans are always justified, 
 and he must carry to the end of time his share in the 
 burden of responsibility for the greatest war the 
 world ever saw. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX 
 
 THE outburst of enthusiasm which greeted the 
 centenary of Charles James Fox proved that 
 the immense superstition which he created was still 
 alive. To read the comments of serious journals was 
 to wonder whether there exists any standard by which 
 the achievements of statesmen may be judged. On 
 every hand we heard Fox described as an inspired 
 prophet, who would have saved his country from the 
 evils which he foresaw had he not been prevented by 
 black-hearted opponents. One admirer was reckless 
 enough to suggest that if Fox had been Prime Minister 
 at the time of the French Revolution, the worst evils 
 which overwhelmed Europe would have been avoided. 
 In some mysterious way, we were told, Fox would 
 have acted as a mediator between Louis xvi. and his 
 rebellious subjects. Could any surmise be more 
 ridiculous than this ? Is it possible that a writer lives 
 who believes that Fox could have achieved, in a 
 country not his own, a success which was beyond the 
 power of Mirabeau himself, an infinitely greater man 
 than the leader of the Whigs ? The Revolution, 
 made by words, could be stayed only by Napoleon's 
 sword, and Fox had nothing save words at his com- 
 
 130 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX 131 
 
 mand. Moreover, he was distrusted in France by 
 either party. Louis xvi. could not be expected to 
 sympathise with a sentimental friend of the people, 
 and to the French people Fox was no better than a 
 jaux patriot?, who had grossly insulted its honour and 
 pretensions but a few years before the taking of the 
 Bastille. The truth is that Fox was no more able 
 to help France than to help England. His was not 
 the temperament of the man of action, and the sug- 
 gestion I have cited is memorable only for its 
 absurdity. Yet it compels us to ask upon what does 
 the general esteem of Fox depend, and why, after a 
 hundred years, there are still those who would shed 
 upon his grave the tear of sensibility. 
 
 Concerning no politician has so much cant been 
 spoken and written as concerning Charles James Fox. 
 His name has been whispered with a reverential awe 
 by thousands who would have shrunk back in horror 
 had they discovered the truth of his career. To him 
 posterity has allowed a latitude which it withholds 
 from all others known to history. The highly sensi- 
 tive conscience which found Parnell's disgrace a patent 
 necessity does not shrink from the indiscretions of 
 Fox. Sir George Trevelyan celebrates in enthusiastic 
 terms ' the grateful veneration with which the 
 whole body of his Nonconformist fellow-citizens 
 adored him living, and mourned him dead.' Indeed, 
 there is an element of the grotesque in the passionate 
 respect in which the party of the ' conscience ' holds 
 this genial gamester, who loved women and the bottle 
 
132 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 as deeply as he loved the dice-box. For his extra- 
 vagances his Nonconformist friends have an ever- 
 ready excuse. With the bluff exclamation that ' boys 
 wall be boys ' they sun themselves in the light of his 
 dissipations. They take a smiling pleasure in his 
 vices, and describe as generosity in him what in 
 another they would denounce for blackguardism. 
 Fox might steal a horse with their gratified approval, 
 while Grafton, to take an obvious example, might not 
 look over the hedge. One of Fox's many panegyrists 
 finds it necessary to apologise for his conduct in 1768. 
 ' Grafton became Prime Minister as a matter of 
 course,' he says, * and Charles Fox, whom at that 
 age it was not easy to scandalise, readily attached him- 
 self to a leader whose bearing and address were as 
 full of grace as his conduct was devoid of it.' Charles 
 Fox, we imagine, was never easy to scandalise, but it 
 is certain that at no age could he have pretended, 
 without the grossest hypocrisy, to be shocked at 
 the conduct of Grafton, an eminently respectable 
 gentleman. 
 
 In this nonconforming admiration of Fox's light- 
 hearted excesses there is a plain confusion. We have 
 no right to say that he was a worse Minister because 
 he drank and gambled. We may judge his political 
 career without censoriously asking where he spent 
 his nights. At the same time, we have no right to 
 pretend that he was a better Minister because he 
 loved the bottle and the green-cloth, to look with 
 wonder upon his performances in the House of 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX 133 
 
 Commons because he was a boon companion and a 
 good fellow across a gaming-table. And yet this is 
 what his foolish admirers ask us to do. They describe 
 him travelling all night from Newmarket to address 
 the House, or speaking with eloquence after sitting 
 twenty-four hours at quinze, and declare that it is 
 genius. Genius it may be the genius of endur- 
 ance but it is not political genius. And we 
 shall not understand the career of Charles James 
 Fox unless we keep his two roles rigorously apart, 
 and judge him separately as politician and man of 
 pleasure. 
 
 As a man of pleasure he was supereminent. In an 
 age of hard drinking and reckless gambling, Charles 
 Fox had no equal. His education encouraged a 
 natural talent. Lord Holland, grown rich upon the 
 spoils of office, brought up his son upon a generous 
 method of his own. He denied him nothing ; he 
 encouraged him in all his whims and all his extra- 
 vagances. With the best will in the world, he de- 
 prived him of his childhood and its simple joys. 
 When Charles was barely three years old, he dined 
 tete-a-tete with him, and delighted in his already 
 mature conversation. Once the child announced 
 his intention of destroying a watch. ' Well,' said 
 Lord Holland, * if you must, I suppose you must.' 
 When Charles was no more than fourteen, Lord 
 Holland took him to the Continent on a tour of dissi- 
 pation. At Spa he taught him the rudiments of 
 gambling, and sent him ' every night to the gaming- 
 
i 3 4 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 table with a pocketful of gold.' Not content with 
 this first lesson in life, ' the parent took not a little 
 pains to contrive that the boy should leave France 
 a finished rake,' and it is not surprising that on his 
 return to Eton, Charles, with his knowledge of Spa 
 and Paris, and his diverting tales of gambling-hells 
 and their frequenters, should have done much to 
 destroy the discipline of the school. 
 
 A few years at Oxford did not change the habits of 
 Charles Fox, though it vastly increased his learning, 
 and when he came to London he was ready to take 
 his place with the most daring of the rakes. At six- 
 teen he was a member of Brooks's, and from that day 
 it may be said that he never looked back. For many 
 years the chief occupation of his life was gambling. 
 He played cards, he backed horses, he made bets. 
 There was no accident of life or politics which he did 
 not think worth a wager. At whist, quinze, and 
 piquet his skill was unrivalled. He had so profound 
 a knowledge of Newmarket that he seldom left the 
 Heath with an empty pocket, and the betting-book 
 at Brooks's is clear evidence of his sound judgment 
 in affairs. His tireless and energetic temperament 
 was the best that could support a gambler. He would 
 sit at the table all night and yet pursue his business 
 the next day. A bold player and a cheerful loser, he 
 was familiar with all the hells of Europe ; and had he 
 never sat in the House of Commons, he would still 
 have been notorious. Casanova, generally a truthful 
 witness, encountered him at Lausanne, won all his 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX 135 
 
 money at Geneva, and once lent him 50, which were 
 repaid three years afterwards. 
 
 But his real battlefield was St. James's Street. At 
 Brooks's there was no one who played so fantastic a 
 part as ' Charles.' A macaroni, with dirty hands and 
 soiled clothes, he moved in the most exclusive set, 
 and exacted respect from all those who won his money. 
 And truly for many years his losses were prodigious. 
 Again and again Lord Holland settled his affairs. 
 Again and again he plunged deeper into the quagmire 
 of debt. At his father's death he is said to have owed 
 140,000, and it is not strange that his estate in 
 Thanet, and all that he inherited, fell, with his fur- 
 niture and his books, into the hands of the Jews. 
 Yet he bore no malice. Like Charles Surface, for 
 whom he might have sat, he softened even the Hebrew 
 hearts of the moneylenders, and forgot all his dis- 
 pleasure when he had called the waiting-room of his 
 house his Jerusalem Chamber. In truth, he was one 
 to whom money could never have been of the slightest 
 service. When he won it, he was restless until he 
 had lost it. His pocket was an unplumbed pit of 
 thriftlessness, and an entry in the betting-book of 
 his club proves how just an estimate one of his 
 most familiar friends had formed of him. ' Lord 
 Clermont,' thus runs the entry, ' has given Mr. Craw- 
 ford 10 guineas, upon the condition of receiving 500 
 from him, whenever Mr. Charles Fox shall be worth 
 100,000 clear of debts.' 
 
 Now the character of the gamester is not unamiable. 
 
136 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 We may even cherish an admiration for the man who, 
 regarding money as dross, flings it carelessly away to 
 purchase a few hours' excitement. But we cannot 
 extend the sympathy we feel for the punter to him 
 who holds the bank. To sit at the receipt of custom 
 is neither noble nor glorious. The bank has a cold 
 advantage which cannot appeal to our sense of 
 romance ; and assuredly the worst blot upon the 
 private character of Fox is that in 1781, having been 
 long a pigeon, he determined to play the part of a 
 rook. He set up a bank at Brooks's, with Hare and 
 Fitzpatrick as partners, appointed Lord Robert 
 Spencer dealer at the handsome figure of five guineas 
 an hour, and prepared to win the money of the town. 
 The four associates were able to relieve one another 
 at their pleasant toil, and for a year or two the play 
 was continuous. It would be difficult to match the 
 cynical effrontery wherewith they advertised their 
 proceedings. Their clients gave them cards bearing 
 the legend, ' Received from Messrs. Fox and Co.' 
 in acknowledgment of money paid. No one could 
 walk down St. James's Street without discovering 
 their enterprise. ' This Pharo bank,' we are told, 
 * is held in a manner which, being so exposed to public 
 view, bids defiance to all decency and police. The 
 whole town as it passes views the dealer and the 
 punters by means of the candles, and the windows being 
 levelled with the ground. The Opposition, which has 
 Charles for its ablest advocate, is quite ashamed of 
 the proceeding, and hates to hear it mentioned.' 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX 137 
 
 No wonder the Opposition hated to hear it men- 
 tioned, for the episode was discreditable to all who 
 had a hand in it. To encourage speculation, Fox 
 or Fitzpatrick would at their own bank lose 1000 in 
 one deal and win it back in the next. The case 
 against them was put with perfect force by Selwyn. 
 ' Hare opened the Pharo bank in the great room,' 
 wrote he in November 1780, ' but had so few and poor 
 punters that Charles and Richard were obliged to sit 
 down from time to time as decoy ducks. ... I do not 
 think that the people who frequent Brooks's will 
 suffer this pillage another campaign.' But while the 
 game lasted, Charles and Richard were in high cash. 
 Their winnings were fabulous. ' I have not been at 
 Brooks's for I do not know when,' wrote Selwyn in 
 1782 ; ' that maudite banque of Charles's aspirera avec 
 le terns tout Vargent de Londres, au mains de notre 
 quartier? Upon Fox the success had an immediate 
 effect. ' I saw Charles to-day,' says Selwyn, ' in a new 
 hat, frock, waistcoat, shirt, and stockings ; he was as 
 clean and smug as a gentleman, and upon perceiving 
 my surprise, he told me it was from the Pharo bank. 
 He then talked of the thousands it had lost, which I 
 told him only proved its substance and the advantage 
 of its trade. He smiled, and seemed perfectly satis- 
 fied with that which he had taken up ; he was in such 
 a sort of humour that I should like to have dined with 
 him. His old clothes have been burned like the 
 paupers' at Salt Hill.' 
 
 Nor was it only his wardrobe that profited by the 
 
138 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 winnings of his bank. While Fox and Fitzpatrick 
 were emptying the pockets of the town, the bailiffs 
 were ransacking Fox's house to satisfy a debt of Fitz- 
 patrick's making. And Fox did not let the oppor- 
 tunity slip. His old and broken furniture having 
 been seized, he determined to replace it with the 
 magnificence which became the master of a thriving 
 business. ' His house,' said Selwyn, * I mean the 
 place of execution, where he is to go soon, is the 
 sprucest to look at from the street I ever saw. I 
 never saw such a transition from distress to opulency, 
 or from dirt to cleanliness.' And then, as Cincinnatus 
 was called from the plough, so Fox was summoned 
 from the Pharo bank to take part in the counsels of 
 his country. He did not forget his accomplices at 
 the gaming-table. Hare became his private secretary, 
 and Fitzpatrick was sent as Chief Secretary to Ireland. 
 Nothing was omitted to enhance the absurd contrast. 
 The new Minister was interrupted at Brooks's so 
 often that he could neither punt nor deal for a quarter 
 of an hour without giving audience to one or other 
 of his colleagues. Was not the scene, in Selwyn's 
 words, la plus parjaitement comique que I'on puisse 
 imaginer ? And is it not eminently characteristic of 
 Fox that it appeared to nobody more truly risible 
 than to himself ? 
 
 The bank at Brooks's, which would have added no 
 distinction to a simple man about town, throws a 
 curious sidelight upon Fox's failure as a politician. 
 A statesman who took so trivial a view of his own 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX 139 
 
 responsibilities could hardly hope to be a leader of 
 men. And the truth is that politics were for Charles 
 Fox but another field for the exercise of his fierce 
 activity. He went into them without principles, 
 and, though with the passing years he adopted a 
 party, without principles he remained to the end. 
 His eminent qualities of courage and address never 
 found him a large following in his own day. He 
 passed the greater part of his career in the discomfort 
 of Opposition. His amazing eloquence, his genius 
 for debate, stood him in small stead. His power of 
 rhetoric was even a hindrance to him, for within a week 
 he would cover the same man with equal floods of 
 flattery and vituperation, and his hearers, admiring 
 both, knew that neither was sincere. And so he 
 lost the faith of the vast majority. The king most 
 properly distrusted the politician who had approved 
 and abetted the disloyalty and dissipation of his son. 
 And the people, though it made far less of gossip 
 and rumour than to-day seems possible, could not 
 close its eyes to the street-ballads nor its ears to the 
 common talk. In spite of an inclination to admire 
 one who had cut a figure in many worlds, it could not 
 always condone Fox's flippancy or overlook his vain 
 inconsistency. 
 
 That he changed the lightly held opinions of his 
 youth is in no way discreditable to him. A boy may 
 turn from gospel to heresy without suspicion or re- 
 proach, and there was no blot on Fox's political honour 
 until in 1783 he made a coalition with North, whom 
 
i 4 o POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 he had attacked for years with a perfect fury of indig- 
 nation. That, indeed, was the wreckage of his fame. 
 Nobody could believe him honest, when he allied 
 himself with one who, he had prayed, should hear 
 of his misdeeds at the tribunal of justice, and expiate 
 them on the public scaffold. But we shall not under- 
 stand Fox if we do not remember that he was a 
 partisan. He aimed always at the triumph of himself 
 and his friends, and he cared not if in that triumph 
 England were broken in pieces. * As a party man,' 
 he said once, ' I think it a good thing for my party 
 to come into office, were it only for a month.' And 
 that is not the worst. Fox went far beyond a mere 
 hunger for office. Whenever the opposite party was 
 in power, he ranged himself openly and fiercely with 
 the enemies of his country. 
 
 He put no bounds upon his hatred of England, and 
 he thought it not shameful to intrigue with foreigners 
 against the safety and credit of the land to which he 
 belonged. Wherever there was a foe to England, 
 there was a friend of Fox. America, Ireland, France, 
 each in turn inspired his enthusiasm. When Howe 
 was victorious at Brooklyn, he publicly deplored 
 ' the terrible news.' After Valmy he did not hesitate 
 to express his joy. ' No public event,' he wrote, ' not 
 excepting Yorktown and Saratoga, ever happened 
 that gave me so much delight. I could not allow 
 myself to believe it for some days for fear of disappoint- 
 ment.' More bitter, if possible, was his venom in 
 1801. * To tell the truth,' he said, * I am gone some- 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX 141 
 
 thing further in hate to the English Govern- 
 ment than perhaps you and the rest of my friends 
 are, and certainly further than can with pru- 
 dence be avowed. The trumph of the French 
 Government over the English does, in fact, afford 
 me a degree of pleasure which it is very difficult to 
 disguise.' 
 
 The open treacheries of Fox are by this familiar. 
 But his policy cannot be considered without a re- 
 petition of them. By his own confession he was a 
 constant contemner of his country, and his career 
 cannot but suggest the question : How far is patriot- 
 ism necessary to the equipment of a statesman ? 
 Now patriotism, out of fashion though it be to-day, 
 should be the first and plainest of the virtues. It 
 is but an extension of the feeling for family, which is 
 the foundation of all society. A man who insults 
 his father and despises his mother is a bad son. He 
 is a bad citizen, who despises and insults his country. 
 And a bad citizen, though he has every right to exist, 
 is not likely to prove the wisest ruler. No one need 
 love his country that the experience of England 
 has fully demonstrated. It is the privilege of all, 
 we suppose, to defame the land of their birth, and a 
 vast number has always claimed the privilege. But 
 it may be said, perhaps without exaggeration or 
 malice, that he who loathes his country is not best 
 fitted by nature to govern it. And why should he wish 
 to govern it ? Had Fox been logical, he would have 
 shaken the dust of England from his feet, and given 
 
142 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 what aid his rhetoric might afford to England's foes. 
 But he would not do that. He stayed at home to 
 rejoice if he might in the defeat of his compatriots, 
 and to sing the praises of foreign tyrants in the 
 name of freedom. 
 
 It is not a pleasant career to contemplate, for, if 
 politics be not an idle game or a momentary excite- 
 ment, then an honourable patriotism should be 
 esteemed at more than a feather's weight. There is 
 no compulsion put upon any man to be a politician, 
 but if of his own will he becomes one, it is his business 
 to protect his country against insult and attack. It 
 is, then, in no spirit of partisanship that Fox is con- 
 demned. He who gives comfort to the king's 
 enemies should have no place in either party. And 
 Fox was not content to comfort with words. On one 
 conspicuous occasion he was engaged actively against 
 the interest of England. When Robert Adair went on 
 a mission to St. Petersburg, it was Fox who procured 
 him letters of introduction, and who said, as he bade 
 the informal emissary good-bye : ' Well, if you are 
 determined to go, send us all the news.' Moreover, 
 that no detail might escape him, he urged Adair to use 
 Burgoyne's cipher ; and ' to puzzle them the more,' 
 said he, ' you may put some of your figures in red ink.' 
 Adair, with great indignation, denied many years after 
 that Fox had anything to do with his celebrated 
 journey. But as Fox furnished him with letters, de- 
 manded news, and suggested a cipher, Adair's denial 
 seems a mere quibble. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX 143 
 
 And since Adair's day much light has been thrown 
 on the intrigue by the publication of the Drop-more 
 Papers. From them it is clear that Adair made his 
 journey with the utmost expedition, seeing no one 
 on the way save the Russian Ambassador at Vienna ; 
 that he lived much with M. Woronzow and the Im- 
 perial Minister ; that he was received with every 
 mark of respect by the Empress, who treated the ac- 
 credited English representative with contempt ; that 
 he held ' language dictated by the most virulent 
 opposition to his Majesty's Administration, and 
 calculated to counteract the effect of a negotiation.' 
 Lord Grenville was convinced that it was Woronzow 
 who had suggested the idea of employing Mr. Adair 
 as envoy from Mr. Fox to the Empress, and the one 
 bright spot in an unpleasant business was its com- 
 plete failure. ' It is, I confess, no small satisfaction 
 to me,' wrote Whitworth, * to witness the disappoint- 
 ment of Mr. Adair : the language he has held has 
 been calculated to produce a far different effect, 
 and his expectations were considerably raised. His 
 journey has, however, been ineffectual, and he will, 
 I flatter myself, have but a bad report to make to his 
 principals.' There can be no doubt, indeed, that 
 Adair's journey to St. Petersburg was carefully 
 arranged, and it matters not a jot whether Fox 
 initiated it or merely acquiesced in it. It was taken 
 on behalf of Fox's party, and it was Fox who would 
 have profited had it been carried to a successful 
 conclusion. 
 
144 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 So throughout the war with Napoleon, Fox did his 
 best to aid the enemy and to thwart his own country- 
 men. He supported the treasonable clubs and 
 associations which were formed all over England in 
 pious imitation of Paris. He defended the rebels, 
 wherever they were found, and he opposed with all 
 his energy any attempt to put down sedition. When 
 in 1792 it was proposed to strengthen the hands of 
 the Government by a coalition with the Whigs, Fox 
 alone declined to coalesce. And he declined in 
 ' anger and rudeness,' because he was an ardent 
 Jacobin. Gilbert Elliot, himself a staunch Whig, 
 thought that Fox's conduct * went to overthrow the 
 country, and that it was essential for their honour 
 and the sake of the country to separate from him.' 
 And, as his party diminished, Fox's acrimony in- 
 creased, his determination to embarrass his country 
 grew stronger. At a moment when there was war 
 abroad and rebellion at home, when it needed all the 
 courage and skill of Pitt to save the country, Fox, 
 with his customary levity, decided that it was the 
 duty of the House at that moment to cherish the 
 spirit of freedom in the people. 
 
 Such was the pose that Fox preserved unto the 
 end, a pose of embarrassment and hostility to the 
 imperious interests of England. Yet, while he was 
 passionately admired by a mere handful during his 
 lifetime, his reputation has been constantly enhanced 
 since his death. Upon what, then, in addition to 
 the constant adulation of Holland House, does the 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX 145 
 
 superstition depend ? Largely, we think, upon the 
 legend of his affability. He was one whose misdeeds 
 were always excused by his friends. When, by refus- 
 ing to pay Lord Carlisle what he owed him, he kept 
 that hapless peer a prisoner at his country seat, 
 Carlisle neither felt nor expressed resentment. When 
 Foley, in a vain attempt to plead Carlisle's cause, 
 confronted the magician, he retired hopelessly worsted. 
 With the conference at its acutest Fox burst into 
 tears. ' However,' said Foley with a pardonable 
 pride, ' I carried two points out of four, but I was 
 obliged to leave him, not being able to resist the 
 force of sensibility.' 
 
 And in being unable to resist Fox, Foley was not 
 singular. Nobody who knew him could resist him, 
 and the town was forced to set up a new standard of 
 morality for his benefit. That which would have 
 covered any other man with eternal ridicule provoked 
 no more than a kindly smile if it happened to Charles. 
 When a monstrous impostor, who called herself the 
 Hon. Mrs. Grieve, involved him for her own purposes 
 in a wild scheme of marriage, a poor copy of verses 
 celebrated the event, and on the morrow it was for- 
 gotten. And it must be admitted, too, that the 
 romantic contrasts of his career have helped to keep 
 his memory green. The Light hand and the easy 
 manner, which permitted him to turn without ab- 
 surdity from the Pharo bank to the Treasury bench, 
 deserve some recognition. But these qualities have 
 no touch with politics, and Fox's political reputation 
 
 K 
 
146 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 is still unexplained. That he was never a statesman 
 is obvious. The opportunity of statesmanship did 
 not come to him, and in opposition he behaved with 
 the dignity and discretion of a vestryman. Why, 
 then, should he appear as a guide to the foot- 
 steps of our modern Radicals ? His hatred of 
 England, of course, entitles him to some respect 
 in their eyes ; but it is not enough of itself to justify 
 the adulation that is still showered upon his name. 
 
 The real cause of his glory is his unfailing senti- 
 mentality. He is the hero of men who love copybook 
 headings, and who would compensate for evil deeds 
 with good phrases. The tinkling of empty words such 
 as ' freedom ' and * the people ' was always heard when 
 he rose to address the House. He did not want to 
 give the people freedom, and he could not have given 
 it if he would. But the words had a solemn sound, 
 and he knew that his friends would respond to them 
 instantly. And, apart from his skill in words and 
 phrases, he was one of the ablest debaters that ever 
 addressed an assembly. He possessed all the arts of 
 rhetoric and eloquence which are a danger to the 
 community. He could persuade his audience for the 
 moment that the worse was the better cause with an 
 ease which not even Burke could rival. And yet, 
 though we understand how it was that his speeches 
 appeal to a rhetoric-loving age, we cannot read them 
 to-day without perceiving the poverty of their 
 thought, the inadequacy of their argument. In brief, 
 Fox's political record is as barren as Sheridan's. He 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX 147 
 
 added nothing to the dignity or the amenity of 
 public life. When Sir George Trevelyan tells us 
 that Fox ' of all men did most to reform the 
 corruption of politics,' I am unable to understand 
 him. If to put party in front of the State, if to 
 increase acrimony in a moment of national peril, 
 be a means of reform, then Fox was a reformer. 
 But it is difficult to discover in a long life one 
 signal service that he rendered to England. States- 
 manship was as far beyond his reach as patriotism ; 
 and the best that can be said of him is that he en- 
 grossed the vices of the professional politician. 
 
 By a strange irony, then, Providence, who with- 
 held from Fox so many precious gifts, endowed him 
 with a charm of speech which seems to have rendered 
 the meaning of what he said immaterial. His bitter- 
 est opponents listened to him with complaisance, if 
 without approval. * I can hear him,' said Selwyn, 
 ' which is a singular thing, with the same pleasure as 
 if I gave ample credit to what he said. ... It is as 
 impossible not to love him as it is to love his adver- 
 sary (Lord North). . . . Charles aims sometimes at 
 humour he has not an atom of it ; or rather it is 
 wit, which is better ; but that is not his talent neither. 
 . . . Charles's poignancy and misapplication of truth, 
 making the most known falsehoods serve his purpose 
 better in all that, he is admirable. His quotations 
 are natural and pleasing and a propos, and if he had 
 any judgment, or conduct, or character, he would 
 and ought to be the first man in the country. But 
 
148 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 that place, I am assured now, is destined for 
 another.' 
 
 Happily for England it was destined for another. 
 But Selwyn's character is as just a character of 
 Fox as can be drawn. There was no place he might 
 not have filled had he had judgment and conduct 
 and character. As it was, he had to be content 
 with winning a hostile audience by his affable speech, 
 and with amazing his hearers by his apposite 
 quotations. And this brings us to another of Fox's 
 perplexing and contradictory qualities. He found 
 time, amid the distraction of gambling and politics, 
 to make himself a good scholar and a sound critic. 
 His taste equalled his erudition. He knew the 
 classics as well as any man of his time, and he read 
 and re-read them with never-failing devotion. His- 
 tory shows us few pleasanter pictures than Fox amid 
 his books and his friends in the retirement of St. 
 Anne's. But it is a Fox who has forgotten the ferocity 
 of political contests and the rattle of the dice-box. 
 And it is a Fox far nearer to reality than the foolish 
 bogey invented by the Nonconformist Conscience. 
 However, as you look back upon a career which might 
 have caused the destruction of England, you can afford 
 to smile at the hypocrisy which has converted Charles 
 James Fox into a saviour of his country. His own 
 contemporaries, who loved him in spite of his politics, 
 knew him far too well to accept his opinions. The 
 Radicals of to-day, with an imperfect knowledge of 
 his qualities, worship him as one who hated England. 
 
CHARLES JAMES FOX 149 
 
 How he would have laughed at the absurdity of this, 
 his own image ! And how unfortunate is the party 
 which, in spite of its active * conscience ' and high 
 professions, can find no better saints to reverence 
 than John Wilkes and Charles James Fox ! 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 
 
 SOME men there are whom destiny casts for a 
 romantic part upon the grand stage of life, 
 whether they will it or not. Though all the im- 
 pulses of their hearts drive them to retired thought 
 and tranquil speculation, they are forced not only 
 into great situations but into conflict with great men. 
 Alexander Paulovitch, for instance, known to history 
 as Alexander i. of Russia, was well fitted by tempera- 
 ment and character to be a political philosopher or an 
 amiable philanthropist ; it was his fate to dominate 
 for a while the councils of Europe, to confront and 
 ultimately to foil Napoleon himself, and rising to the 
 height of his opportunity with a strength which not 
 even his friends suspected in him, to break the last 
 desperate attempt that was made before the adventure 
 of William u. at universal sovereignty. 
 
 The grandson and favourite of the great Catherine, 
 he was but a boy when the savagery of the French 
 Revolution burst upon Europe. By a natural re- 
 action he eagerly caught up the opinions of the foolish 
 enthusiasts, who made the streets of Paris run with 
 blood. He became curious concerning the sins of 
 monarchs and the rights of men. A mild liberalism 
 
 160 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 151 
 
 filled his heart and brain. He was seized with a 
 grave desire to do good, a desire which would have 
 found little sympathy at Court, had he dared to reveal 
 there his hopes and purposes. The only begetter 
 of these vague aspirations, of these brave, unpractical 
 ideals, was M. de la Harpe, whom the Empress 
 Catherine, persuaded by her love of intelligence and 
 her interest in the Encyclopaedists, had procured him 
 for tutor. Now M. de la Harpe, who had been a 
 member of the directoire helvetique, was one of the 
 many prigs who had fed their fancies upon the 
 illusions of the dying eighteenth century, who de- 
 voutly believed that the crooked world might be 
 set straight by phrases, and who saw in their own 
 doctrine a new philosopher's stone, a universal remedy 
 which should explain all and cure all. He was not 
 the best kind of instructor that could be found for 
 a young prince, and it was consonant with Catherine's 
 intellectual cynicism that she should have chosen him. 
 Doubtless she thought that no man of her house, 
 least of all her loved and elect successor, could possibly 
 take any harm from the teaching of a philosopher. 
 She did not understand the quick receptivity of 
 Alexander's mind ; she did not appreciate the con- 
 stancy of his temper, which bade him never with- 
 hold a friendship he once had given. 
 
 For some years Alexander kept his hopes and fears 
 locked within his own breast. It was not until he 
 encountered Prince Adam Czartoryski that he dis- 
 covered a companion to whom he might intrust hj 
 
152 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 secret thoughts. Nor could he have found a wiser, 
 better counsellor, whose loyalty equalled his candour, 
 whose allegiance never weakened, despite the suffer- 
 ings of Poland, and who loved Alexander too well 
 ever to deceive him. The decisive conversation took 
 place at the Palace of the Tauris in 1796. The Polish 
 Prince regretted always that he could not remember 
 the exact date of an interview which profoundly 
 influenced his own life and the destinies of his country. 
 What he did remember was the precise terms of the 
 confidence which was made to him in Alexander's 
 English garden. The Grand Duke freely confessed 
 that he did not share the ideas or the doctrines of the 
 Cabinet and the Court, that he was far from approv- 
 ing either the policy or the conduct of his grand- 
 mother, that all his wishes were for Poland and her 
 glorious struggle, that he deplored her fall, that 
 Kosciuszko was a great man in his eyes both for his 
 virtues and for the cause which he defended the 
 cause of humanity and justice. 
 
 It is easy to imagine the enthusiasm which these 
 warm words excited in the patriotic breast of Czar- 
 toryski, who believed that Russia and the rest of 
 Europe existed for no other purpose than to right 
 the wrongs of Poland. And Alexander was as yet but 
 on the threshold of confession. He admitted that 
 he hated despotism wherever it was found and in 
 whatever manner it was practised, that he loved 
 liberty, the equal rights of all men, that he took the 
 liveliest interest in the French Revolution, though 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 153 
 
 he did not approve its enormities, and that he wished 
 the happiest success to the French Republic. These 
 were pretty views for an autocrat to hold ! And 
 Alexander held them, as views merely, until the end 
 of his life. We may imagine that he did not hold them 
 very strongly or obstinately. The gift of persistence, 
 save in friendship, was never his. His liberalism was 
 a wayward, moving influence, like many other of his 
 dreams and fancies. Moreover, it was necessarily 
 superficial. It was not held deep in his soul by know- 
 ledge or experience. Adam Czartoryski admits that 
 his friend, in spite of his political zeal, had never read 
 a serious book unto the end. Nevertheless he was 
 a willing pupil of the French Revolutionaries ; he 
 echoed with at least a passing sincerity the solemn 
 words of the amiable M. de la Harpe. 
 
 Czartoryski, young and enthusiastic as his master, 
 marvelled greatly at what he heard. That these 
 words should be spoken by a prince of Russia, the 
 successor of Catherine, the well-loved grandson and 
 pupil, whom, discarding her own son, she wished to 
 reign after her, was a wonder indeed ! And though 
 the talk in the garden, though the many walks to the 
 villages about Tsarkoe-Selo, had no direct result, 
 though Alexander fortunately did not on account of 
 de la Harpe's benighted reasoning give Russia a 
 constitution or demolish his own throne, he won for 
 himself a lifelong friend, whom no disappointment 
 could estrange, and no political difference could turn 
 from the habit of plain speaking. 
 
154 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Meanwhile, though in one part of his brain Alex- 
 ander kept neatly docketed a fine set of liberal opinions 
 and a sympathetic interest in revolution, in another 
 he cherished the proper pomposity of princes. He 
 was greatly subject to what Czartoryski calls ' para- 
 domania.' He delighted in reviews and official 
 spectacles, in the details of uniforms, in all the mani- 
 fold trappings of a soldier's profession. So busily 
 indeed was he engaged with his duties in the army 
 that he had no leisure for study, and he cultivated 
 politics only in talk with half a dozen intimates, who 
 remained with him as an inner and informal council, 
 even after he had ascended the throne, and the fore- 
 most of whom was always Czartoryski. The death of 
 Catherine and the accession of his father, Paul, left him 
 still free to pursue that liberal policy, which in other 
 countries besides Russia has seemed the privilege of 
 an heir to the throne. And then suddenly there 
 came upon him the tragedy of death, with which his 
 house was already familiar, and which compelled 
 him to lay aside the vague hopes of boyhood, to face 
 with what courage he might the crisis of his fate. 
 
 In 1 80 1 the Emperor Paul was brutally murdered 
 by a mob of conspirators, who went insolently beyond 
 their instructions. That the safety of Russia de- 
 manded the abdication of Paul was evident. Cathe- 
 rine, in her foresight, had wished the immediate 
 succession of Alexander, who himself had approved 
 and shared the plan to remove the Emperor Paul from 
 the throne. But Alexander had not envisaged for 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 155 
 
 a moment the possibility of murder. He had devised 
 for his father, in his own mind, a retirement of splen- 
 dour and luxury. And when Nicholas Zubov found 
 him expecting, in disquietude and doubt, the news 
 of an abdication, and announced in his raucous 
 voice that ' all was over,' Alexander fell into the very 
 depth of sorrow and despair. Like a Hamlet, dimly 
 conscious that he was not guiltless of his father's 
 blood, he was paralysed to inaction. He knew not 
 how to discover the actual murderers, or how to deal 
 with them if he found them. He let ' I dare not wait 
 upon I would,' and like all vacillators incurred the 
 blame of both sides. These reproached him for dis- 
 loyalty to the men who had placed him on the throne, 
 Those charged him with a cynical inactivity of 
 revenge. The truth is, he followed the right, and 
 middle course. On the one hand, he could not make 
 a scandal and punish the offenders by the public pro- 
 cesses of the law ; on the other he could not tolerate 
 near the throne the murderers of his father. So, 
 holding in horror all those whose persuasion had 
 made him a party even to the plot of abdication, he 
 sent them off to the Caucasus or some other outpost 
 of the Empire, where they died of the bleak climate 
 or of disappointed ambition. 
 
 Never was there a more melancholy coronation 
 than Alexander's. Shaken by remorse, he passed 
 through the ceremonies of Moscow like one in a tor- 
 tured dream. He spent hours in silence, with fixed 
 and haggard eyes. His friends feared for his reason, 
 
156 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 and had Czartoryski not been there to recall him to 
 the proper discharge of his duties, he might have sunk 
 into a state of leaden despair. Nor even did the 
 conflict of Napoleon, and the great drama in which 
 he played an eminent part, wholly save him from 
 self-chastisement. He relapsed when the strain was 
 relaxed into the moody mysticism, the disgust of life, 
 which confused and darkened his last years. 
 
 It may be doubted whether he would ever have 
 put into practice the liberal ideas of his youth had 
 leisure and peace been given to him. The common 
 experience of history proves that a philosophic heir 
 to the throne accepts lightly enough the burden of 
 autocracy. At any rate, the times in which Alex- 
 ander lived were not favourable to speculation or 
 reform. Destiny forced upon him the duty, for 
 which his wayward temper, shot with manifold 
 changes of mood and fancy, did not wholly fit him, 
 of facing an implacable invader. When it would have 
 pleased him to devise a new constitution or to estab- 
 lish Poland as a free and independent kingdom, he was 
 asked to liberate his country from the dominion of 
 Napoleon. And if the task was not congenial to him, 
 he possessed one gift which made it easy for him to 
 attach the willing service of others the gift of com- 
 pelling worship. The ' paradomania ' of his youth 
 had developed in him a fine sense of spectacle. Wher- 
 ever he went he was followed by the eager glances of 
 his countrymen, not because he was their Emperor 
 emperors were not sacred to those who had strangled 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 157 
 
 his father but because he was Alexander himself, 
 gravely smiling in the exercise of his authority. In 
 Moscow he was spoken of as the Angel Incarnate, 
 and miraculous influences were ascribed to him. The 
 atmosphere of tragedy in which he seemed to move 
 intensified men's respect and admiration. There 
 was something sacred in the moral sufferings which 
 his subjects knew had been his. 
 
 Tolstoi in his Peace and War has ascribed to Rostov 
 the devotion which was felt by the whole nation. The 
 scene is familiar to all. The Tsar appears unex- 
 pectedly to the young soldier, who recognises in a 
 half surprise his lamented, his idolised sovereign. 
 ' " But it can't be he, alone in the middle of this 
 empty field," thought Rostov. At that moment 
 Alexander turned his head, and Rostov saw the 
 beloved features, vividly imprinted on his memory. 
 The Tsar was pale, his cheeks looked sunken, and his 
 eyes hollow, but the charm, the mildness of his face 
 struck his worshipper the more poignantly. Rostov 
 felt happy in the certainty that the report of the 
 Emperor's wound was false. He was happy that he 
 was seeing him. He knew that he might, that he 
 ought, indeed, to go straight to him and to give him 
 the message he had been commanded to give by 
 Dolgosukov.' Yet, timid as a youth in love, Rostov, 
 now that the long-desired moment had come, fears 
 to approach his sovereign, and Tolstoi in the devout 
 hesitation of one soldier makes his readers realise and 
 understand something of the mystic influence which 
 
158 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Alexander exerted almost unconsciously upon his 
 compatriots. Even if he were infirm of purpose, if, 
 as Adam Czartoryski declared, he was dilatory in the 
 performance of his political duties, he was still to the 
 Army and to his simple people a miraculous appari- 
 tion, a phantom Emperor whom all were content to 
 live and to die for and to wonder at. 
 
 Such was the Tsar of Russia, who, still gracious 
 after defeat, met Napoleon at Tilsit in the unequal 
 combat of wits. The two men presented all the 
 glaring contrast which drama demands of life. 
 ' Napoleon,' says M. Vandal, * c'est action ; Alex- 
 andre, c'est le reve.' The differences between the 
 two could not be more concisely or more clearly 
 stated. They opposed one to the other not only 
 their own temperaments, but the temperaments of 
 their countries. Napoleon was a man with no rough 
 edges. His outlines are still plainly defined against 
 the sky of the past. He knew precisely what he 
 wanted, and by what means he could attain it. Even 
 the rapidity of his imagination, the sureness of his 
 fancy, never ran in opposition to the laws of logic. 
 He had defeated Alexander in fair fight, and he meant 
 to get all the advantage he could out of the victory. 
 The necessary result of his amazing triumph at Fried- 
 land was peace. Harbouring no resentment against 
 his beaten foe, he was resolved to turn the new 
 friendship to the best account. In 1807 he had but 
 one end and one aim, to achieve a general peace by 
 the conquest of England. He might for the moment 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 159 
 
 be engaged with other countries, but every march 
 he made, every battle he fought were but steps upon 
 the same road. England was the enemy, and must 
 be destroyed ! And he was sure that Russia might 
 serve better than any other to help him in the grati- 
 fying of his supreme ambition. 
 
 So he came into the conference a man of action, 
 armed for the discussion at all points. And opposite 
 him sat Alexander, a child of romance, a dreamer of 
 the .Steppes, mysterious and deceptive, like his 
 northern atmosphere, knowing not what he sought 
 nor what he hoped of the future. Ondoyant et divers^ 
 to use the words of Montaigne, he varied in mood 
 and policy from day to day, completely unconscious 
 that his very variableness would prove in the end the 
 best of weapons wherewith to oppose Napoleon. In 
 subtlety and cunning he was no match for his adver- 
 sary, who was his superior also in years and in ex- 
 perience. A master of all the arts of flattery and 
 cajolery, Napoleon had no difficulty at the first onset 
 in outwitting Alexander. He spoke to him with a 
 cunning sympathy of his liberal ideas and of the 
 happy dreams of his youth. Like the great captain 
 that he was, he told him tales of victories won in the 
 field, of the vast ambitions which he cherished of 
 universal dominion. In brief, he drew the feather of 
 hope and wild surmise across the eyes of Alexander, 
 who saw himself for the moment a proud sharer with 
 Napoleon in the sovereignty of the world. 
 
 The setting of the stage was worthy the impassioned 
 
160 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 drama itself. Upon a raft in the Niemen the quick 
 hands of the French had fashioned une maisonnette 
 tres-joliment meublee, as a Russian Minister described 
 it. Garlands of flowers hid the bareness of the walls, 
 and everywhere the monograms of Napoleon and 
 Alexander were seen interlaced. In this pavilion 
 Napoleon received his august visitor, whom he saw 
 now for the first time, and if he made a speedy con- 
 quest of Alexander, Alexander's pleasant gift of in- 
 timacy set him instantly at his ease. For the first 
 time in his life he was received by an autocrat, 
 whom yesterday he was fighting, without disdain and 
 without rancour. With a single phrase the Tsar 
 laid what seemed a solid foundation to their friend- 
 ship. ' I hate the English as much as you do.' 
 ' Then,' answered Napoleon, ' peace is made.' 
 
 Thereafter followed military reviews and brilliant 
 spectacles. In amoebean strains the two Emperors 
 strove to show which could pay the other the better 
 compliment. When they discussed which Ministers 
 of State should represent them, ' I will be your 
 secretary,' said Napoleon, ' and you shall be mine.' 
 Truly, had it not been for the King of Prussia, whom 
 Napoleon rightly detested, and who, lodging in a mill 
 hard by, was admitted now and then, like a poor 
 relation, into the imperial presence, the many confer- 
 ences would have passed without a word of dispute. 
 Unfortunately for himself, Alexander would not sur- 
 render the fettered Prussian to his fate. Better had it 
 been for his country and for Europe if he had allowed 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 161 
 
 the supine Frederick William to lie where he had 
 fallen. But he did his best to save an unworthy 
 friend, and the world has suffered ever since for his 
 ill-judged complaisance. 
 
 However, Napoleon's tact brushed the Prussian 
 bogey aside, and when they came to the making 
 of terms Alexander accepted willingly the map of 
 Europe as France had re-drawn it, and made no 
 objection to any of her conquests. He even under- 
 took the thankless task of mediating between Eng- 
 land and France, promising to exact that she should 
 grant that freedom of which we have heard so much 
 ever since, and recognise that ' the flags of all the 
 Powers should enjoy an equal and perfect independ- 
 ence upon the seas.' In brief, it was Alexander's hope- 
 less task to persuade England to renounce all the 
 advantages of her insularity and to present her throat 
 to the knife of the first sovereign who resented her 
 power and her ambition. Alexander failed in this 
 project, as all others have failed who have striven to 
 enchain the liberty of England ; and though the cant 
 phrase, ' the liberty of the seas,' will, we hope, never 
 be spoken with approval by an English tongue, 
 Napoleon and Alexander must have been strangely 
 sanguine if they thought that by the mere promise 
 of an insecure peace they could deceive the generation 
 still proud of Aboukir Bay and Trafalgar. 
 
 The brilliant spectacle of Tilsit faded away, leaving 
 behind it nothing more solid than a vague friendship 
 and a dream of Eastern conquest. England brusquely 
 
1 62 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 declined the mediation of Russia, because the secret 
 clauses in the agreement of Tilsit were concealed 
 from her, and, much to the chagrin of Napoleon, 
 presently made it clear, through the mouths of her 
 Ministers, that she would fight the pretension of the 
 French to the dominion of Europe to her last man 
 and her last bullet. But it was not England and her 
 invincible fleet that touched the imagination of the 
 Tsar. He was under the spell of a fairy story. When 
 Napoleon spoke to him of the East and the triumphs 
 which together they would achieve there, he became 
 as a child, listening for the first time to the Arabian 
 Nights. It was indeed the East which carried 
 Napoleon on the strongest wing of eloquence. He 
 painted in the liveliest colours how great would be 
 his victory over England, if only with Russian aid he 
 could pierce the Balkans and make himself master of 
 Constantinople. It was his hope to use Turkey as a 
 point of departure for an attack upon India. It was 
 easier, thought he, to conquer the East than to cross 
 the narrow, baffling Straits of Dover. All should 
 conspire to the ruin of England. The Mediterranean 
 should become a French lake, and an attack upon 
 Egypt would not only shake to its foundations Eng- 
 land's Asiatic Empire, and threaten her routes to 
 India both by sea and by land, but it would utterly 
 destroy her prestige, so that she would be ready to 
 accept any terms that Napoleon might fling to her, as 
 a bone to a dog. 
 
 That Napoleon had touched Alexander's imagina- 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 163 
 
 tion there is no doubt. That he had entirely over- 
 come his distrust is less certain. Like all those 
 cynics, who break their pledged words and tear up 
 pieces of paper, Napoleon was pursued in all that he 
 said and did by a just suspicion. And if Alexander 
 was for the moment beguiled, his people was resolute 
 in opposition. Count Tolstoi, indeed, when he went 
 to represent his sovereign in Paris, never succeeded 
 in hiding a just distrust of Napoleon and his marshals, 
 and once upon a time, returning from a review, almost 
 came to fisticuffs with Ney. Nor in the tedious 
 negotiations which followed the sentimentality of 
 Tilsit could either side be brought to a decision. To 
 Alexander the dominion of the East seemed a many- 
 coloured dream, until he saw in his imagination 
 Napoleon supreme at Constantinople and master of 
 the Straits. And Napoleon, though he offered grimly 
 to distribute the countries of other people, did not 
 intend that Alexander should ever profit by a one- 
 sided bargain. He had but one object to throw 
 dust in his friend's eyes and thus to deceive him into 
 a political slavery. In his eager egoism he thought 
 that he could make use of Alexander ; he was resolved 
 that Alexander should not make use of him. Berna- 
 dotte, speaking with the knowledge of later years, 
 declared that Napoleon meditated war against Alex- 
 ander at the very moment that he signed the Treaty 
 of Tilsit, and Bernadotte no doubt was in the right 
 of it. Moreover, Napoleon was not at the pains to 
 understand Alexander's complex character ; he did not 
 
1 64 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 perceive that Alexander's irresolution was of itself 
 an accident of strength. At any rate, Alexander 
 was incapable of adopting suddenly and irrevocably 
 a policy disastrous for himself. 
 
 So Erfurt followed Tilsit, but the glorious rapture 
 of the first meeting on the banks of the Niemen was 
 never recaptured. What Napoleon in his amiable 
 flattery called le style de Tilsit was dead and done with. 
 Though in his patronage of Wieland and Goethe 
 Napoleon proved himself once more the forerunner 
 of romance in modern Europe, and once more did 
 his best to dazzle the Tsar, the ancient charm had 
 ceased to work. And there was Talleyrand, schem- 
 ing for France against her Emperor, ready to pour the 
 poison of dissension into Alexander's ear. ' Sire,' 
 said he, ' what do you come here to do ? It is for you 
 to save Europe, and you can succeed in that enter- 
 prise only by holding your own against Napoleon. 
 The French people is civilised ; its sovereign is not. 
 The sovereign of Russia is civilised ; his people is 
 not : it is, then, the duty of the sovereign of Russia 
 to become the ally of the French people.' 
 
 Such subtle counsel as this could not but have 
 effect upon the mind of Alexander, whose youthful 
 liberalism, combined with the influence of Speranski, 
 the son of a pope and a violent reformer, suddenly 
 appointed privy counsellor, convinced him that his 
 duty was owed not to the French Emperor but to the 
 Russian people. It was still Alexander's ambition to 
 link Russia to the chain of Western civilisation to 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 165 
 
 create a nation, in fact, higher in its moral and intel- 
 lectual level than that which the great Catherine had 
 bequeathed to him. He saw at last that he could 
 succeed in this purpose only by serving his own 
 people and by putting away from his eyes the glamour 
 of Napoleon. There remained his foolish attach- 
 ment for the cause of the Prussians * poor miserable 
 creatures,' Napoleon called them ; and the loyal sym- 
 pathy, which he preserved for the abject Frederick 
 William, made still wider the breach which began to 
 yawn between the sworn brothers of Tilsit. 
 
 Meanwhile Napoleon was seduced by another ad- 
 venture from what he deemed the main purpose of 
 his life. In Spain and Portugal he had turned a deaf 
 ear for a time to the imperative call of the East. Far 
 from him then was the dream of 1807. Nor did 
 the Tsar's refusal of his sister's hand and his own 
 marriage with Marie Louise help to strengthen the 
 weakening ties. Another cause of dissension was 
 a friendship formed in Napoleon's despite between 
 Bernadotte, now Crown Prince of Sweden, and the 
 Tsar of Russia. Bernadotte, chosen heir to the 
 throne, if not with Napoleon's approval, at least 
 without his dissent, discovered rightly enough that 
 he owed allegiance not to his late master but to his 
 adopting country, and saw profit for Sweden in a 
 close friendship with Russia. Napoleon's exasperation 
 knew no bounds at what he thought the defection of 
 a servant. He crossed the Niemen with an army, and 
 sent away the Tsar's envoy of peace with scorn and 
 
166 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 contumely. In Tolstoi's Peace and War, a master- 
 piece of fiction based upon accurate documents, 
 Napoleon's fury against Balashov, Alexander's emis- 
 sary, is described in the terms of truth. ' As for the 
 Swedes,' said he, * it 's their destiny to be governed by 
 mad kings. Their king was mad. They changed him 
 for another, Bernadotte, who promptly went mad ; for 
 no one not a madman could, being a Swede, ally himself 
 
 with Russia Yes, I '11 thrust you beyond the 
 
 Dwina, beyond the Dnieper, and I '11 restore the 
 frontier that Europe was criminal and blind to let 
 you overstep. Yes, that 's in store for you, that 's 
 what you will gain by alienating me. And yet what a 
 fine reign your master might have had.' 
 
 The ' fine reign ' of Balashov's master was indeed 
 but just beginning. As it was Napoleon's flattery 
 which had once dazzled his fancy, so it was Napoleon's 
 rancour which enabled him at last to see things as 
 they were. For once this dreamer put away his 
 dreams ; for once this waverer formed a resolution, 
 which nothing save death and destruction could break 
 or bend. In the letters which passed between Alex- 
 ander and Bernadotte in the year of destiny, 1812, 
 you may see how strong was the Tsar's determination, 
 supported by Bernadotte's wise counsel, to make an 
 end for ever of Napoleon's aggression. No longer 
 did he use the suave style of Tilsit. He was ready 
 to accept a peace if Napoleon would grant what he 
 asked, and if as a preliminary every French soldier 
 was withdrawn from Russian soil. He admitted 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 167 
 
 the force of Bernadotte's warning that it was still 
 Napoleon's object to divide the great states one against 
 the other, and thus to facilitate the old project of the 
 European hegemony. ' I am making a war of delays,' 
 wrote Alexander, ' and since a superior force is march- 
 ing upon us, I am retiring to a fortified position, 
 which I have prepared to that end. . . . Meanwhile 
 you may be sure that, when once the war is begun, 
 it is my firm resolve to make it last for years if 
 necessary.' 
 
 With this end in view the Tsar avoided general 
 engagements, and betook himself to the heart of his 
 empire that he might inspire his people with the 
 hope of conquest, and persuade it to make fresh 
 sacrifices, to form new armies of reserve. His policy 
 won the whole-hearted approval of Bernadotte, 
 who never wavered in his belief, even when the 
 armies of Napoleon were overrunning Russia, that 
 the ultimate victory must be Alexander's. ' He 
 may gain the first, the second, even the third battle,' 
 he wrote ; ' the fourth will be undecided, and if your 
 Majesty perseveres you will certainly gain the fifth.' 
 
 Then suddenly there comes news of disaster. 
 Kutusof has not profited by his victory ; the road 
 to Moscow lies open to the enemy ; the capital has 
 fallen into the hands of the French, who find there 
 none to welcome them but the porters of the houses. 
 Yet Alexander's resolution was still adamant. ' It 
 is a cruel loss, I admit, but of moral and political 
 rather than military import. At any rate it will give 
 
r68 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 me the chance of proving to the whole of Europe that 
 I mean to sustain this struggle against the oppressor 
 with all possible perseverance, for after this wound 
 everything else will seem but a scratch.' Thus the 
 famous retreat of the Russians was victoriously 
 achieved, and the urgent overtures of Napoleon con- 
 temptuously dismissed. What was his letter of peace 
 but a mass of fanfaronnades ? Thus the burning of 
 Moscow was endured by a brave people with a shrug. 
 And then, in October, came the crowning reward of 
 the Tsar's persistence and resolution. 
 
 * Monsieur mon Frere et Cousin,' wrote Alexander 
 to Bernadotte, ' I have with the utmost fidelity kept 
 your Royal Highness exactly informed of my re- 
 verses ; it is but just that I relate to you the successes 
 which the Russian armies have lately won.' And so 
 he goes on to describe, without exaltation or boast- 
 fulness, the marvellous victories which his brave 
 generals had wrested from the French. Here the 
 Bavarians were beaten, and lost in their defeat eight 
 guns and twenty-two flags. There the King of 
 Naples was put to flight, leaving upon the field a 
 standard and thirty pieces of artillery. The Polish 
 general, Tischekwistschk, of whose prowess Napoleon 
 had proudly boasted, had surrendered with 2000 
 men. The Emperor Napoleon had gone hot-foot 
 to Smolensk, telling his army to follow by the same 
 route. All the roads of Russia leading west were 
 strewn with dead horses and abandoned munitions of 
 war. Never were good tidings more plainly told or 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 169 
 
 more joyously received. A few weeks later there 
 was still better news to tell. Ney's lot was the most 
 deplorable. His retreat being completely cut off, 
 he lost in two days 117 pieces and 20,000 men, with 
 four generals. Thus victory followed upon victory, 
 triumph upon triumph. There was but one dis- 
 appointment that Napoleon himself escaped from 
 Russia with the few poor remnants of his army. But 
 it mattered not. As the retreat from Moscow was the 
 end of Napoleon's hopes of conquest, so it was the 
 beginning of Europe's liberation. Once more the 
 plain truth was established that Russia was uncon- 
 querable, that it is at his peril that the bravest in- 
 vader dared to cross the river which divides East and 
 West. 
 
 The campaign of Moscow was an interlude in 
 Alexander's life of dreams. Not long before 
 Napoleon's disastrous invasion he had been on the 
 verge of accepting Speranski's project of a Con- 
 stitution. The sudden impulse of action destroyed 
 the project and sent Speranski into banishment. 
 But the lessons of La Harpe and Czartoryski were 
 not obliterated from Alexander's brain ; they were 
 merely blurred ; and they might have taken a practical 
 shape, had not Waterloo and Mme. de Kriidener 
 intervened. The defeat of Napoleon, who for 
 twenty years had ravaged Europe, drove all liberal 
 ideas from the minds of men. And Alexander was 
 strengthened in a contempt for the past even for 
 his own past by the pious ministrations of Mme. de 
 
1 70 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Kriidener. This female prophet, who had exchanged 
 the sentimentalities of Valerie for a love of prayer 
 meetings, gained a complete ascendancy over the 
 Tsar, whose mysticism persuaded him that the 
 burning of Moscow had illuminated his soul, that 
 henceforth he was, by the grace of God, the arbiter 
 of the world, the sanction of the unbroken right of 
 Russia. Thus with the aid of Mme. de Kriidener 
 he sketched the scheme of the Holy Alliance. For 
 twenty years the world had been torn in pieces by 
 Jacobins. Henceforth it was to be made * safe for ' 
 autocracy. The lessons which Europe had learned 
 from Napoleon and his lawless combating, were not 
 to be thrown away. Any attempt at revolution, 
 wherever and by whomsoever it was made, should 
 promptly be suppressed by the armed forces of the 
 Alliance. The aspirations of the Tsar were Christian 
 and monarchical and reactionary, and, encouraged by 
 Mme. de Kriidener, he believed them irresistible. 
 With him it was a pious doctrine that for the rest 
 of time princes should look upon one another as 
 brothers, should treat their peoples as their children, 
 and establish their actions upon the firm and sacred 
 principles of the gospel of Christ. 
 
 Alexander himself forgot in his new worship all the 
 old hopes and dreams of reform. He fondly believed 
 for the moment that he was giving ' a lofty satisfaction 
 to divine Providence.' Metternich denounced the 
 Alliance as ' a loud-sounding nothing,' and presently 
 interpreted it, according to his will, as a guarantee 
 
A FAMOUS TSAR 171 
 
 of legitimate sovereignty. For Castlereagh it was 
 ' a sublime piece of mysticism and nonsense,' and 
 though he, too, prayed that Europe in the future 
 should be protected against revolution, he saw no 
 safety in Alexander's phantasies. Meanwhile, he 
 received the project with an ironical politeness. 
 ' The benign principles of the Alliance of the 26th of 
 September 1815,' he wrote, 'may be considered as 
 constituting the European system in the matter of 
 political conscience. It would, however, be dero- 
 gatory to the solemn act of the sovereigns to mix its 
 discussion with the ordinary diplomatic obligations, 
 which bind state to state, and which are to be looked 
 for alone in the treaties which have been concluded 
 in the accustomed form.' A civil, ingenious method, 
 truly, of shelving an awkward question. 
 
 And presently England, with the joint aid of 
 Castlereagh and Canning, took the decisive step in 
 the dissolution of the Holy Alliance. The mystical 
 doctrine of Alexander, translated into a practical 
 policy by Metternich, threatened to involve Europe 
 in perpetual wars. When once an international 
 police force has been established, there will always be 
 found work for it to do. And Castlereagh and Canning 
 formulated their sane and sound policy of inter- 
 vention in the nick of time. If the nations are not 
 to live in chains, then each one of them must be free 
 to choose the form of government which suits it, 
 whether it be autocracy, or oligarchy, or democracy. 
 No one ever devised a scheme of greater futility than 
 
172 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 that all men should measure their corn by his bushel. 
 For acquiescence can be achieved only by force of 
 arms, and the fiercest pedant upon earth will hardly 
 contemplate with cheerfulness a perpetual state of 
 war. Nor shall we best ensure the growth of liberty, 
 if we cut off in his prime every obstinate citizen who 
 refuses to be free. 
 
 So Alexander's attempt to stop the clock of time, 
 to check the growth and change of the world at an 
 arbitrarily chosen hour failed, as all such attempts 
 must fail. And he, poor man, fell to dreaming again 
 of liberty and free constitutions, until the excesses of 
 Arakcheieff doubled his suspicions, and yet more 
 darkly clouded his morose, unhappy mind. He died, 
 as he had lived, a sphinx, who put to his people 
 such riddles as it could never guess ; a vague Hamlet, 
 whose conscience was seared by the memory of his 
 father's death, a prince disillusioned by an implac- 
 able fate, and disappointed of the coloured dreams 
 of youth. 
 
TALLEYRAND 
 
 NO man of his time has been so bitterly attacked 
 and so lamely defended as Charles Maurice 
 Talleyrand de Perigord. He was said by his enemies 
 to engross the vices of the old and new regimes. 
 Napoleon led the chorus of abuse. ' Talleyrand,' 
 said he, ' is a scoundrel, like Marmont : he has betrayed 
 religion, Louis xvi., the Constituent Assembly, the 
 Directorate. Why did I not have him shot ? ' And 
 a thousand others have followed Napoleon's lead. A 
 stranger to honour and virtue, declared one, he sacri- 
 ficed his country to an insensate love of money. A 
 monster of disloyalty, murmured another, he wit- 
 nessed the ruin of his benefactors with a complacent 
 smile, and cheerfully profited by the disasters of his 
 friends. Even his statecraft has been decried as 
 cunning, and his diplomacy as a mere trick of dis- 
 sembling. Nor did Talleyrand often condescend to 
 defend himself against his contemporaries. He 
 countered insult with a smile, and, when charged with 
 lack of principle, was content to observe that the 
 only sound principle was to have none. His un- 
 popularity, then, is easily intelligible. Nothing 
 alienates people more thoroughly than indifference, 
 
 173 
 
174 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 unless it be a rasping wit ; and when Talleyrand 
 spoke at all, he would always rather lose a friend 
 than a jest. 
 
 Moreover, he was for many years a fearless king- 
 maker. He dispensed crowns as monarchs distribute 
 portfolios. Dynasties were his playthings. He set 
 up thrones and overturned them ; and at each revo- 
 lution he created for himself a new mob of enemies. 
 He was, in truth, a finished specimen of the homme 
 politique. He aspired to govern not empires, but 
 rulers ; and such being his profession, it is not strange 
 that vices and even crimes were imputed to him by 
 those who lacked his knowledge and humour. But 
 if he disdained to answer his accusers, he never ceased 
 to believe in the loftiness of his patriotism and the 
 grandeur of his policy. ' Animated by the most 
 devoted love of France,' thus he wrote at the end of 
 his career, ' I have always served her conscientiously, 
 and sought for her honestly that which I honestly 
 believed to be most advantageous for her.' 
 
 Born in 1754 to a noble family, he was passed over 
 by his parents in favour of a younger brother, and sent 
 into the Church, because a limping leg rendered him 
 unfit for the profession of arms. Neglect did but 
 sharpen his wit and increase the quiet severity of his 
 temper. Moreover, he looked upon the Church, for 
 which he had no exalted regard, as a convenient 
 method of preferment ; and being appointed Bishop 
 of Autun in 1789, he was able to play a distinguished 
 part in the Revolution. With a prudent regret he 
 
TALLEYRAND 175 
 
 foresaw the triumph of the popular cause, and, as it 
 was always his habit to hail a rising star, he dedicated 
 his energy and courage to the service of the people. 
 But he did not share the illusions of his sentimental 
 contemporaries. * A democracy,' he asked in derision, 
 ' what is it but an aristocracy of blackguards ? ' 
 Meanwhile no hostile critic saw the weakness of 
 France more clearly than he. ' The Nation,' said 
 he to Gouverneur Morris, ' is a parvenu, and, like all 
 parvenus, is insolent.' Moreover, he preserved a 
 sturdy contempt for the heroes of humble birth who 
 were his colleagues in rebellion, and who, in his own 
 phrase, ' had never walked on the parquet? As for 
 himself, ' he dressed like a coxcomb, thought like a 
 deist, and preached like a saint.' 
 
 And he understood life as he understood politics. 
 He was a man of the world as well as a master of 
 finance ; and since he was troubled neither by pre- 
 judices nor passions, he instantly assumed a leader- 
 ship among the rabble. So he was a member of the 
 Constituent Assembly, and, in spite of his bishopric, 
 he urged the Government to lay hands upon the 
 landed estate of the Church. Like Wolsey a still 
 greater Churchman he thought it no dishonour to 
 tax his own house ; and with a better excuse, since, 
 in his eyes, the Church was no more than a means 
 of advancement. A student of Montesquieu, and a 
 patient admirer of the English Constitution, he 
 affected to prefer a limited monarchy to other forms 
 of government, and so long as safety permitted he was 
 
176 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 the zealous champion of Louis xvi. That he would 
 have bowed to the storm is not improbable. Happily 
 for him, he was in exile during the Terror, and he 
 was not asked to soil his hands with blood. When, 
 therefore, he returned from America, fortified by the 
 lessons taught him by Alexander Hamilton, he could 
 take up his broken career under the most favourable 
 auspices, and unstained by the foolish crime of 
 regicide. 
 
 Determined to rule through the established govern- 
 ment, he was confronted by a desperate task. The 
 Directory was neither sympathetic nor amenable. Its 
 members regarded Talleyrand with suspicion, and 
 even with hatred. In their eyes he was an aristocrat, 
 an emigre, a friend of Mirabeau, who was waiting his 
 chance to bring back the Royal House of France. 
 Rewbell could find no words too brutal for what he 
 thought the Bishop of Autun's treachery. ' He is 
 the powdered lackey of the ancient regime? said he ; 
 ' at most he could be used as a servant for purposes 
 of parade, were he only provided with a decent pair 
 of legs, but he has no more legs than heart.' Talley- 
 rand marked the hostility, and, after his habit of dis- 
 cretion, resented nothing openly. He shrugged his 
 shoulders, and ' set the women going.' He plainly 
 told Madame de Stael that if she did not find him a 
 place he must blow his brains out, and Madame de 
 Stael willingly used her influence to prevent so grave 
 a tragedy. She assailed Barras with a passionate 
 eloquence ; she sang the praises of her hero, who 
 
TALLEYRAND 177 
 
 wished nothing else than ' the honour of serving the 
 Republic and of showing his love of liberty ' ; and 
 Talleyrand, having proclaimed his unfailing devotion 
 to the Directory, was appointed Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs by Rewbell and Barras, the very men who had 
 most bitterly distrusted and assailed him. Admir- 
 ably did he play his part in the comedy until the end 
 of the act. He employed all his marvellous gifts of 
 diplomacy to cajole the Directors, and he resigned 
 his office as soon as he knew that Napoleon's ascend- 
 ancy was inevitable. While he had served France 
 with all his energy and prudence, he cherished a pro- 
 found contempt for those who gave him his oppor- 
 tunity. * These were the men,' said he in his 
 Mtmoires, after describing a disgraceful quarrel 
 between Carnot and Barras, ' who held the reins of 
 government, and with whom, perforce, I attempted 
 to restore France into the society of Europe.' 
 
 The Directory, however, did Talleyrand an 
 eminent service : it first brought him face to face 
 with Napoleon. When the young general returned 
 from his glorious campaign in Italy, Talleyrand was 
 selected to pronounce his panegyric, and he instantly 
 fell under the triumphant spell. ' The winning of 
 twenty battles,' said he, ' accords admirably with 
 his youth, his good looks, his pallor, and a suspicion 
 of fatigue.' And it was not merely the picturesque 
 aspect of Napoleon which captivated him. He saw 
 in the victorious soldier the one man capable of re- 
 generating France, and at the outset supported his 
 
 M 
 
178 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 schemes with unwavering devotion. If he could, he 
 would have made Napoleon king, and thus put into 
 practice his favourite theory of government. But 
 kingship being impossible, he took care that Napoleon's 
 power should be unhampered. The conspiracy of 
 the 1 8th Brumaire could not have been made without 
 the help of Talleyrand ; he approved the consulate ; 
 and he delighted in the empire. The pomp and 
 ceremony which the Emperor restored to France 
 were in perfect harmony with the temper of one who 
 throughout the fury of revolution never forgot that 
 he was an aristocrat. 
 
 Thus during the first years of Napoleon's sove- 
 reignty Talleyrand exercised a wide and deep influence. 
 As Madame de Remusat says, he ruled France through 
 his master. But two men so far different in tempera- 
 ment and ambition could not for ever follow the same 
 path. Talleyrand always subordinated military glory 
 to the security of France. Napoleon hesitated to 
 leave the field, on which he believed himself invincible. 
 While the soldier aimed at universal dominion, the 
 statesman would have preferred a stable balance of 
 power, and at last a separation became inevitable. 
 ' I do not wish to be the executioner of Europe,' said 
 Talleyrand in opposition to Napoleon's schemes of 
 aggrandisement ; and so strongly did he disapprove 
 of the policy pursued in Spain, that he was dismissed 
 from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Henceforth he 
 remained in Paris, watched and watchful. He played 
 an energetic part in the downfall of the Emperor, 
 
TALLEYRAND 179 
 
 and he has ever since been charged with treachery 
 and ingratitude. 
 
 As has been said, Napoleon regretted that he had 
 not shot Talleyrand, and from Napoleon's point of 
 view the regret was perhaps justified. But it cannot 
 be argued with justice that the Emperor had an 
 honourable grievance against his Minister. There 
 was no treachery, because Talleyrand served France, 
 not Napoleon. There was no ingratitude, because 
 Talleyrand owed no more to Napoleon than Napoleon 
 owed to Talleyrand. Napoleon, said his Minister, 
 was raised to the supreme power that he might oppose 
 the forces of anarchy. Duped by his imagination, he 
 determined to surround France ' with a rampart of 
 thrones held by members of his own family.' And 
 in this enterprise Talleyrand saw the ruin of his 
 country. In 1807 Napoleon, by restoring peace to 
 Europe, might have given to France a lasting supre- 
 macy. He preferred to seek adventures in Spain and 
 Russia, and, by what seemed a reckless disregard of 
 his country's interests, made Talleyrand's defection 
 and his own downfall inevitable. Indignantly did 
 Talleyrand deny that he had conspired against the 
 Emperor. * I have never conspired in my life,' said 
 he, * except when I had the majority of France for 
 my accomplice.' Such are the ostensible differences 
 which separated Napoleon and Talleyrand. But 
 beneath them, and greater than they, was the struggle 
 of temperaments, the struggle between genius and 
 talent, between glory and tact, between imagination 
 
i8o POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 and subtlety, between dreams and practice. And it 
 is not surprising, in the conditions of modern life, 
 that talent won the ultimate victory. 
 
 ' Napoleon,' said Talleyrand, ' had remade the bed 
 of the Bourbons,' and the adroit Minister had no 
 other choice than to smooth the pillows. In another 
 sense he had performed the same office for Barras 
 years before, and the Director had proved more grate- 
 ful than the King. After Talleyrand had played a 
 conspicuous part at Vienna, and realised at last the 
 dream of his life a constitutional monarchy, he 
 found his occupation gone. Louis xvm. would have 
 none of him, despite the pressure of Wellington and 
 the advice of Guizot. For once Talleyrand's tact 
 deserted him. He did not gauge the obstinacy of the 
 King, and thought that he might rule by force, where 
 hitherto he had found cunning all-sufficient. And 
 so King and Minister exchanged sarcasms and parted. 
 
 When Louis xvm. asked him how he had contrived 
 to wreck so many dynasties, ' there is something 
 about me,' he replied, ' which brings ill-luck on 
 Governments that neglect me.' The King did not 
 entirely neglect him, since he gave him a sinecure 
 worth 100,000 francs a year, and the throne with- 
 stood all his attempts to overturn it. So for fifteen 
 years he remained a simple courtier, quietly organising 
 an opposition, and waiting for better times. His last 
 chance came when in 1830 he placed Louis Philippe 
 upon the throne of France, and chose as his reward 
 the post of Ambassador at St. James's. In London 
 
TALLEYRAND 181 
 
 he proved that his talent for affairs was unimpaired, 
 and he succeeded in strengthening the ties of friend- 
 ship which bound England and France. Greville 
 pictures him as a favourer ' of moderate and healing 
 counsels,' as ' a statesman like Burleigh or Clarendon 
 for prudence, temperance, and discretion.' The 
 transformation of the volatile Abbe, of the unscrupu- 
 lous Bishop, was indeed complete, and yet he was 
 distinguished by that unity of character which may 
 always be detected in the great. 
 
 He had controlled as many dynasties as Louis xvm. 
 declared that he had wrecked. He had encouraged 
 the first signs of revolution ; he had governed France 
 through the Directory ; his had been the unseen 
 hand behind the Imperial throne ; he had established 
 a limited monarchy. As it was never his ambition to 
 stand first, so he cared not who had the semblance 
 of power so long as he had the reality. And in all that 
 he had accomplished, he might well boast that in 
 serving himself he had also served France. But 
 though his motives were as simple as his ambition, 
 he appeared to his contemporaries little short of a 
 criminal. Even Gouverneur Morris, a most judicious 
 observer of men and events, has nothing better to say 
 of him than that he ' would rather do right than 
 wrong,' as became a man who was * indifferent between 
 virtue and vice.' The misconception was partly 
 due to Talleyrand himself ; partly, and in a higher 
 degree, to the age in which he happened to play his 
 part. Cynical in all things, he studiously rid himself 
 
i8 2 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 of the qualities which were not either pleasant or use- 
 ful, and he did not acclaim as virtuous that which 
 he knew to be expedient. He himself rebutted the 
 common charge with an insouciance that did but 
 increase the rancour of his enemies. ' Did you ever 
 know crime of use to a sensible man ? ' he asked 
 Lamartine. * It is the resource of political fools, and 
 is like the breaker which returns and overwhelms you. 
 I had my failings, some say vices mats des crimes, fi 
 done ! ' 
 
 To the age of revolution, ebullient with ideas, this 
 political wisdom seemed a clear proof of villainy. 
 The heroes of the Terror, their hands red with blood, 
 believed that they might rule the world with pious 
 maxims. ' Be virtuous and you will be happy,' they 
 murmured, as the tumbril carried its innocent load 
 to the guillotine. But Talleyrand knew that these 
 amiable platitudes were not the most useful instru- 
 ments of policy. He would sacrifice nothing to ideas 
 ' not even if they were his own.' He would not 
 have murdered his bitterest foe for the sake of a moral 
 saying. In other words, he was sternly practical. 
 He would be turned aside neither by love nor hate, 
 neither by virtue nor vice, from the business of govern- 
 ment. And this persistence best illustrates the unity, 
 the oneness of his character selfish in the cause of 
 France, with which he identified himself ; pitiless and 
 inexorable to those who checked her advance and his. 
 The task which he had set himself compelled him to 
 worship success. * The courtier of destiny/ said 
 
TALLEYRAND 183 
 
 Lamartine with perfect truth, ' he served the strong, 
 he despised the maladroit, he abandoned the unfor- 
 tunate.' Such qualities, used in the commerce of 
 daily life, would make a bad friend and a worse enemy. 
 In times of stress they may be the necessary weapons 
 of a statesman, and those who condemn the means 
 which Talleyrand employed lack either the will or the 
 intelligence to understand the end and aim of his 
 ambition. 
 
 To achieve his purpose he spent his whole life, as 
 it were, on guard. He divested himself of passion 
 and sentiment. He remained silent in company, lest 
 he should betray his thought. With so stern a hand 
 did he govern his impulses that he was never known 
 to lose his temper. In all the relations of life he let 
 wit and sarcasm perform the work of anger. If there 
 was that in his mind which must be spoken, he made 
 a speech ; otherwise he held his tongue, and he 
 astonished the Foreign Ministers whom he met in 
 conference by an obstinate reticence. Indifferent to 
 the opinions of others, he read himself to sleep with 
 pamphlets written to insult him. Yet if he were cold 
 in his manner, he was never rough or brusque. With 
 him discretion did not degenerate into insolence, and 
 he was not a slave even to his discretion. 
 
 When he came to London as Ambassador, he sur- 
 prised our statesmen with the openness of his speech 
 and demeanour, which was perfectly adapted to the 
 occasion. But in eulogising Reinhard, who had 
 served him for many years, he sketched the qualities 
 
1 84 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 which are necessary to a Minister of Foreign Affairs 
 with an authority which is indisputable, with a can- 
 dour which plainly reveals his own method, and which 
 is the most eloquent answer to his detractors. * A 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs,' he said, * must be en- 
 dowed with a kind of instinct, which should save 
 him, by a prompt warning, from ever compromising 
 himself. He must possess the faculty of seeming 
 open, while remaining impenetrable ; he must cover 
 his reserve with a mask of frankness ; he must be 
 adroit even in the choice of his distractions ; his 
 conversation should be simple, various, unexpected, 
 always natural, and sometimes ingenuous. In a word, 
 he must never cease for one moment in the twenty- 
 four hours to be a Minister of Foreign Affairs.' 
 
 To this arduous ideal Talleyrand showed a constant 
 loyalty. He was a Minister of Foreign Affairs always, 
 and in all circumstances ; he was no amateur, 
 who dabbled in politics when sport or bric-a-brac 
 failed him ; he thought no labour excessive which 
 should further the interests of France and of the pre- 
 vailing dynasty. But, he proceeds in his panegyric 
 of Reinhard, * the rarest qualities are of no avail in 
 diplomacy if they do not find their guarantee in good 
 faith.' Thus he rebuts, in Reinhard's name, the 
 charge that was so often brought against himself, 
 and for once in a long career stooped to answer his 
 opponents. Thus with the full emphasis of his 
 authority he attempts to destroy a general prejudice. 
 ' No,' says he, * diplomacy is not a science of craft 
 
TALLEYRAND 185 
 
 and duplicity. If good faith is necessary anywhere, 
 it is necesssary in political transactions, for it alone 
 can render them solid and durable. The world has 
 been pleased to confuse reserve with cunning. Good 
 faith never authorises cunning, though it admits 
 reserve ; and reserve has this characteristic it in- 
 creases confidence.' Thus spoke Talleyrand in what 
 may be called his apologia, and it can be said that 
 never in his dealings with foreign States was he guilty 
 of bad faith. He did not always treat his own com- 
 patriots with the same magnanimity. At the outset 
 of his career, when he was attempting to force the 
 door of politics which he feared was closed against 
 him, he employed with excellent effect all the arts of 
 cunning. He flattered and cajoled the men whom 
 in his heart he despised, and whom he was resolved 
 to oust from power. But he was playing a pur- 
 posed part, and when once he was master of himself 
 and his position he proved that wisdom and silence, 
 not cunning and chicane, are the true instruments 
 of statesmanship. 
 
 If he thought as a diplomatist, it was as an 
 aristocrat that he always presented himself to the 
 world. He preserved through all vicissitudes the 
 dandyism of the ancient regime. Though his policy 
 forced him into strange companionships, he never 
 forgot that by birth and habit he was a gentleman, 
 and his wit, which was a survival of another age, pro- 
 tected him against the assaults of insolence and 
 familiarity. His retorts, courteous even in their 
 
186 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 bitterness, long ago became the commonplaces of 
 polite conversation, and have been so recklessly per- 
 verted that their author, could he hear, would not 
 recognise them. Of his faults, the worst in private 
 was his ingratitude to women he dismissed Mme. 
 de Stael, his benefactress, with the curt refusal of an 
 invitation ; the worst in public was his insatiable 
 greed. So sharply had he felt the pinch of poverty, 
 that he used the opportunities of power without 
 scruple to fill his pocket. When Napoleon wondered 
 at his wealth, 'I did but buy rentes on the i8th 
 Brumaire,' said he, ' and sell them on the igth.' 
 The compliment, adroit as it was, concealed the truth ; 
 and Talleyrand, no doubt, vied with his colleagues in 
 seeking and accepting bribes. Nor can any better 
 excuse be found for him than that he followed the 
 fashion of dangerous times, and took a necessary 
 precaution against the future. 
 
 And, thus fortified against discomfort, he faced the 
 approach of age it was very old age with a dignity 
 and nonchalance which well became him. ' Je suis 
 un vieux homme,' he wrote to Lady Jersey in 1834, 
 * mais je ne veux pas que d'autres soient dans le cas 
 de le trouver,' echoing unconsciously a phrase of 
 Lord Chesterfield's, a man of kindred temper and 
 talent. Four years later he died, reconciled with 
 the Church. * He was always a man of pacification,' 
 said Roger Collard at this final act of diplomacy, and 
 these words might well serve for his epitaph. 
 
METTERNICH 
 
 WHEN Metternich first saw the monarch whom 
 he was destined to rule for so many years, he 
 was but a boy of seventeen. Fortunate in birth as 
 in opportunity, he was appointed in 1790 Master of 
 the Ceremonies which embellished the coronation of 
 Leopold n. at Frankfort. The high office flattered 
 his love of pomp and pageantry ; and his meeting 
 with Francis, then an Archduke, pointed the way to 
 a career of diplomacy. In his allegiance to this prince, 
 who two years later succeeded to the throne of Leo- 
 pold, he never wavered. Even at the time when he 
 knew himself to be an autocrat, he cherished the fiction 
 of devotion and obedience. With a simple reverence 
 for kingship, he gladly yielded the glory of his own 
 exploits to his master, and declared, in writing his 
 own autobiography, that his sole desire was to paint 
 his monarch such as he was. He was never tired of 
 celebrating the calm which the Emperor displayed in 
 the greatest crises, and * the force of soul and the 
 firmness of character, which are the appanage of 
 princes born to rule ' ; he sang paeans to the Em- 
 peror's virtues, both public and domestic, with an 
 enthusiasm which history has not justified ; and he 
 
 187 
 
i88 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 found an ample reward when the dying Francis called 
 him ' his best friend.' But the deeds of Francis were 
 in truth the deeds of Metternich, and to the Minister, 
 who for nearly half a century directed the counsels of 
 Austria, must be given the praise and the blame which 
 follow achievement or disaster. 
 
 Metternich's education was, so to say, guided by 
 the hand of fate. He entered the University of 
 Strasburg as Napoleon quitted it. He sat in the 
 same class-rooms, he received instruction from the 
 same masters as his great adversary, and if he never 
 heard the hero's name mentioned, he, too, listened 
 with an eager interest to the first news of the Re- 
 volution. His preceptor was a Jacobin, who did his 
 utmost to inspire his distinguished pupil with the 
 ominous doctrines of liberty, equality, and fraternity 
 and in vain. Metternich was naturally inaccessible 
 to new ideas. He was born and grew up with a lofty 
 respect for law and order, and the aberrations of 
 others did but confirm him in an austere habit of 
 thought. And if at Strasburg he had an opportunity 
 of observing what were cynically called * the rights of 
 man,' at Mayence, whither he went to study law, he 
 was confronted with the emigrants, * those Jacobins 
 of Coblentz,' as M. de Bouille called them, whose 
 levity persuaded them that in a few weeks they would 
 be restored to Paris in triumph. At the siege of 
 Valenciennes he learned his first lesson in the art 
 of war, and in 1794 ^ e witnessed the departure of 
 Admiral Howe's fleet from Portsmouth the fleet 
 
METTERNICH 189 
 
 which won the glorious victory of the ist of June. 
 At the age of twenty-one, therefore, he had a clear 
 and practical knowledge of the problems which per- 
 plexed Europe ; he had seen something of the means 
 by which they would be solved ; and he was ready 
 to take his part in the greatest game that ever it was 
 the lot of a statesman to play. 
 
 Yet he would have us believe that he had no natural 
 love of diplomacy, that the fires of ambition never 
 burned within his breast. He declares that public 
 affairs never attracted him, and that, had he been 
 permitted to choose his own career, he would have 
 devoted his days and nights to the study of science. 
 When in 1801 the Emperor called him to his service, 
 he obeyed the summons with a show of reluctance. 
 ' Your Majesty,' said he, ' wishes me to throw myself 
 into a profession which I do not think is mine.' Thus 
 pleasantly he deceived himself. Politics were the 
 first necessity of his being. As Napoleon was born 
 to be a military despot, so Metternich was born to be 
 a calm, cold, calculating diplomatist, and neither the 
 one nor the other could avoid his destiny. Mean- 
 while, Metternich had already frequented the society 
 of such astute Ministers as Pozzo di Borgo. He had 
 already made an appearance at the Congress of 
 Rastadt. Above all, he proved that he understood 
 the conditions of his craft by his choice of a mission. 
 Dresden and Copenhagen being offered to him, he 
 selected Dresden, which was a stage on the road from 
 St. Petersburg to Berlin, and which was thus an 
 
190 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 excellent post of observation. To what good purpose 
 he put the watch-tower of his choice the years proved : 
 he detected the weakness of others without revealing 
 his own strength ; and when he stood face to face 
 with the forces of disorder, he was prepared by know- 
 ledge and experience for the encounter. 
 
 From the moment that he entered the service of 
 the Emperor Francis he understood his appointed 
 task. The enemy which he fought with a simple 
 courage and a tireless energy was the French Revo- 
 lution and the opinions which it enforced. Deter- 
 mined to save his own country from terror and sub- 
 version, determined to preserve the balance of power 
 in Europe, he set his face sternly against the excesses of 
 thought and action which had filled the gutters of 
 Paris with blood. Like the trained soldier that he 
 was, he had studied his enemies' positions, and had 
 armed himself efficiently for the fray. His passionless 
 intellect permitted him to form a clear judgment of all 
 parties. He esteemed the Emigrants as lightly as 
 the Sansculottes. He knew all the men of the Revo- 
 lutionary Government, and he saw as clearly as their 
 master that they were good workmen, who fondly 
 believed themselves architects. It was his foible to 
 believe that he alone in Europe understood the true 
 meaning of the French Revolution ; he held that a 
 military despotism was the only logical result of the 
 Terror ; and the triumph of Napoleon was the best 
 justification of his arrogance. 
 
 After Austerlitz Metternich was appointed Am- 
 
METTERNICH 191 
 
 bassador at Paris, and then it was that the determined 
 duel commenced, to which history can hardly find a 
 parallel. On either side the battle was fought with 
 perfect consciousness and without rancour. Napoleon 
 found the society of Metternich so agreeable that he 
 demanded his presence in Paris, while Metternich 
 never concealed his lofty appreciation of the man 
 whose schemes it was his duty to oppose. If the 
 Ambassador was shocked now and again at the harsh 
 manners of the Emperor, whom his aristocratic soul 
 regarded as an upstart, if he was sometimes appalled 
 at Napoleon's insufficient culture, he never made the 
 mistake of underrating his adversary. With an in- 
 finite patience and an imperturbable temper he set 
 himself to study the Emperor's character and am- 
 bitions. To Napoleon's strength he opposed a quietly 
 assured cunning. He listened obediently to the 
 characteristic garrulity of the Corsican, and, while 
 he silently criticised all that he heard, he never com- 
 mitted himself or his Government by an indiscreet 
 reply. The contest was unequal from the first. It 
 was again, as with Talleyrand, talent against genius, 
 realism against romance, and if for the sake of diver- 
 sion you regret the issue, you cannot but admire 
 the calmness, the deliberation, and the address 
 of the Ambassador who won the last triumphant 
 round. 
 
 Metternich possessed one conspicuous advantage 
 over all his colleagues he was never afraid of 
 Napoleon. His well-bred serenity was impervious 
 
192 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 to assault, and, doubtless, the Emperor liked him 
 all the better when he discovered the hopelessness 
 of attempting to browbeat him. And, when Metter- 
 nich looked back upon the glories of his career, it was 
 the audience of August 15, 1808, that most generously 
 flattered his pride. Napoleon was highly incensed at 
 the news which he had received of Austria's warlike 
 preparations, and he determined, in revenge, to make 
 a public example of Metternich. Approaching him, 
 with menace in his mien, before all the diplomatists, 
 he addressed him at the top of his voice. ' Well, 
 Mr. Ambassador,' said he, ' what is it your master, 
 the Emperor, wants ? Does he think he will drag 
 me back to Vienna ? ' No shade of embarrassment 
 passed over Metternich's face. He opposed a perfect 
 calm to the Emperor's anger. If he raised his tone 
 and his voice to his opponent's level, it was to prove 
 that he was still master of himself. And so the two 
 great adversaries shouted louder and louder. Diplo- 
 matic irony was more than a match for imperial pride, 
 and at last Napoleon, having vainly striven to involve 
 Count Tolstoi in the argument, turned on his heel 
 and left the room. But no spark of malice burned in 
 his mind. He hastened to assure Metternich that 
 his words were inspired by no personal animosity 
 that he had no other aim than to understand the 
 situation ; and Metternich, strong in the pride of 
 having taught the Emperor a lesson, might have 
 received the apology with a better grace. ' Europe,' 
 said he with an ungenerous pomp, ' will decide on 
 
METTERNICH 193 
 
 which side are reason and justice.' And there the 
 matter ended. 
 
 Whatever advantage Metternich's serenity had 
 gained in Paris was lost at Vienna in less than a year. 
 After spending some months as Napoleon's prisoner 
 at Schonbrunn, the Ambassador was appointed 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs in time to give a forced 
 approval to the disastrous Treaty of Vienna, which, 
 as he truly said, * enclosed the Empire in a circle of 
 iron.' The humiliation of Austria was complete ; for 
 her resistance was impossible ; and the Emperor 
 Francis accepted the pitiless terms of Napoleon with 
 what spirit he could. But even in the moment of 
 disaster Metternich was subtly preparing his revenge. 
 His emissaries had already instilled into the mind of 
 Napoleon the poisonous hint of an ambitious marriage. 
 Though in his Memoirs, as in his life, Metternich 
 affected to believe that the proposal for the hand of 
 Marie-Louise came from Napoleon, there is no doubt 
 that the cunning mind of the diplomatist suggested 
 the alliance. It was well for the dignity of the 
 Austrian Court to confer with the Archduchess. It 
 was well for the sake of traditional morality to prate 
 of sacrifices made in the cause of duty and of peace. 
 But Metternich, with his unfailing prudence, had 
 foreseen the consequences of Napoleon's false step. 
 Austria pacified and Russia alienated were these 
 objects not worth striving for ? Napoleon dis- 
 covered his error too late. ' J'ai fait une bien grande 
 sottise,' he confessed, in 1813, 'en epousant une 
 
 N 
 
194 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Archiduchesse d'Autriche.' Metternich recognised 
 the folly when he accompanied Marie-Louise to 
 France, and found no difficulty in acquiescence. 
 
 The Imperial marriage was, indeed, a masterpiece 
 of nicely calculated diplomacy. Yet Metternich, like 
 the polished actor that he was, assumed an air of 
 innocent surprise. He declared that he could not 
 understand Napoleon's motive in espousing Marie- 
 Louise. For six months he pretended to seek the 
 light in a dark situation, and to seek it in vain. He 
 told Napoleon that he wanted to find a line of conduct 
 which he might follow in the far-distant future. 
 * Stay a few weeks longer,' replied the Emperor, * and 
 you will have satisfaction.' And all the while he held 
 the balance of events in his own hand. The marriage, 
 which ensured a peace to Austria, presently involved 
 France and Russia in war. Metternich, by proclaim- 
 ing an armed neutrality, stood well with either side. 
 Though 30,000 Austrian troops went to the aid of 
 France, the Tsar was assured that the aid was not 
 seriously given, and he still regarded the Emperor 
 Francis as his ally. Metternich, with a rare modesty, 
 declared that history could not show a situation so 
 strangely eccentric as this. If it were eccentric, it was 
 also of infinite advantage. The issue of the struggle 
 was immaterial. Whichever won, Austria's hands 
 were free for a settlement, and, if Napoleon hoped that 
 a sentiment for the husband of Marie-Louise would 
 intervene, he was doomed to disappointment. 
 
 After Moscow, Metternich, conscious that he 
 
METTERNICH 195 
 
 dominated the situation, wisely declared that Austria's 
 attitude was that of a puissance mediatrice armee, and 
 set about the making of a durable peace with perfect 
 sincerity. He knew that he had won the victory against 
 the forces of revolution, but he wished to use his 
 victory with moderation, and it was vastly honourable 
 to him that he showed no anger against Napoleon. 
 Indeed, had the great Emperor been willing to make 
 terms at Prague, he would have saved his throne and 
 his dynasty. France, Italy, Belgium, and Holland 
 would still have lain at his feet, while Prussia would 
 have found her boundary at the Elbe. But Napoleon 
 must have the world or nothing, and he angrily re- 
 jected the terms that were offered him. ' You want 
 war,' said he to Metternich. ' Very well, then, you 
 shall have it.' And Metternich, who looked upon 
 himself as ' the representative of the whole of Euro- 
 pean society,' reluctantly took up the challenge. 
 Even after Leipzig, Metternich would have secured 
 Napoleon upon the throne of France. He wished 
 for Austria no aggrandisement nor extension. If only 
 he might ensure the balance of power, he would have 
 been content, but he knew how desperate was the hope 
 that Napoleon would be persuaded to moderation by 
 defeat. * The Emperor Napoleon will not make 
 peace,' said he ; * that is my profession of faith, and 
 nothing will give me greater happiness than to be 
 wrong.' He was not wrong. Napoleon still believed 
 himself superior to circumstances, and Elba and 
 Waterloo were the result. 
 
196 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 During the troubled years, 1813-14, Metternich 
 showed astounding skill in the management of affairs. 
 He had studied the character of Napoleon with so 
 eager a precision, that his policy was nearer to science 
 than to art. If the ultimate downfall of Napoleon 
 was assured by the energy and statecraft of Pitt, 
 it was the diplomacy of Metternich which hastened 
 the coup de grace. Had Metternich gone into retire- 
 ment after Waterloo, he would have bequeathed to 
 posterity an unbroken reputation. He had achieved 
 his purpose with singular success. The Revolution, 
 which he had set himself to destroy, was crumbled 
 in pieces. The man of genius who had turned the 
 forces of disorder to his own use was a lonely, hopeless 
 exile. Metternich's work was done, his wages ta'en. 
 But he lacked the imagination to understand his own 
 achievement. Though anarchy was dead for the 
 moment, he was still eager to fight it. He persisted 
 in his policy of counter-revolution, long after the 
 necessity had passed away. The fall of Napoleon 
 gave him no sense of security, and with the aid of the 
 Holy Alliance, which was established upon a patri- 
 archal basis to secure the interest of all thrones, he 
 determined to govern Europe with an iron hand. 
 For the Napoleonic system he substituted a system 
 of his own. He announced himself the friend of all 
 absolute monarchs, and he declared that no country 
 had any other hope of salvation than in a benevolent 
 despotism. His aim and purpose was to check the 
 growth of representative government wherever it 
 
METTERNICH 197 
 
 threatened an appearance. Europe was at peace, 
 and he still shaped his policy as though Napoleon 
 were leading to victory an army of Jacobins. Not 
 content to govern Austria, he wished to exert his in- 
 fluence in every capital. At Teplitz he set forth his 
 views to the King of Prussia in a few words. * The 
 whole question is reduced to this,' said he, ' if your 
 majesty has made up his mind not to introduce 
 national representation into his kingdom, the evil 
 may be exorcised. Otherwise there is no safety.' 
 
 And thus it was that Metternich, by ignoring the 
 changed circumstances of Europe, made the reaction 
 against his policy inevitable. He became the slave 
 of his own consistency, and thought that the only 
 cure for discontent was suppression. Had he had 
 a vast army at his back, with a general of genius to lead 
 it, he might have realised his ambition, and seen the 
 Continent one vast autocracy. But the Holy Alliance 
 put its trust not in arms but in conferences, and 
 Metternich could not persuade a world devastated by 
 war to resume the field for the sake of a system. It 
 was in Naples that the voice of protest was first heard, 
 and presently Spain echoed the complaint. The 
 question of Greece set Metternich in opposition not 
 merely to Russia but to England. And Metternich 
 held to his course with admirable tenacity. No re- 
 verse dismayed him, and it is the best proof of his 
 strength that he survived the prophecy of his downfall 
 many years. 
 
 In 1835 died the Emperor Francis, whom he had 
 
198 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 served faithfully and ruled with a firm hand, and 
 Palmerston believed and hoped that the appointment 
 of a family council was the prelude to Metternich's 
 decline. The wish was father to the thought. 
 Metternich remained inflexible for ten years, and 
 bowed at last to the storm which his policy had raised 
 in Hungary. Resolved to suppress the Hungarian 
 language, and at the same time to levy heavier taxes 
 and to demand more recruits, he aroused the oppo- 
 sition of Kossuth, and in 1848 found himself once 
 more face to face with revolution. Deserted by the 
 Emperor, and alone in council, he resigned, not to 
 save his life, but in obedience to the Imperial will. 
 Had he lived in an earlier century, he would have laid 
 his head upon the block. Being a modern, he went 
 away quietly by train. The mob which he had re- 
 strained, as he believed, for its own good, took a char- 
 acteristic revenge by burning his villa. For himself 
 he feared nothing, he regretted nothing, he would have 
 changed nothing. ' If I had to begin my career again,' 
 said he, with superb arrogance, ' I would follow the 
 course I have taken, and would not deviate from it for 
 an instant.' But the truth is, he had outlived his 
 age. He was already an anachronism in 1848. Un- 
 willingly he witnessed the reversal of his cherished 
 policy. He saw Napoleon in. mount the throne of 
 France, and his deathbed may have been disturbed 
 by the echo of the shouts which greeted the victory 
 of Magenta. 
 
 Metternich was a diplomatist of the old school, 
 
METTERNICH 199 
 
 polished, suave, impenetrable. Nothing ever persuaded 
 him to betray an emotion. When in 1813 he left 
 Napoleon after his last audience, the generals gathered 
 round him to see what impression the interview 
 had made upon his face. ' I don't think I satisfied 
 their curiosity,' said he, with a characteristic pride 
 in his grave and cunning demeanour. At the same 
 time he looked with a jealous eye upon his craft. He 
 hated what he called ' the policy of egoism, the policy 
 of good pleasure.' In his view the rival States were 
 all members of human society, of which reciprocal 
 forbearance was the first duty. * Do not unto others,' 
 said he, ' that which you would not have others do 
 to you.' An inflexible bureaucrat, he preserved his 
 principles inviolate, and thus he was able to look back 
 upon a singularly uniform career. He adopted for 
 his device la force dans le droit, and he was certain 
 that the right was always on his side. He resented 
 nothing so much as the accusation that he had at- 
 tempted to impose a system upon Europe. ' That 
 which is called the system of Metternich,' said he, 
 ' was not a system, but the application of the laws 
 which govern the world. Revolutions rest upon 
 systems ; the eternal laws are outside and above that 
 which has no other value than that of a system.' 
 
 To speak of ' eternal laws ' is to beg the question, 
 but Metternich's meaning is plain. He was a states- 
 man of practice, not of theory. ' I have been of the 
 number of men of action,' said he, ' and I have 
 proved it during my long years of service in peace and 
 
200 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 in war.' He dealt quite rightly in prose, not in 
 poetry. ' My temperament,' said he, ' is a historical 
 temperament, antipathetic to all that is romantic ' ; 
 which explains his constant opposition to Napoleon. 
 At the same time, he was not without illusions con- 
 cerning his own character. He declared in his 
 political testament that he had always regarded 
 despotism as a sign of weakness, and yet a despotism 
 was the starting-point of his policy. Still more rashly, 
 he thought that he had come into the world too late 
 or too soon. Had he lived earlier, he would have had 
 his share in the prosperity of the epoch. Had he 
 lived later, he would have played his part in the recon- 
 struction of things. ' I should have been born in 
 1900,' said he, ' and have had the twentieth century 
 before me.' How men deceive themselves ! One 
 thing is very sure, that in the twentieth century there 
 is no place for Metternichs. 
 
 An accomplished courtier, a great gentleman, 
 Metternich loved all the ornaments of life. Never 
 for one moment had he known the hazard of the ad- 
 venturer, as Talleyrand knew it. Rich and well-born, 
 he was early inured to splendour, and he cherished 
 a very proper respect for stars, orders, protocols, and 
 the other appurtenances of his craft. Something of 
 a dandy himself, he could not endure the prevailing 
 fashion, and he looked with contempt upon the false 
 elegance of upstarts like Robespierre. All his life 
 he held bad company in horror, and he was shocked 
 at the detestable circles to which some of the princes 
 
METTERNICH 201 
 
 of his time condescended. A cold, marmoreal nature 
 saved him from frivolity, and rendered him in- 
 capable of condoning frivolity in others. But it was 
 an invincible pride, of triple brass, which most 
 efficiently protected him against the assaults of 
 fortune. When he fell, it was Europe, not Metter- 
 nich, which suffered humiliation. ' I draw a line 
 between that which was and that which is,' said he 
 with composure. ' The demarcation begins at the 
 eleventh hour of the night between the I3th and I4th 
 of March 1848.' That is to say, in his own eyes 
 Metternich's resignation changed the whole spirit of 
 the universe. Though he lived to see the work of his 
 hands undone, a sublime self-esteem softened his 
 regret. ' I am the man of that which was,' said he, 
 and was content. 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 
 
 THE cult of Napoleon, pursued for many years 
 with fanatical ardour, has resulted in a sad 
 misunderstanding of the great man. None of that 
 familiarity which breeds contempt has been spared 
 his memory. He has been presented to the world in 
 an attitude of mild flirtation ; he has been pictured 
 at the pompous dining-table of Fontainebleau, or set 
 down, in his own despite, to an amiable game of back- 
 gammon. Certain sisters of the Church which he 
 treated with so lofty a disdain are still found teaching 
 that, by his own confession, he was never so happy 
 as when he was admitted to his first Communion. 
 Worse than this, a foolish drama once made him the 
 hero of a washtub, and ascribed a hundred trivial 
 pleasantries to this iron-handed soldier. Even at his 
 stateliest, he scowls upon a litter of Empire furniture, 
 with arms imperturbably folded, or fitfully meets 
 the reproachful gaze of Madame Mere. His official 
 editors have aided and abetted the general mystifica- 
 tion, by excluding from his correspondence those 
 letters, which cast the clearest light upon his 
 mind and character. But the documents which 
 Napoleon in. placed upon the index, were gathered 
 
 together some twenty years ago, and they effectually 
 202 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 203 
 
 destroy the legend of sentimentality. In truth, no 
 man ever harboured so sincere a contempt for anec- 
 dotal obsequiousness and vapid admiration. Once 
 upon a time he condemned a journalist to prison who 
 sought to win him glory by the invention of unper- 
 formed generosities ; and could he revisit the world 
 of to-day, the dungeons of France would speedily 
 be filled with indiscreet flatterers and too faithful 
 partisans. 
 
 The Napoleon who lays bare his naked soul in his 
 Lettres Inedites is not a hero for the schoolroom or 
 the pulpit. He is no warrior in kid gloves, anxious 
 to do good and obey the rules of morality. He is, 
 on the contrary, an egoist, magnificent and pro- 
 found, who knows no other law than tyranny and 
 triumph. Though France and her glory are ever 
 on his tongue, it is Napoleon alone that governs 
 his heart ; and on every page he betrays his hatred 
 and contempt for everything and everybody that 
 opposes his progress towards the headship of the 
 civilised world. He is Machiavelli in action, Machia- 
 velli strengthened by the belief that his theory of 
 cunning may instantly be put into practice. Not 
 only had he the hand to strike; he had the brain 
 which knew where to direct the blow, and knew, 
 moreover, precisely what would be the effect of his 
 castigation. His, indeed, was that swift intellect, 
 that complete clairvoyance, which penetrated in a 
 flash the inevitable stupidity of mankind. ' I judge 
 by my judgment and my reason,' he wrote proudly, 
 
204 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 ' and not by the opinions of others.' And assuredly 
 he never stooped to take counsel of any man. His 
 policy was to keep his intimates in ignorance, that 
 they might not mar the performance of his designs 
 by a scanty half-knowledge of their own. ' Ney knows 
 less of my affairs,' he asserted, ' than the youngest 
 drummer-boy in my army ' ; and when you remember 
 how vast were his schemes, you may estimate the 
 burden which his necessary independence laid upon 
 him. 
 
 * In Spain,' said he, ' I shall find the Pillars of Her- 
 cules, but not the limits of my power ' ; and this 
 power none might wield, none might even understand, 
 except the tireless hero who knew not how to delegate 
 it. When his affairs were discussed in Paris he was 
 furious. ' They would do better,' he growled, ' to 
 go to the Opera, to fetes, and to the Bois de Boulogne. 
 . . . Paris wants wit.' And he told the land he 
 governed no more than he chose, and tightened so 
 firm a grasp on the Press that no man dared report 
 the truth without his special sanction. But while 
 he would keep others in darkness, he would master 
 everything himself. No detail was too insignificant 
 for his interest ; he knew more of finance than his 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, more of crime than 
 Fouche himself ; and the astutest of his Ambassadors 
 received his instructions in a proper spirit of humility. 
 An expert in corn and cotton, a better theologian 
 (so he says) than the whole College of Cardinals, a 
 constant critic of the Opera, he still found time to 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 205 
 
 dictate articles for the journals, and to sketch cari- 
 catures in ridicule of his enemies. Nothing was 
 hidden from this active soldier, whose education began 
 and ended in Plutarch and Livy excellent masters 
 both ; and it is the omniscient statesman rather than 
 the peerless general that he displayed, when he took 
 his pen in his hand. 
 
 He knew all things, and scarce a letter passed 
 through the post without his cognisance. If General 
 Clement receives improper guests at his dinner-table, 
 he does not escape the Consul's notice. When 
 Rochebrune, a disreputable printer of Marseilles, 
 visits Paris, Napoleon is ready with a warning. If 
 une nommte D. receives letters from Prince Eugene, 
 the secret is instantly revealed to him, and he is quick 
 with a denunciation of ' this mud of Paris.' He has 
 eyes and ears in every capital of Europe, and the 
 tributary kings can neither lift their finger nor open 
 their mouths without word and action being reported 
 to the Emperor. His curiosity is keen on the march 
 as at Paris, and the hardships of a campaign are no 
 drag on his agile spirit of discovery. Nor was it 
 politics alone that engrossed his attention ; a common 
 case of poisoning is sufficient to arouse his energy. 
 * The man Pascal,' he informs Fouche in 1807, * cer- 
 tainly poisoned his wife on the 2nd of Floreal in the 
 Year xin., at four o'clock in the morning. If the magis- 
 trate cares to interrogate the women about Madame 
 Pascal and the brother-in-law of Monsieur Pascal, and 
 to have the dog opened who was poisoned, they will 
 
206 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 find sufficient evidence for the arrest of this scoundrel, 
 who seems to be so perverted a criminal that there is 
 a danger of his going to further excesses.' All the 
 details were familiar to him, down to the poisoned 
 dog and the very moment of the crime. Abroad also 
 he was on sure ground, and could discuss the vary- 
 ing policy pursued by the Times and the Morning 
 Chronicle ; and while in one letter he prescribes the 
 policy to be pursued by the School of Medicine, in 
 another he ordains what his soldiers shall eat and 
 drink, and even lays the table for his officers. But 
 with all his lust of knowledge, he knew the value of 
 deception, and maybe he really believed that the 
 ' affair of Vittoria ' was a triumph for the arms of 
 France. And so little was he a pedant that he could 
 even sing the praises of ignorance. ' The art of the 
 police,' he wrote to his Minister, ' is not to see that 
 which it is useless for it to see.' 
 
 His omniscience never tempered his ferocity. 
 Cruel, relentless, unscrupulous, he fought the world 
 of Pitt and Burke, of Wordsworth and Chateaubriand, 
 with the weapons of the Middle Ages. He treated 
 the august States of Europe with as slight a courtesy 
 as he would have treated a rival village in Corsica had 
 he never found a larger theatre for his enterprise. In 
 his native land the inhabitant of the next valley was 
 his natural foe ; and had this foe sounded the horn 
 upon the mountain as he passed by, he would have 
 slain him for his insolence. So in Europe, no man 
 might blow the trumpet of revolt; and, since he 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 207 
 
 cared nothing for justice, since he exacted both eyes 
 and a dozen teeth for the smallest infraction, his ven- 
 geance was always swift, ample, and unquestioned. 
 ' Arrest this man,' he writes to Fouche, ' and im- 
 prison him for three months ' ; and never once does 
 he hint at the pedantic necessity of trial or inquiry. 
 He condemned and sentenced whomever he chose, 
 and thus facilitated the work of government. The 
 Revolution is always imagined by enthusiasts as a 
 belated revenge for the majesty of Louis xiv. ; yet 
 the Great King himself never for one instant knew 
 the omnipotent tyranny enjoyed by Napoleon, the 
 elect of the people. For a parallel you must return 
 to Louis xi., and you will find this ancient King a 
 miracle of mildness compared with the Consul. As 
 early as the month of Pluviose in the Year xii. he 
 ordered Fouche to put to the torture a sailor caught 
 in communication with the English, and his treatment 
 of criminals never ceased to be mediaeval in its cruelty. 
 He would lay traps for the unwary with an adroitness 
 which puts the modern practice of la cuisine to the 
 blush. He explicitly orders Talleyrand to entangle 
 a Spanish Prince in a love affair. ' Invite Madame 
 Talleyrand with four or five women to meet him,' 
 he recommends : ' if the Prince of the Asturias at- 
 taches himself to a pretty woman, and you are sure 
 of her, that would be no harm, since you would have 
 an extra chance of watching him.' 
 
 ' Shoot the burgomaster,' that is the naked elo- 
 quence of a letter to General Clarke. Once upon 
 
208 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 a time he hears that an actor is a dangerous in- 
 triguer. ' If this refers to politics,' says he to 
 Fouche, ' arrest him and have him whipped, as all 
 this riff-raff deserves when it meddles with serious 
 things.' So his ferocity increases, and he bids his 
 Minister ' shut up Doctor Mayer au cachot et au secret, 
 to teach him to preach sentiments against honour.' 
 When the appearance of some actors in French 
 uniform inspired a Konigsberg audience to hiss, 
 Napoleon demanded exemplary justice for the insult. 
 * I refuse to evacuate the place,' he wrote, * until 
 the two principal offenders are shot, and if the 
 King of Prussia permits me to be thus outraged, he 
 need not come to Berlin, for he would not stay there 
 long.' Not even then was he satisfied : he insisted 
 that the Prussian Envoys should be recalled from 
 Paris, and concluded with the threat that if ' these 
 rascals, as cowardly on the battlefield as they are 
 arrogant in the wings of a theatre, continue to 
 behave in this manner, the Prussian monarchy won't 
 last long.' 
 
 So Hersfeld was pillaged from floor to ceiling for 
 the insult which ' she has offered to sixty of my 
 troops.' Padua fared still worse. 'As for Padua,' 
 he protested, ' if there is any great family there 
 that has conducted itself badly, I wish it to be 
 destroyed from top to bottom, that it may serve for 
 an example in the annals of Padua.' Mercy was 
 completely foreign to his nature. When a charge was 
 brought against General Duhesme, a valiant officer, 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 209 
 
 he had him summoned instantly to Paris. ' If he 
 is innocent,' he exclaimed, ' let him be purged at 
 once ; if he be guilty, let him lose his head on the 
 scaffold.' His common policy with offenders was 
 short and sharp. He suppressed the trial, and 
 merely announced that the first time they came 
 within forty leagues of Paris they would be arrested 
 and banished. But he reached a climax in the punish- 
 ment of two Italians. * I have received the sentence 
 upon Cifenti and Sassi della Tosa,' he wrote to the 
 Governor of the Castle of Vincennes. ' You will 
 execute the first, who is a miserable spy. As for Sassi 
 della Tosa, I grant him a respite from execution ; 
 but you will have him led to the place of punishment, 
 and after the execution of Cifenti, at the moment 
 when Sassi della Tosa should mount the scaffold, you 
 will bid a page appear with the order of release ; but 
 I desire that Sassi should have under his eyes the 
 whole example of the punishment for his crime.' It 
 would be difficult to match that in the annals of 
 mediaeval France or of modern Russia. 
 
 It was in the spirit of the Middle Ages, too, that he 
 interpreted the law of nations. He meant to govern 
 Europe for himself and by himself ; and, though he 
 yielded to none in his admiration of useful pomp and 
 proper ceremony, he would tread all the convenances 
 underfoot if he deemed it profitable. Other mon- 
 archs should display ' the grand manner ' upon that 
 he always insisted. In their dealings with him they 
 should respect the most delicate rules of conduct. 
 
2io POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 But his own manner was grander still, and he felt it 
 his own peculiar privilege to despise all the ordinances 
 which hitherto had controlled the intercourse of 
 foreign Powers. In his treatment of the Church he 
 went far beyond the licence of that most Christian 
 King, Louis xi., for Louis did no more than hang up 
 a Cardinal in a cage, and Napoleon not only kept a 
 vast colony of imprisoned prelates, but he even dared 
 to kidnap a Pope. Ambassadors fared as ill at his 
 hands as Cardinals. ' My police,' he exclaims in a 
 passage of real magnificence, ' knows not an Am- 
 bassador. I am master in my own house.' Nor 
 would he suffer the slightest interference even at the 
 hands of a friendly State. ' I am well enough with 
 Russia,' he acknowledges in a moment of coquetry ; 
 * but I will not accept counsel from her nor from 
 anybody.' Yet, though he would be tyrannical and 
 independent as a Khan of Tartary, he pretended to 
 cherish enlightened views of government. Had he 
 completely subjugated the world, he might even have 
 become a benevolent despot ; and it may have been the 
 consciousness that he was fighting against overwhelm- 
 ing odds which bade him persevere in the path of 
 tyranny. ' It is with reason and policy that States 
 are governed,' said he with a touch of scorn, * not 
 with a bitter and vitiated lymph ' ; and he hoped, 
 did this imperious overlord, that the publication of the 
 Code Napoleon would mean the end of feudalism. 
 And so it might, had not the door of * progress ' been 
 barred by a sterner monarch than ever feudalism 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 211 
 
 imagined. His theory of government, if brusque, 
 was efficient : his orders should be obeyed, though 
 obedience meant the ruin of the world. * I did not 
 undertake the government of Holland,' he confessed, 
 ' to consult the populace of Amsterdam ' ; and 
 Amsterdam, he thought, should have been content, 
 since it is better to be bullied by the tyranny of 
 genius than disgraced by the prudent futility of the 
 People's elect. 
 
 Nowhere may Napoleon's style be better studied 
 than in his prescribed letters. His style was essen- 
 tially a style of command, and found a fitting 
 occasion in the arrogant denunciation of his foes. 
 Now, Napoleon was not merely the greatest general 
 of his time ; he was master of an eloquence which 
 was the more impressive for its severity. Before 
 all other men, he had the gift of direct utterance ; 
 he never wasted a word or slurred a thought. He 
 cut away from his plain, eager statement every 
 ornament that might embellish or confuse, and he 
 conveyed a truth or passed a sentence in naked, 
 irresistible periods. As you read him, you are caught 
 up in a very whirlwind of command ; face to face 
 with this terrific intelligence, which expressed itself 
 with perfect clarity because it never knew doubt, 
 you suffer the fatigue of exhausted wonder ; you 
 shudder at the passionate intensity thrown into 
 half a dozen words. Blow after blow hits its mark 
 with the surety of a hammer on its anvil. In a letter 
 addressed to M. de Champagny he comes near to 
 
212 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 formulating a theory of style. ' Tell the man 
 Lefebvre,' says he, * that the tone of his despatch is 
 not what it should be to his Minister ; he should try 
 to seize his Minister's intention, and not to make 
 epigrams. Let him follow the direction given, not 
 give a direction of his own. Inform him that after 
 reading the despatch I asked his age, and that it 
 seemed to me to be written by a man of twenty.' In 
 truth it was no part of Napoleon's business to make 
 epigrams : with him eloquence was not a separate 
 art ; it was his policy put into words ; and it received 
 its force from the fact that it was backed by an all- 
 powerful will, which knew neither pity nor hesitation. 
 Yet, personal though it was, it had its origin in the 
 study of the ancients. Its classic severity proceeds 
 directly from Caesar, from Plutarch, from Livy ; nor 
 can there be any doubt that Napoleon's policy was 
 immensely strengthened by this talent of militant 
 concision. 
 
 ' Arrest him,' ' shoot him,' ' tell him,' it is in such 
 phrases as these that his commands are expressed. 
 * I disapprove of your conduct,' he writes to one of his 
 brothers, where another might have expostulated ; 
 and again, he says to Joseph, ' don't answer this letter 
 until Scylla and Reggio are yours.' Above all he 
 excelled in vituperation. No monarch ever ad- 
 dressed his Ministers in so forcible a tone of familiarity. 
 If he distrusts a man, that man instantly becomes 
 a ' coquin ' or a ' polisson.' To-day the Pope is a 
 ' violent madman ' : to-morrow he has the air of 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 213 
 
 Sainte-Nitouche ; but in all circumstances the priests 
 of Italy are ' vermin,' and the monks of Spain 
 mere ' butcher boys.' Fouche has a * spoiled head ' 
 and Benjamin Constant is a * cad.' ' Why did you 
 send General Morio to me ? ' he asks in a fury ; 
 ' he is a kind of ass whom I despise.' Once he 
 credited Lucien Bonaparte with sense ; he revises his 
 opinion, and pronounces him ' nothing but a fool.' 
 Blame, blame, blame you find on every page of the 
 book, and the monotony of sentiment heightens the 
 effect of persistent authority. In vain you look for 
 humour or the discussion of common topics. For 
 Napoleon the external world did not exist, save as the 
 undiscerned theatre of enterprise. ' It is splendid 
 weather,' he writes in December from Madrid, ' it is 
 absolutely the month of May,' and that is his sole 
 descent from the lofty platform of scornful eloquence 
 or impassioned command. 
 
 Stendhal has said that Napoleon never hated any- 
 body except a Jacobin ; and the Emperor's banished 
 letters abundantly refute this over-amiable judgment. 
 It would be nearer the truth to declare that he 
 loathed all men. His correspondence contains a very 
 gospel of hate. In the first place, he hated stupidity, 
 and, alas ! he encountered it in all those to whom he 
 entrusted the performance of his designs. Then he 
 hated opposition by whomsoever offered; and, remem- 
 bering the superiority of his intelligence, you are not 
 surprised that his hate expressed itself in a general 
 irritation. But he reserved for three objects a pecu- 
 
2H POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 liarly active detestation, and there is hardly a page 
 in which Madame de Stael, England, and the Pope 
 do not receive a share of abuse. The Emperor's 
 furious indignation against the author of Corinne is 
 not easily intelligible, and it certainly gave its victim 
 an undeserved repute. Had she been left alone to 
 her little salon in the Rue du Bac, she never could 
 have posed for a shaker of dynasties ; and, if once 
 the discomfort of exile be set aside, she certainly 
 gained far more than she lost by Napoleon's perse- 
 cution. However, this lady, ambitious as she was 
 to ' collect ' great men, never succeeded in winning 
 their regard. Byron flouted her, and the Prince de 
 Ligne, for all her editorial service, could not endure 
 her presence. But it was her greatest glory to have 
 aroused the loathing of the great Napoleon, who 
 pursued her with a tireless zeal. 
 
 The attack was begun as early as 1800. ' M. de 
 Stael,' he writes to the Citizen Joseph, * is in the 
 deepest poverty, while his wife gives dinners and 
 balls. If you continue to see her, could you not 
 compel this woman to grant her husband an allow- 
 ance of one or two thousand francs a month ? ' 
 He would have her judged as a man, and pertinently 
 asks what the world would have thought had the 
 positions been reversed, and the husband had 
 left the wife to starve. As yet there is no talk 
 of exile, though by 1805 she is banished from the 
 capital as an element of discord. ' She pretends,' 
 he tells Fouche, ' that I have allowed her to come to 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 215 
 
 Paris, and she wants to stay there. Let her be off 
 to Coppet : you know that I am not imbecile enough 
 to wish her within twenty leagues of Paris.' A 
 year later he is convinced that this ' coquine ' is 
 not far off, and again he orders her not to approach 
 his capital. But her persistence is almost as great as 
 his own, and in a few months another order is neces- 
 sary to remove the mischievous intriguer forty leagues 
 from Paris. In 1807 he despatches another furious 
 letter. ' Among the thousand and one things which 
 fall into my hands from Madame de Stael ' (Fouche 
 is again the recipient), ' this letter will show you what 
 a good Frenchwoman we have in her. If it were 
 Prince Louis, our frantic enemy, who compassed the 
 loss of his monarchy, she would have done her best 
 to see him. My intention is that she will never leave 
 Geneva. Let her go, if she likes, with the friends of 
 Prince Louis. To-day she toadies the great ; to- 
 morrow she is a patriot and democrat ; and in truth 
 you cannot curb your indignation when you see all 
 
 the forms assumed by this ' ; even the French 
 
 editor suppresses the word ; and presently the 
 Emperor consigns her for ever to her Coppet, to her 
 Genevese, and her Maison Necker. 
 
 Nor would he leave her in peace even in that distant 
 seclusion. He keeps a record of her visitors, and is 
 ready to treat the slightest friendship with her as a 
 crime. He falls in an access of rage upon Prince 
 Augustus of Prussia, whose ill-conduct at Berlin is 
 reported to him, * I am not surprised,' he admits to 
 
216 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Marshal Victor, ' for he has no sense. He has passed 
 his time in paying court to Madame de Stael at 
 Coppet, where he could not pick up any but bad 
 principles. . . . Tell him that at the very first word 
 you will have him arrested and shut up in a castle, 
 and that you will send Madame de Stael to console 
 him. // n'y a rien de plat comme tons ces Princes de 
 Prusse ! ' You would think that the limit of detes- 
 tation and contempt was reached, but presently 
 Napoleon devises a more stringent method of sup- 
 pression. At last he finds the lady in correspondence 
 with one Gentz, who belongs to a gang of shufflers in 
 London. Henceforth banishment is insufficient for 
 her crime. * I desire that she should be watched at 
 Coppet,' says he to Fouche, * and you will give the 
 necessary orders to the Prefect of Geneva. A liaison 
 with this individual can only be for the detriment of 
 France. You will inform her that hitherto she has 
 only been regarded as mad, but that to-day she enters 
 into a plot against the public tranquillity. I have 
 also ordered my Minister of Foreign Affairs to 
 instruct my agents in foreign Courts, and to have 
 her watched wherever she goes.' But he struck his 
 heaviest blow when she published her book on Ger- 
 many, the fruit of long exile and deep research. 
 First he demanded whether she had a right to the 
 dignity of Baroness, which was flourished on the title- 
 page, and then he suppressed so many passages that 
 the book did not appear in its proper shape for 
 many years. Such is his campaign against this per- 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 217 
 
 sistent blue-stocking, and whether she was worth 
 his ceaseless vigilance and his fierce resentment or not, 
 at least he succeeded in the suppression of what he 
 said was a danger to the State. 
 
 His hatred of England is more easily intelligible, 
 and far worthier his Imperial majesty. For England 
 was his one serious antagonist, and, despite his loudly 
 expressed contempt, he was unable to conceal from 
 himself her dangerous rivalry. In his eyes she was 
 the general enemy, and nothing but her complete 
 humiliation was necessary to the peace and prosperity 
 of Europe. Wherefore it was his dream to send her 
 to a kind of political Coventry, to exclude her ships 
 from every foreign port, and to make any intercourse 
 with an Englishman a capital offence. With what 
 energy and success he pursued this policy of exclusion 
 is made abundantly clear. A general who dared to 
 receive an Englishman at dinner was in immediate 
 disgrace. The King of Holland was always the enemy 
 of France because he was unable to exclude the ships 
 of Great Britain from his ports. In 1807 the Em- 
 peror contemplated a descent upon the recalcitrant 
 island. His fleet, said he, was ready, and a vast army 
 was stationed at Boulogne. Meanwhile he gave orders 
 that all the English diplomatists should be driven from 
 the Courts of Europe, and that the whole Continent 
 should be ' purged ' of the enemy's presence. 
 
 There was no city, from the Channel to Siberia, 
 where letters were admitted which bore the mark of 
 London. ' Seize them all,' he cried, * and throw 
 
218 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 them in the fire.' When Sir Arthur Wellesley began 
 his victorious campaign in the Peninsula, the Emperor 
 denounced the ' impudence ' of the English, who 
 should dare to undertake a war on land, and it was 
 long before he would believe in the possibility of 
 defeat. * The English,' he wrote, ' are in flight, and 
 have sent for ten thousand horses that they may get 
 away the more speedily.' And with his inexhaustible 
 fertility he insisted that this cowardice should be 
 celebrated in caricatures and comic songs, and that 
 the songs should be translated into German and 
 Italian and thrown broadcast over Europe. He goes 
 even further : he suggests articles which should 
 appear in the journals to England's discredit, and 
 even sketches the line that the leader-writer should 
 adopt. Moreover, there was none of English birth 
 in the whole Continent of Europe whom he did not 
 watch with sleepless ferocity. He had as keen a 
 scent for English blood as a hound for a fox. The 
 humblest menial did not escape him. * There is no 
 reason,' he told the police, ' why M. de Chevreuse 
 should not have a governess for his children, but there 
 is every reason why that governess should not be an 
 Englishwoman.' And straightway she was deported 
 or imprisoned. The policy was spirited, and it 
 failed because it could not be carried out by one man. 
 The world has known but one Napoleon, and it 
 needed a battalion' to follow his designs to a successful 
 conclusion. 
 
 His hatred of the Church was yet more bitter and 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 219 
 
 contemptuous. The Pope must recognise his supre- 
 macy, and give an implicit belief to his Divine head- 
 ship of the world, or the Pope was meaner than the 
 meanest huckster. Napoleon was as little hampered 
 by an old-fashioned respect as by an old-fashioned 
 morality ; and it is noteworthy that he reserved his 
 choicest scorn for the Church to which his subjects 
 bowed the willing, reverential knee. And here he 
 showed his greatest courage, his loudest arrogance. 
 Whatever was the creed, religion, or superstition, he 
 put his iron Imperial heel upon it when it threatened 
 to thwart the smallest of his schemes. His feud with 
 the Pope began early, and ended only when the Pope 
 and all his Cardinals submitted to defeat. The first 
 blow was struck in the Year x., when his Holiness 
 declined to secularise Citizen Talleyrand. The 
 Consul insisted. He pronounced it a measure 
 agreeable to the Government of France and to the 
 dignity of the Church, and he fortified his opinion 
 with an array of precedents, from the fifteenth, the 
 sixteenth, and the seventeenth centuries, which must 
 have astounded the Holy Father. 
 
 When his troops entered Rome he beat opposition 
 aside with a scornful admirable cynicism. ' My troops 
 have entered Rome,' he wrote ; ' it is useless to speak 
 of it, but if any one mentioned it to you, say that, the 
 Pope being the head of my country's religion, it is 
 proper that I should assure myself of the direction 
 du spiritual ; it is not an extension of territory, it is 
 prudence.' As for the sanctity of priests and Car- 
 
220 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 dinals, he knew not what it meant. ' If they behave 
 badly,' he wrote to Cardinal Fesch, ' I shall punish 
 them far more rigorously than ordinary citizens, since 
 they are better educated, and their character is more 
 holy. As for the rest of your letter, I see in it nothing 
 more than the effect of a delirious imagination, and I 
 advise you and all others who create such monsters, 
 as only exist in their own imaginations, to take cold 
 baths.' The Cardinals moderating their zeal in cold 
 baths ! Was ever the Church so roughly entreated ? 
 But this was only the beginning of the campaign. 
 When the Pope excommunicated him, he turned the 
 tables with a laugh of scorn. ' The excommunication,' 
 said he, with a magnificent disregard, ' is aimed at 
 himself. No more parleyings ; he is a furious 
 madman who must be shut up.' Nor would he 
 yield to the Pope in a knowledge of divinity. ' I 
 am a better theologian than the lot of them,' he 
 boasted. * I shall not cross the line ; but I shall 
 take good care that no one else crosses it either.' 
 A few years later he summed up in a phrase the 
 whole drift of his teaching. 'Was it to curse 
 sovereigns,' he asks, * that Jesus Christ was cruci- 
 fied ? ' And not even the Pope could find in his 
 heart an answer to that sally. Thus all the clergy fared 
 badly at his hands. ' Inform the Bishop of Gand,' 
 he writes to his Ministre des Cultes, ' that I am dis- 
 pleased with the manner in which he governs his 
 diocese, with his weakness, and with the small attach- 
 ment that he manifests for my person.' Cardinals 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 221 
 
 and priests he arrested by the hundred, and the 
 prisons of Italy were filled with them. At one 
 moment five hundred were shut up in Parma, and 
 with a grim humour he ordered their distribution. 
 * Send two hundred to Bologna,' he suggested ; ' they 
 will be very well there.' And all the while he regarded 
 himself as the head of the Church, as of the world ; 
 and when he carried the Pope to Fontainebleau, his 
 excuse was cynically worthy the occasion. ' It is 
 right that he should be at the head of Christianity,' 
 he told Fouche ; * the first few months it will be a 
 novelty, but that will soon finish.' Yet, although the 
 Pope was at the head of Christianity, he was still a 
 prisoner, kept under the strictest surveillance ; his 
 letters were read and opened as though he were an 
 Englishman, and his faithful Cardinals were secretly 
 arrested by dead of night, and carried to a discreet 
 distance beyond the borders of Paris. 
 
 Nowhere, in fact, did Napoleon show his disregard 
 of history and tradition so candidly as in this firm 
 treatment of the Church. He had more monks, 
 priests, cardinals, and bishops under lock and key 
 than he could count. He had set himself to achieve 
 the mastery of the world, and nothing was allowed 
 to impede his march. His daring outstripped the 
 bravest conceptions of Caesar or of Alexander. He 
 invented a new world for himself, like Shakespeare, 
 and, like Shakespeare, tore it to pieces that he might 
 have no worthy followers. England, the Pope, 
 Madame de Stael how he hated them all ! And if 
 
222 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 only he had trampled England into the same mire 
 wherein he flung the Church, he never would have 
 seen the coastline of St. Helena. A man has only 
 one brain and two hands, and not even Napoleon 
 could do the work of a thousand. His brothers could 
 not help him, and herein lay his deepest tragedy. 
 He loved Louis and he loved Joseph, and he believed 
 that the blood which flowed in their veins was the 
 blood that flowed in his. But what had he, the 
 greatest monster of the modern world, to do with 
 brothers or cousins or uncles ? He stood by himself, 
 and lived his own life, and grumbled ever at the in- 
 evitable failure of others. The letters addressed to the 
 King of Holland are pathetic in their misery. ' Are 
 you the ally of England or of France ? ' he asked 
 piteously ; ' I do not know.' Louis has not ' the 
 grand manner.' How should he, poor devil ? * The 
 future grandeur of your people is in your hands,' he 
 wrote another time. ' If you govern by jeremiads, 
 you will furnish me with nothing more than the 
 miserable 6000 men that are in Hanover, and you will 
 be more useless than the Duke of Baden.' Louis 
 was helpless even after such a letter. The final 
 appeal, de Penergie, de Penergie, fell upon an ear 
 deafened by his people's indifference, and he could 
 but listen despairingly to the monumental postscript : 
 ' It is only by braving the opinion of the weak and 
 ignorant that you can assure the good of your people.' 
 But it was Jerome who received the stateliest re- 
 proof, and who was honoured by the letters of most 
 
NAPOLEON VITUPERATOR 223 
 
 eloquent reproach. ' In war,' wrote Napoleon from 
 Schonbrunn, ' there is neither the brother of the 
 Emperor, nor the King of Westphalia, but a general 
 who commands his corps.' And on the same day he 
 sends another letter : ' You are King and brother 
 to an Emperor, qualities ridiculous in war. You must 
 be soldat, et puis soldat, et encore soldat. You need 
 neither Minister, nor diplomatists, nor pomp ; you 
 must bivouac with your advance-guard, you must 
 be day and night in the saddle, you must march with 
 your advance-guard to get news ; or else you must 
 stay with your seraglio. You make war like a satrap.' 
 Does not that reproof come like a thunder-clap ? 
 And the contrast between himself and his brother is 
 still more eloquent. ' The trade of soldier and the 
 trade of courtier are far apart. I was scarcely your 
 age when I had conquered the whole of Italy and 
 had beaten Austrian armies three times as numerous 
 as my own. But I had neither flatterers nor diplo- 
 matists in my suite. I made war like a soldier ; 
 there is no other way of making it. I did not pretend 
 to be brother to an emperor or king ; I did all that I 
 must to beat the enemy.' Thus it was to his brothers 
 that he sent his austerest passages of prose. And 
 Jerome he signalled out for favour above the rest. 
 ' My friend, I love you,' he set in his own handwriting 
 at the end of a stern reproach ; * but you aiefurieuse- 
 ment jeune. Keep Simeon and Beugnot without oath 
 at least another year. Alors comme alors ! ' 
 
 Alors comme alors ! And when failure and defeat 
 
224 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 overwhelmed him, it was still of his brothers that he 
 thought. In a tragic letter addressed to Madame 
 Mere he insists that Louis should stand by the throne, 
 already in peril, as a French prince ; and with Europe 
 invaded he makes the same demand of Joseph. History 
 cannot show more deeply impassioned, more closely 
 reasoned appeals than these, made to the loyalty of 
 brothers on the eve of his ruin. And his grasp of 
 details weakened no more than his dignity. To the 
 very end he would control the world, and show him- 
 self the supreme hero that he was. 'To-day, as at 
 Austerlitz,' he wrote to Joseph from Reims, ' I am 
 master.' His will was not equal to circumstances, 
 and having sent back the Pope, and having recom- 
 mended economy to every one, he was forced to retire 
 to Elba. During the Hundred Days he pursued the 
 countless occupations which, perhaps, had diverted 
 his genius ; once more he picked up the myriad 
 threads of government. With his brain distracted 
 by the appointment of prefects and the control of 
 the police, how should he design his last campaign ? 
 Yet even after Waterloo he was not hopeless. * All 
 is not lost,' he assured Joseph. Within three days he 
 believed he could put himself at the head of 50,000 
 men. Above all, he exclaimed, du courage et de la 
 fermetL It was too late for firmness or courage. 
 Napoleon had fallen, and with his fall there died that 
 renowned style, which found its sanction in limitless 
 power, and which for brutality and persuasiveness 
 cannot be matched in the literature of the world. 
 
A LEISURED study of letters and documents can- 
 x\ not but revise many of the world's judgments. 
 Political opinions are based of necessity upon an im- 
 perfect foundation. We believe that we know what 
 this man thought from the words he spoke often a 
 baseless assumption. We know from the records 
 what that man did. The motives which induced the 
 thought or the action, too often evade us. We are 
 wont to mistake the compulsion of circumstances for 
 malice. We arrive at a half-truth, which is far more 
 misleading than a whole lie. And then the revelation 
 of documents flashes upon us. The dark places are 
 illumined. The lamp of justice shines with equal 
 brilliance on the overpraised and the misunderstood. 
 And only the honourable man, only the upright 
 Minister, fears not the discovering hand of time. 
 
 Of all those who during the first twenty-five years 
 of the Queen's reign were called to advise her, none 
 survives the ordeal of knowledge so triumphantly as 
 Lord Melbourne. Research does but embellish his 
 character. His dignity, his intelligence, his perfect 
 fairness of mind, are made, by the passage of time, 
 increasingly evident. And it was not the least of the 
 
 p 
 
226 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Queen's good fortune to ascend the throne under 
 the auspices of so brave and faithful a Minister. For 
 Melbourne had none of the vices of the politician. 
 He had measured more accurately than any of his 
 contemporaries the strength and weakness of all 
 governments. He knew with the certainty of intelli- 
 gence that the pulse of the country beat with a better 
 strength outside than inside the House of Commons. 
 He recognised the plain truth that no policy, not even 
 if it were a policy of revolution, had one-tenth of the 
 influence which its eager, narrow-minded advocates 
 ascribed to it. If he adopted the profession of 
 statesmanship, it was because that profession was, in 
 the early nineteenth century, best adapted to his 
 position and his talent. The son of a rich man and a 
 peer, he seemed destined to the profession of affairs. 
 Brought up in a house which regarded Charles James 
 Fox as nothing less than divine, he naturally espoused 
 the cause of the Whigs. That his own sympathy was 
 opposed to this course mattered nothing to him. He 
 devoutly believed that an English gentleman owed 
 his first duty to the tradition of his house. He might 
 have gone over to the other side, with which he was 
 in closest accord, had he not been restrained by the 
 habit and loyalty of years. Yet, with one interval, 
 in which he served under the banner of Canning, he 
 fought the battle of the Whigs with all his force and 
 with what sincerity he might. 
 
 Acutely conscious of his inconsistency, he justified 
 his action with an honest cynicism. ' In politics,' 
 
LORD MELBOURNE 227 
 
 he wrote once, ' you may serve the cause of wisdom 
 and justice better by remaining with those to whom 
 you have attached yourself, even after you dis- 
 approve of much of their conduct and prefer that of 
 their adversaries, than by leaving them.' It is not a 
 counsel of perfection ; but Melbourne knew that 
 perfection was inaccessible to modern statesmanship. 
 It is not the gospel of idealism, but Melbourne never 
 concealed from himself the plain truth that idealists 
 might be a danger to the State. It is even a hazard- 
 ous doctrine, which has been used by the dishonest 
 to cover up many disreputable acts and shameful com- 
 promises. But it is not without a certain common 
 sense, which more than once has saved England from 
 revolution, and enabled a prudent driver to put the 
 drag upon the coach wheel when he approached a 
 sudden and precipitous declivity. 
 
 For though Melbourne called himself a Whig, he 
 did not share the vices of his class. He did not exult 
 in the misfortunes of England when he had outgrown 
 his callow youth. The hatred which Fox and Lord 
 Holland professed for their own country was repugnant 
 to his sense of honour. He did not detect in Napoleon 
 the saviour of the human race merely because his 
 armies threatened the existence of Great Britain. 
 He agreed with Pitt that, even if reform had been 
 good in itself, it was monstrous to propose it in a 
 time of war, and in a most luminous passage he pro- 
 tested against inapposite legislation. 
 
 ' One great difference,' he wrote, ' between the 
 
228 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 conduct of the reformers of the present day and those 
 of the days of Charles i. is that the latter chose a 
 period of perfect tranquillity and security from ex- 
 ternal enemies a period when almost all foreign 
 nations were by their own distractions disabled from 
 interfering with England for putting into execution 
 their schemes of amelioration. The former ex- 
 claimed against grievances, and pressed the most vital 
 measures at a moment when the power and inveteracy 
 of France threatened our existence as an independent 
 nation.' 
 
 The wisdom of these words is strongly at variance 
 with the faith and practice of the Whigs. It was at 
 the very moment of threatened disaster that Fox 
 acclaimed the majesty of the people. It was when 
 Napoleon was universally triumphant that the 
 Jacobins of England demanded annual parliaments 
 and manhood suffrage. Instead of standing in solid 
 order against the foe, the Friends of the People 
 thought it becoming to embarrass the hands of those 
 who were protecting them against invasion by making 
 insolent demands and clamouring for a false thing 
 called Freedom. But Melbourne would not for an 
 instant tolerate such treason as this. Though his 
 party was pledged to conciliate the democracy, reform 
 was always repugnant to him, and it was the supreme 
 irony of his career that he was in office in 1832. His 
 conservative instincts rebelled fiercely against the 
 policy of Lord Grey. He * really believed that there 
 was no strong feeling in the country for the measure ' 
 
LORD MELBOURNE 229 
 
 of reform. He objected strongly to the abolition of 
 the rotten boroughs, which he regarded as a bulwark 
 against the encroaching mob. He would not, if he 
 could help it, have enfranchised the big boroughs 
 such as Manchester. Yet he bowed before the storm 
 of popular opinion, and aided the passage of a measure 
 of which he gravely disapproved. 
 
 The motive of his action was generally misunder- 
 stood. His contemporaries seem to have believed 
 that he yielded to his colleagues ' because it suited 
 his ease and convenience to do so, and because he was 
 actuated by no strong political principles or opinions.' 
 This is not true. It was not ease and convenience 
 which persuaded him to take an uncongenial path. 
 As has been said, he did not like to depart from his 
 allegiance. In a letter to the Queen, he once quoted, 
 with manifest approval, Napoleon's saying, un gentil- 
 homme ne change jamais la religion, and he applied this 
 principle, less worthily, to statesmanship. He knew 
 that his party was following an evil path, and he 
 would not desert it. He thought, with his customary 
 cynicism, that * it was more necessary to stand by his 
 friends when they were in the wrong than when they 
 were in the right,' and he did his utmost to get the 
 unwelcome question answered and set aside. 
 
 And he stood by them after his own characteristic 
 fashion. While his colleagues in and out the House 
 let off the glittering fireworks of their eloquence, 
 prating of Freedom and the Rights of Man, he re- 
 mained sternly in the Home Office, and took care 
 
230 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 that those whom he was helping to make free and in- 
 dependent electors should not too clamorously assert 
 their privileges. He rigorously suppressed the first 
 signs of sedition, and would not permit those about 
 to become citizens to anticipate the sweets of liberty. 
 And when the Bill was passed he was still uneasy. 
 * I do not myself much like the complexion of the 
 public meetings of constituents,' he wrote to his 
 brother in 1833, ' f which I read in the newspapers. 
 They seem to me to be very violent, and to be de- 
 manding pledges in a very positive manner, which are 
 given rather too readily and to a too great extent.' 
 He recognised that the harm was done, and he re- 
 solved that he would take no other hand in the game 
 of revolution. ' There is no knowing to what one 
 may be led by circumstances,' said he ; * but at 
 present I am determined to make my stand here, 
 and not to advance any further ' a vain boast, for no 
 man can, when he will, put a spoke in the wheel of 
 what is called progress. 
 
 The truth is, that Melbourne rejected in a block 
 all the doctrines of the Radical. He had a natural 
 and a wholesome dislike of change. When Lord 
 John Russell desired to express his restlessness in 
 some tinkering of the constitution, Melbourne was 
 content to ask : * Why not leave it alone ? ' He saw 
 in the ballot nothing but an opportunity of chicane 
 and intrigue. He urged those who would have made 
 experiments in education to ' moderate their zeal,' 
 pointing out to them, with perfect wisdom, * examples 
 
LORD MELBOURNE 231 
 
 of men who, without education, had made good their 
 advancement in life.' In other words, he looked upon 
 facts with an honest eye. He did not pretend even to 
 himself that an Act of Parliament could atone for the 
 sloth and carelessness of the individual. He knew by 
 experience that a lofty position could be held only 
 by right of conquest, and that they did a disservice 
 to others who made the road of advance too easy. 
 In brief, he shrank from sentimentality wherever 
 he found it. He abhorred high-sounding talk and 
 insincere professions. ' Nobody ever did anything 
 very foolish except from some strong principle,' said 
 he, thus anticipating the supreme folly of the genera- 
 tion which succeeded his own. Similarly he mis- 
 trusted doctrinaires in politics or religion. ' I do 
 not like the Dissenters,' he once wrote. ' They are 
 more zealous, and consequently more intolerant, 
 than the Established Church. Their only object is 
 power.' 
 
 How abundantly has our subsequent experience 
 justified this sound opinion ! On the other hand, 
 his assumed indifference was never caused by a lack 
 of zeal for England. He was a staunch patriot, to 
 whom the treasonable practices of his friends were 
 always distasteful. Much as he hesitated to reveal 
 his emotions, he took alarm openly if war or disaster 
 threatened. In 1840 he was so anxiously disturbed 
 by the state of affairs in Europe that he could not eat 
 nor drink nor sleep. In a moment the idleness which 
 he assumed was laid aside, and he was ready to sacrifice 
 
232 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 his ease, 'his life even, for the sake of his country. 
 And this is the paradox of his career. He was a 
 patriot who saw the danger of change. He acknow- 
 ledged that reform was unattended with any of the 
 benefits expected from it ; that the appetite of revolt 
 grew in eating ; and that in the end the constitution 
 would be threatened. And he supported reform 
 because he was called a Whig, and because his party 
 demanded his aid. 
 
 The paradox is not so great as it appears at first 
 sight. Melbourne's career was made possible only 
 by his temperament. He possessed that acute 
 intelligence which sees the good and bad on either 
 side, and which naturally inclines to moderation. 
 The great master of men, the leader of forlorn hopes, 
 cannot succeed without a grain of stupidity. He 
 cannot reach the pinnacle of courage or conviction if 
 he understands the reason of his adversary's action 
 as well as of his own. Melbourne's strength was his 
 weakness also. He knew so much that he was too 
 often reduced to a condition of stable equilibrium. 
 Above all, his knowledge and interest were not limited 
 by politics. There was no province of human skill or 
 intelligence which he did not regard with an eager 
 curiosity. He was deeply read in many literatures. 
 He had studied the poets and historians of Greece 
 and Rome with an acute understanding. He could 
 illustrate the events of his own day by the experience 
 of Thucydides. He scorned translations, and read 
 Herodotus, for example, in the original, with great 
 
LORD MELBOURNE 233 
 
 profit to himself. And he could discourse with a 
 ready eloquence of what he knew. 
 
 None of those who frequented Holland House shone 
 in conversation with a radiance equal to Melbourne's. 
 He was neither pedantic, like Allen, nor greedy, like 
 Macaulay. Greville is an eager witness of his prowess. 
 
 * Melbourne's excellent scholarship and universal 
 information,' he writes, ' remarkably display them- 
 selves in society, and he delivers himself with an 
 energy which shows how deeply his mind is impressed 
 with literary subjects.' His judgment kept pace 
 with his energy. It is impossible to read his com- 
 ments upon literature without a profound respect 
 for his taste and enterprise. Nor did the stress of 
 office interfere with his devotion to humane letters. 
 In the very crisis of 1832 he solaced his leisure by 
 studying the tracts of Gosson, Stubbes, and Hey- 
 wood concerning the abuses of the theatre. With 
 the same intelligence he gave himself to theology, in 
 which he was profoundly versed, and he was thus 
 able to discourse of religion, which he loved to do, 
 with authority and moderation. But, in truth, 
 nothing came amiss to him, and he remained a student 
 unto the end of his life. He knew the danger of thus 
 
 * pursuing ' knowledge, and with his usual candour 
 made ample confession of it. 'I have read too much, 
 and too little,' he said. * So much that it has extin- 
 guished all the original fire of my genius, and yet not 
 enough to furnish me with the power of writing books 
 of mature thinking and solid instruction,' He need 
 
234 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 have harboured no regret. He read not for others, 
 but for himself and for reading's sake, and he was 
 thus able to look upon politics with the broad and 
 tolerant eye which few politicians may boast. 
 
 It may be said that in many pursuits he dissipated 
 his energies. That is true enough. In fact, he might 
 be described as what was known to the eighteenth 
 century as a lounger. He passed easily from one 
 age, from one book, to another. He changed his 
 diligence with his humour. But he was a lounger of 
 activity. He was diligent always, and, as he said 
 himself, he looked back with remorse only to those 
 hours which he had spent in sleep and sauntering. 
 And with his lounging habit was associated in men's 
 minds a kind of nonchalance which he affected. 
 Greville declared that he was * habitually careless and 
 insouciant ' ; and he hated squabbles and contests 
 so bitterly that he would avoid them sometimes at 
 a loss of dignity or decision. Talleyrand interpreted 
 this temper with a gentle irony. Melbourne, he 
 said, is * trop camarade for a Prime Minister.' Wel- 
 lington's testimony, though not so briefly expressed, 
 is to the same purpose. Melbourne, he said, ' was a 
 man apt to treat matters too lightly, or poco curante, 
 but in the main an honest and an honourable man.' 
 That seems rather to underrate the Minister's ex- 
 cellent qualities. At the same time, it may be ad- 
 mitted that Melbourne encouraged a general opinion 
 of indifference. 
 
 His contempt of fuss persuaded him to wear a cloak 
 
LORD MELBOURNE 235 
 
 of carelessness. He refused to detect a ^gravity in 
 trivial things. He persistently esteemed politics at 
 their proper value. It was not his habit to pretend 
 that an Act of Parliament would bring into being a 
 new heaven and a new earth. This habit irritated 
 his more pompous colleagues, and being known to the 
 world brought him into an unmerited discredit. 
 Men lacking in humour were busy with reproach 
 against a philosophic temper which they could not 
 understand. Once upon a time it was in 1841 
 Lord John Russell proposed to substitute a fixed 
 duty of 8s. on wheat for a graduated duty. To the 
 proposer this measure appeared to be of the highest 
 import, and he expected it to be received with 
 becoming solemnity. And then Melbourne poured 
 upon Lord John's enthusiasm the cold water of his 
 wit. ' By the bye,' said he on leaving the room, 
 ' there is one thing we haven't agreed upon, which 
 is, what we are to say. Is it to make our corn dearer 
 or cheaper, or to make the price steady ? I don't 
 care which, but we had better all be in the same 
 story.' And this is not Melbourne's highest achieve- 
 ment in insouciance. It is reported, on sound 
 authority, that once, when he was Prime Minister, he 
 fell asleep at a Cabinet meeting. This feat is pro- 
 bably unrivalled. 
 
 In private as in public Melbourne had rid himself 
 of the common superstitions. If he had ever felt 
 the impulses of jealousy or malice, he did not for an 
 instant betray their influence. He was a practical 
 
236 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 philosopher, who took all things for granted. He 
 had learned the lesson which few are able to learn, 
 that nothing external to himself debased or im- 
 poverished his soul. And he was able to endure the 
 blows of fortune with a light heart. For instance, 
 he regarded the eccentricities of his wife with a noble 
 detachment. He judged her faithlessness if so 
 harsh a word as * judgment ' may be used with the 
 amiable indulgence which might be expected of a 
 wholly disinterested adviser. He overlooked the 
 scandal of Lord Byron and Glenarvon, silently and 
 without reproach. And when Lady Caroline's extra- 
 vagant humours made life under the same roof with 
 her intolerable, he left her with a genuine regret. 
 Her last hours were solaced by his presence, and her 
 brother paid the highest tribute to his magnanimity. 
 ' William Lamb,' said he, ' behaved throughout as I 
 always knew he would.' But this magnanimity did 
 not proceed from a lack of dignity or a too easy- 
 going good humour. It was the result of a very 
 candid and evenly balanced mind. Melbourne saw 
 both faces of life, as he saw both faces of politics, and 
 being (as has been said) a practical philosopher, he 
 recognised that there was not a vast difference 
 between this face and that. At any rate, it was not 
 for him to pass sentence, and since the subtlety of 
 his brain eluded his contemporaries, it is not surpris- 
 ing that his actions were ascribed to a culpable 
 apathy. 
 
 His practical philosophy naturally encouraged a 
 
LORD MELBOURNE 237 
 
 love of paradox. The polite society of Holland 
 House, used as it was to the bigotry of Allen, was 
 surprised at times, or even shocked, at the unex- 
 pected flashes of Melbourne's wit. And as he dealt 
 in irony * as well as in paradox, it is not strange that 
 he was commonly misunderstood. His sayings were 
 quoted as though it were his sole object to frighten 
 the Philistines. When Prince Albert insisted that 
 ' a closer line should be drawn ' in the matter of 
 appointments, Melbourne complained that ' that 
 damned morality would undo us all.' His meaning 
 is clear enough, but the words, used, contrary to his 
 intention, in their literal significance, might easily be 
 turned to his discredit. The truth is, he hated 
 humbug and hypocrisy wherever he found them, and 
 his sense of picturesqueness persuaded him very often 
 to overstate his case. But this over-statement was 
 but another expression of his virtue and honesty ; 
 and though England has known some greater 
 Ministers than Melbourne, she has put her trust in 
 few innately wiser or more simply devoted to her 
 interests. 
 
 1 Of his paradoxes only the merest echo is heard. An example 
 of his irony is quoted from a commonplace book in Mr. Lloyd 
 Sanders's excellent edition of his Papers. ' Give every subject and 
 every expression, if you can, an indecent turn,' he wrote, remem- 
 bering Swift ; * that makes a witty man. Impute to every action 
 a base or wicked motive 5 that makes a profound and sagacious 
 man. Act without regard to times and circumstances in a 
 manner which is best calculated to' defeat your own objects 5 
 that makes an incorrupt and honest man. 1 
 
238 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 By temperament and training, then, Melbourne 
 was perfectly fitted to guide the footsteps of a young 
 Queen. He was in the highest sense a man of the 
 world, without prejudice or disguise, and he gladly 
 accepted the charge which fortune had put into his 
 hands. Nor has history revealed to us a wiser educa- 
 tion of a monarch than this. The first volume of 
 the Queen's Letters is not unlike a modern Cyro- 
 pcedeta. Melbourne forgot nothing which should 
 improve the natural talent of Queen Victoria. He 
 was ready with advice on all subjects, and on all 
 occasions. Not merely did he teach her the first 
 lessons of statecraft ; he gave her his opinions freely 
 concerning literature, theology, and history. Now 
 he tells her what he thinks of Adolphus's History, 
 and recommends Horace Walpole's Letters by way of 
 illustration. Now he declares that * Hallam is right 
 about Ireland,' and that ' her advocates are very 
 loud in their outcry, but she has not really very 
 much to complain of ' two simple truths which 
 were abundantly confirmed in the course of the 
 Queen's reign. In one letter he comments with 
 severity and good sense upon Macaulay's Essay on 
 Madame d'Arblay ; in another he discourses pleasantly 
 and plainly upon As Ton Like It, and recalls the ex- 
 cellence of Mrs. Jordan in the part of Rosalind. 
 
 Thus he brought into the palace a breath of his 
 own humanity and humour. His letters are not 
 mere formal state papers. They are alive and alert 
 with the writer's sound sense, and not unillumined 
 
LORD MELBOURNE 239 
 
 by the writer's flippancy. Above all, he did his best 
 to instruct the Queen in the mysteries of character, 
 and to inspire her with something of his own 
 moderation. When, in 1839, s ^ e was ^ ou< ^ * n ^ er 
 reprobation of Peel, Melbourne counselled a better 
 opinion. ' Lord Melbourne earnestly entreats your 
 Majesty,' he wrote, ' not to suffer yourself to be 
 affected by any faultiness of manner which you may 
 observe. Depend upon it, there is no personal 
 hostility to Lord Melbourne, nor any bitter feeling 
 against him. Sir Robert is the most cautious and 
 reserved of mankind. Nobody seems to Lord Mel- 
 bourne to know him, but he is not therefore deceitful 
 or dishonest. Many a very false man has a very open, 
 sincere manner, and vice versa? The moderation of 
 this advice matches its loyalty, and no better words 
 could be spoken in the ear of one whose business it 
 was to mitigate the stress of party politics. 
 
 Between the Queen and her favourite Minister 
 the sympathy and understanding were complete. 
 From the first she recognised in the Minister ' a 
 straightforward, honest, and good man.' She con- 
 fessed that he was * to her quite a parent.' Again 
 and again she expresses her high appreciation of his 
 service and talents. * The more I see him,' she 
 wrote, ' the more confidence I have in him. . . . He 
 is of the greatest use to me both politically and 
 privately.' And the Queen's affection and regard 
 were faithfully reciprocated. Greville says that Mel- 
 bourne looked upon the Queen as he might have looked 
 
240 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 upon a daughter if he had had one. He felt the in- 
 evitable separation most acutely. In 1845, we are 
 told, he could not mention the Queen's name without 
 tears coming into his eyes. Nor did the Queen yield 
 to him in sorrow. Melbourne's resignation was the 
 first blow which she was asked to bear. And she did 
 not minimise its weight. ' The Queen thinks Ld. 
 Melbourne may possibly wish to know how she is this 
 morning ' thus she wrote in 1839. ' The Queen 
 is somewhat calmer : she was in a wretched state till 
 nine o'clock last night, when she tried to occupy her- 
 self and to think less gloomily of this dreadful change, 
 and she succeeded in calming herself till she went to 
 bed at twelve, and she slept well ; but on waking 
 this morning all all that had happened in one short 
 uneventful day, came most forcibly to her mind, and 
 brought back her grief.' And when Peel succeeded 
 Melbourne in office, the Queen insisted that she 
 should still be permitted to exchange letters with her 
 old adviser a privilege which, despite the suspicious 
 voice of rumour, neither Queen nor Minister misused. 
 Thus till Melbourne's death the unequal frisnd- 
 ship was zealously maintained. The statesman's 
 visits to Windsor were always recorded by the Queen 
 with a kind of joyousness. * Good Lord Melbourne 
 was here from Saturday till this morning,' we read in 
 a letter dated 1843, ' looking very well. I almost 
 fancied happy old times were returned ; but alas ! 
 the dream is passed ' as none knew better than 
 Melbourne, who confessed that he ' continually missed 
 
LORD MELBOURNE 241 
 
 and regretted the time when he had daily confidential 
 communications with your Majesty.' His loneliness, 
 indeed, was unrelieved, and the repeal of the Corn 
 Laws made it increasingly difficult for the old con- 
 fidence to be renewed. Like the stern Conservative 
 that he was, Melbourne wished to leave things as they 
 were. He feared the violent change of policy, of 
 which not even its enthusiastic supporters could see 
 the end. Above all, he thought that Peel had be- 
 trayed his party. Greville sketches a curious scene 
 at Windsor, and there is no reason to doubt its veri- 
 similitude. * It was at dinner,' says he, ' when Lord 
 Melbourne was sitting next to the Queen. Some 
 allusion was made to passing events and to the ex- 
 pected measure, when Melbourne suddenly broke 
 out, " Ma'am, it is a damned dishonest act." The 
 Queen laughed, and tried to quiet him, but he re- 
 peated, " I say it is a very dishonest act " ; and then 
 he continued a tirade against the abolition of the 
 Corn Laws, the people not knowing how to look, and 
 the Queen only laughing.' Though the difference 
 of opinion did not impair the Queen's regard for 
 Melbourne, it made his presence at Windsor an 
 embarrassment ; and he was driven back more and 
 more to the books which he loved well, and knew 
 well how to read. 
 
 The last years of Melbourne's life were years of 
 gathering gloom. He did not easily endure the 
 change from strength to weakness. Greville said 
 that he seemed ' to bear on his face a perpetual con- 
 
 Q 
 
242 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 sciousness of glory obscured.' A spark of irony 
 flashes now and again in his letters, as when he assures 
 the Queen that he has been reading ' Cicero on Old 
 Age a very pretty treatise, but he does not find much 
 consolation after it.' He was tired, he was out of 
 the world, which he had dominated by his wisdom 
 and his wit, and the seclusion of age irked him. Yet 
 he might have found some comfort in the thought 
 that his work was done, and that, though the Queen 
 listened to other counsellors, he had taught her such 
 lessons of life and politics as the years even of her long 
 reign would not wholly efface. 
 
SIR JAMES GRAHAM 
 
 THE fact that Sir James Graham has already passed 
 from the memory of man is an eloquent com- 
 ment upon the insecurity of political fame. For thirty 
 years he assisted at the councils of the nation. He 
 held high office in many administrations. He was 
 warmly praised by men of all parties, to most of which 
 he had belonged in the course of a long career. He 
 was at once the friend of Croker and of Lord John 
 Russell. For many years he was the chief support 
 of Sir Robert Peel. After Peel's death Disraeli in- 
 vited him to take command of the reunited Conser- 
 vatives and Peelites. In 1852 Roebuck 'looked to 
 him to be the leader of the Liberal party.' Mr. Glad- 
 stone often told Sir Algernon West that ' he con- 
 sidered Sir James the greatest administrator of his 
 time, and the only statesman whose merits never 
 received due recognition from the Press.' On four 
 occasions Sir James declined the Governorship- 
 General of India. ' The more I study that genera- 
 tion,' says Mr. Morley, ' the more do I incline to put 
 Sir James Graham in the very front for sagacity, pure 
 sense of public duty, and for moral depth of character, 
 all in combination.' This chorus of praise might be 
 
 243 
 
244 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 infinitely swelled. Yet this enthusiasm has met with 
 no popular response. Laudatur et alget he is ac- 
 claimed, and grows cold with the coldness of 
 oblivion. And his career, as set forth in Mr. Parker's 
 well-edited and impartial biography, puts, if it does 
 not answer, the question : Why is the glory of 
 statesmen as short-lived as the glory of actors or 
 of bishops ? 
 
 Oblivion overtakes them because, in the first place, 
 they are not of so vast an importance as they appear 
 to their colleagues and to their generation. Countries 
 are governed by accident or by one man. Secretaries 
 of State and First Lords play their part in the public 
 pageant ; they hold too large a space in the general 
 esteem while they are alive ; and posterity takes its 
 customary revenge, and forgets them when they are 
 gone. Nor is posterity wholly unfair in taking this 
 revenge. The compensation is accurately esteemed, 
 and in the end a rough justice is done. But there is 
 a second reason why the world should have a short 
 memory for such public servants as Sir James Graham. 
 Fame is a sort of scandal, which does not attach itself 
 to the merely virtuous, uninventive man. He who 
 would catch the public eye must be consciously or 
 unconsciously something of a histrion. The easiest 
 method by which a politician may acquire immortality 
 is to create a legend of himself. When once this is 
 done the rest is easy. He assumes a shape and form 
 which the people comprehends ; presently he answers 
 to a familiar nickname ; and he dies in the glad con- 
 
SIR JAMES GRAHAM 245 
 
 viction that he has won a lasting place in the history 
 of his country. 
 
 Some statesmen create their own legends, some 
 have legends thrust upon them. All are legendary 
 or forgotten. Even Pitt, the least vividly personal of 
 Ministers, survives in the general esteem as a model 
 of precocity and devotion. Of Fox, the pleasure- 
 loving gambler, who, in Lander's phrase, ' to the 
 principles of a Frenchman added the habits of a 
 Malay,' the world has preserved a very clear image. 
 His portly figure, his slovenly clothes, his amazing 
 hat, are more familiar to the present age than his lack 
 of principle and his hatred of his country. And as we 
 come down to our own time, the intensity of this 
 popular portraiture increases. The legend of Dis- 
 raeli was most carefully prepared by the artist himself. 
 He understood the craft of life well enough to know 
 that unless he attracted attention his merits would 
 never be discussed. He was fighting a battle, as 
 none recognised more plainly than he, against a close 
 order and a suspicious class. A Jew without wealth, 
 he aspired to lead the nobles of England, and success 
 could never have been his had he not touched the 
 imagination and won the support of the people. For 
 this end the dandyism of his early years, the curled 
 locks, the chains in which he was hanged, were all 
 nicely calculated. When he was firmly seated in the 
 throne of power he contemptuously threw aside these 
 adjuncts of frivolity. But he never disdained the 
 common artifices of glory, and he reached the summit 
 
246 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 of his ambition by a path which he understood better 
 and despised more bitterly than most of his colleagues 
 could despise or understand it. 
 
 Gladstone, never an artist like his rival, stumbled 
 by accident upon a legend of universality. There 
 was nothing he could not do, save make himself in- 
 telligible. And his very unintelligibility was a source 
 of strength. There is a story told concerning him 
 in Sir James Graham's Life so apt to my purpose that 
 I make no scruple of using it to interpret my argument. 
 Once upon a time it was in 1845 Mr. Gladstone 
 was minded to resign. Accordingly he wrote to 
 Sir Robert Peel, marked the letter ' secret,' and by a 
 characteristic perversity sent it open to the Minister. 
 As Sir Robert said, ' it might have been read in every 
 post office through which it had passed.' Graham's 
 comment upon this adventure is wisely apposite. 
 ' Gladstone's omission to seal such a letter,' says he, 
 ' was most unfortunate ; but the enigmatical style 
 has its advantages. I doubt whether there is a post- 
 master in England who after reading the letter would 
 understand one word of it.' Thus it was that Glad- 
 stone stood before the country for fifty years as an 
 unanswered enigma. The fact that the enigma had no 
 answer did not lessen its profundity in the public 
 mind. The great statesman's eye rolled, his voice 
 trembled, and though his speech corresponded in no 
 respect to these expressions of emotion, his audience 
 confessed with a frank delight that he was speaking 
 over its head. The fact that he had said nothing 
 
SIR JAMES GRAHAM 247 
 
 which he had not qualified, that he had made no 
 statement unguarded by ' ifs ' and * ans,' eluded his 
 perplexed admirers. They mistook their candour for 
 his perspicuity, and believed that their failure to 
 understand the unintelligible was a clear proof of 
 their own inferiority. 
 
 But, well as this enigmatic reputation served 
 Mr. Gladstone, it was the universality of his genius 
 upon which his legend was based. He was an 
 Admirable Crichton, to whom no enterprise came 
 amiss. The most industrious man of his generation, 
 he always sought leisure in doing something else. He 
 could cut down trees and talk about Homer. He 
 could discuss theology and turn English hymns into 
 Latin. He was as many-sided as Cicero, and com- 
 pletely imbued with the spirit of journalism, though 
 he was not, like the Roman orator, a man of letters. 
 Thus the legend of Gladstone grew and prospered. 
 He had become the hero of a fairy story long before 
 his death to these an ogre, to those a spirit of bene- 
 ficence. His supporters worshipped him ; his col- 
 leagues feared him ; his opponents were conscious 
 of the danger with which his legendary magnificence 
 threatened the country. And his career illustrates the 
 peculiar risk to which every democracy is exposed. 
 The people adores not a man, but an idol which 
 represents the man to its twisted intelligence. 
 Unable to judge aright, it bows the knee to a nick- 
 name, an abstraction, or a bold advertisement. And 
 the necessity of a legend increases with the increasing 
 
248 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 strength of the populace for it is to the mob that a 
 politician must make appeal. The hustings are his 
 stage. His first business is not to serve his country, 
 but to present himself in a fantastic shape to the 
 democracy. The newspapers, which have wisely 
 decided to suppress his speeches, eagerly chronicle the 
 cut of his coat, his wife's tea-parties, and his success 
 or failure at the sport which he affects. In other 
 words, they treat him as they treat the actor ; and 
 it cannot be said that any of the demagogues who 
 have pretended to govern the destinies of England 
 got any worse treatment than they deserve. 
 
 These considerations help us to understand the 
 eclipse of Sir James Graham. He was sternly in- 
 capable of inventing a legend or of awaking the fancy 
 of the people. He appealed to the world as a plain 
 man who did his duty, hoping for no other reward than 
 the satisfaction of his conscience and the approval 
 of his colleagues. A certain roughness in contro- 
 versy was the only mark which might have distin- 
 guished him, but from the beginning to the end of a 
 somewhat complicated career he rarely called attention 
 to himself. At one moment in 1844 he was in- 
 volved in the scandal which, as I have said, comes 
 very near to being fame. Knowing that Mazzini was 
 the centre of a conspiracy against the Italian Govern- 
 ment, Sir James Graham authorised the opening of 
 his letters. He was instantly assailed with the utmost 
 bitterness. It was proposed to prosecute him for 
 usurping a power which, it was alleged, did not belong 
 
SIR JAMES GRAHAM 249 
 
 to him. The Press espoused the cause of Mazzini 
 and his friends, and Graham was at last persuaded 
 to submit the question to secret committees of the 
 Lords and Commons. The committees approved 
 the practice of opening letters when the public peace 
 demanded it, declared that they would see the 
 authority abolished with the utmost reluctance, and 
 placed it on record that the power had been very 
 sparingly exercised, and never from personal or party 
 motives. 
 
 Graham, of course, had done no more than his duty ; 
 but he did not escape obloquy. The opinion of the 
 whole Radical party, which has a natural sympathy 
 with conspirators, was inflamed against him ; and 
 until the end he was forced to bear a heavy and un- 
 deserved burden of reproach. Ten years later he 
 again flashed vividly before the world. At a dinner 
 given to Sir Charles Napier in 1854 ne m ade a speech, 
 as candid as it was indiscreet, for which he was called 
 gravely to account. ' My gallant friend Sir Charles 
 Napier ' thus spoke Graham ' says that when he 
 goes into the Baltic he will declare war. I, as First 
 Lord of the Admiralty, give my free consent to do so. 
 I hope that the war may be short and that it may be 
 sharp.' This incredibly foolish explosion was made 
 some weeks before the declaration of war, and most 
 men agreed with Greville in rinding it ' marvellous 
 that a man of mature age, who had been nearly forty 
 years in public life, should be so rash and ill-judged 
 in his speeches.' 
 
250 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 These are the two bright spots upon an industrious 
 and uniform career. From one point of view Sir 
 James Graham was a model Minister. None knew 
 better than he how to transact business with promp- 
 titude and despatch. He filled many offices with 
 credit, and though we may well question the wisdom 
 of his actions, his loyalty and unselfishness are above 
 reproach. A statesman who four times refused to 
 govern India cannot be charged with mistaking private 
 ambition for the service of his country. And Sir 
 James Graham clearly embarked upon politics not for 
 his own profit, but from a sense of duty. I have said 
 that his career was uniform. Uniform it was in de- 
 votion, not in party. In the course of thirty years 
 Sir James made acquaintance, so to say, with every 
 corner of the House. He had combined in his single 
 brain all the opinions. He helped Lord Grey to pass 
 the Reform Bill of 1832. Lord John Russell's lack of 
 respect for the Protestant Church drove him into the 
 arms of Peel, whose lieutenant he was in the campaign 
 against the Corn Laws. When the cry of Protection 
 was no longer heard, he might have led the Conser- 
 vatives to victory ; and finally he became a Liberal of 
 the official kind, though he distrusted Palmerston, 
 and did not always look upon affairs with the eyes of 
 Lord John Russell. As Mr. Parker puts it, ' he had 
 been Conservative Liberal, Liberal Conservative, 
 Conservative and Liberal.' We need not criticise 
 the illogicality of the succession. After all, consist- 
 ency is the least attractive of the virtues. But 
 
SIR JAMES GRAHAM 251 
 
 Sir James Graham's progress from one opinion to 
 another explains his unpopularity. Politicians dislike 
 a renegade far more bitterly than an active foe, and 
 at each change of party Graham created for himself 
 a fresh band of enemies. He had sat on both sides 
 of the House, above and below both gangways, and he 
 vacated no seat without leaving behind some rancour 
 and ill-feeling. 
 
 It is a popular superstition that the system of 
 Parliamentary groups for the first time replaced the 
 more stable system of party government in the 
 twentieth century. It is a superstition, and no more. 
 Precisely the same phenomenon may be observed 
 wherever a revolution has taken place, or an ancient 
 party has been shattered. The Reform Bill of 1832, 
 changing the government of the country, was followed 
 by a period of confusion, during which the old lines 
 of division were blurred and new combinations were 
 hastily formed. By a painful effort Peel put the Tory 
 party together again, led it to victory, and in 1846 
 destroyed it suddenly and without warning. Again 
 a series of hostile groups took the place of a solid party. 
 Peelites opposed Protectionists with a fiercer rage 
 than either group could simulate for the opponents 
 of both. And it needed the genius of Disraeli to 
 reconstruct the broken party out of its divergent 
 elements. The truth is that there are always 
 groups on either side the House, and it is of the best 
 possible augury that, while the divisions on the 
 Liberal benches grow wider as time goes on, the 
 
252 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Tories are knit together more closely in the bonds 
 of unity. 
 
 Thus it is the action and interaction of Parlia- 
 mentary groups that explain the manysidedness of 
 Sir James Graham. There was always something in 
 every coterie of which he could approve, and which 
 was a sufficient excuse for a change. So he could 
 turn through all the gradations of policy from Liberal 
 to Tory and from Tory to Liberal without disloyalty 
 or dishonour. From his own point of view he was, 
 as has been said, a useful and high-minded statesman. 
 From the Tory's point of view he was throughout the 
 greater part of his career a malignant influence. That 
 England is given over to a noisy demagogy, that our 
 rulers have forgotten the duty which they owe to 
 their country and their countrymen, that the land is 
 deserted and the city packed with out-of-works, is 
 largely the fault of Sir James Graham and of those to 
 whom he lent his support. For in whatever camp 
 Sir James fought, for the moment he was the constant 
 champion of what are called ' progress ' and ' reform.' 
 He advocated change with the carelessness of one 
 playing at Blind Hookey. True, he reserved the 
 Constitution and the Church from attack, therein 
 differing from his successors, but, with these reser- 
 vations, nothing daunted him. And, like all reformers, 
 he saw the proximate effect of his action so clearly 
 that he overlooked the ultimate. 
 
 Perhaps had he understood the logical conclusion 
 of 1832, he might have paused before he gave his help 
 
SIR JAMES GRAHAM 253 
 
 to the schemes of Lord Grey. Had he foreseen the 
 death of agriculture and the depopulation of the 
 countryside, he might not have urged Sir Robert 
 Peel so eagerly to abolish the Corn Laws. But the 
 reformer is the same all the world over. He is like 
 the Chinaman who burned his house down that he 
 might taste the delights of roast pork. To do a little 
 good, he will cheerfully countenance a great wrong. 
 Indeed, there is little else to praise in Sir James 
 Graham's long career than his good intentions. And 
 in politics, of what worth are good intentions ? If 
 politicians approached the government of their 
 country the most difficult of the arts with a tithe 
 of the preparation which they devote to law or agri- 
 culture, to sport or cookery, how much better would 
 it be for us all ! The contemplation of Sir James 
 Graham's honourable and dangerous career recalls 
 Burke's prudent warning, which should be written 
 in letters of gold above the door of the House 
 of Commons : * Men little think how immorally 
 they act in rashly meddling with what they do 
 not understand. Their delusive good intention is 
 no sort of excuse for their presumption. Those who 
 truly mean well must be fearful of acting ill.' 
 
THE CORN LAWS: A GROUP 
 
 < -~j~ HE Life of Lord, George Bentinck is in a sense the 
 * most serious of Disraeli's works. It was com- 
 posed at a time when he had abandoned fiction for 
 the more sternly engrossing pursuit of politics. 
 During the years which had passed since the writing 
 of his novels, he had devoted himself with all his 
 inspired energy to the business of the House of 
 Commons, and Sybil and Tattered were but interludes 
 in a life of affairs. * Literature he has abandoned for 
 politics,' wrote Mrs. Disraeli to Peel as early as 1841, 
 and when, in 1852, he essayed in Lord George Bentinck 
 the portraiture of an English worthy, Disraeli was 
 already better known as a statesman than as a novelist. 
 His brilliant and pitiless campaign against Peel had 
 overshadowed the victories won in another field ; 
 and his political biography was received with a respect 
 not always shown to those who have practised 
 successfully the art of fiction. 
 
 And it deserved all the respect accorded to its 
 sound judgment and well-balanced style. Fashioned 
 after the best models, it is embellished, like the works 
 of Livy and Thucydides, with deftly drawn char- 
 acters and authentic speeches. The biographer, 
 
 264 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 255 
 
 moreover, was writing of what he had seen and heard : 
 not merely were all the documents ready to his hand ; 
 he himself had taken a foremost part in the events 
 which he chronicled. And nowhere in his book will 
 you find the taint of journalism. On every page 
 there is a sense of great issues and lofty purposes. 
 Though Disraeli was removed but a year or two from 
 the battles of wit and reason, which are the matter 
 of his history, his imagination allowed him to see 
 the immediate past in a just perspective, and his one 
 defect, amiable and deliberate, is to underrate with 
 a true modesty the importance of his own part. So 
 gravely does he consider the personages in his drama, 
 that they might have been ancient Romans, or the 
 subjects of a despotic doge. And then how skilful is 
 the narrative, how right the feeling of proportion ! 
 None but a master could interweave pages of Hansard, 
 ' the Dunciad of Downing Street,' into the substance 
 of his book, and make every chapter interesting. 
 Sternly political though it be, the biography is always 
 dramatic, and the two chief actors in the drama, 
 Lord George Bentinck and Sir Robert Peel, are 
 brilliantly disengaged from the dingy background of 
 the House of Commons. Of these he writes in the 
 true spirit of romance. The picture of Peel sitting 
 unmoved and unconscious in the deserted House can 
 never be forgotten. ' The benches had become 
 empty,' thus runs the passage, ' the lights were about 
 to be extinguished ; it is the duty of the clerk of the 
 House to examine the chamber before the doors are 
 
256 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 closed, and to-night it was also the strange lot of this 
 gentleman to disturb the reverie of a statesman.' 
 
 And, while Disraeli saw even the arch-enemy 
 through the softening mist of imagination, Lord 
 George, as he drew him, seems to have stepped 
 straight out of the pages of fiction. ' One man alone 
 brooded over the unexampled scene,' says he at the 
 outset, and you are reminded straightway of Henrietta 
 lemple or The Young Duke. Again, he tells us that, 
 to make his first speech, ' Bentinck rose long past 
 the noon of night.' It is such touches as these that 
 make the book acceptable to those who do not regard 
 politics as the end of life, and his admirers will surprise 
 the true Disraeli upon every page. Like all great men, 
 he rises with the occasion, and the description of 
 Lord George's death is the work of a true artist. 
 With the noble extravagance, characteristic of his 
 style, he takes leave of his hero * upon the perron of 
 Harcourt House, the last of the great hotels of an 
 age of stately manners, with its wings, and court- 
 yard, and carriage portal, and huge outward walls.' 
 And when he tells the last sad tale in a few pages of 
 admirable dignity, he is inspired to quote the Ajax 
 ^$L Qa.va.Tf, 0avaT, vvv fi iiritTK^ai. p,o\&v though 
 Greek quotations seldom came from his pen. In 
 brief, the whole work is cast in the mould of fancy, 
 and, accurate and impartial though it be, it never 
 sinks to the arid prose of conventional biography. 
 
 Disraeli, moreover, being always sincere, does not 
 suppress his own qualities, even in so impersonal an 
 
THE CORN LAWS: A GROUP 257 
 
 affair as biography. The narrative sparkles with 
 humour, and is alive with wit. The Sugar question, 
 not a lively one, is an excuse for a jest, that has not 
 yet lost its point. ' Strange,' says he, ' that a manu- 
 facture which charms infancy and soothes old age, 
 should so frequently occasion political disaster.' 
 He gives free play to his wonderful gift of irony, and 
 does not mitigate his stern convictions. Though 
 he proclaims with enthusiasm the fortunate truth 
 that ' the history of England is the history of 
 reaction,' he admits that ' progress and reaction are 
 but words to mystify the million. They mean 
 nothing, they are nothing ; they are phrases, and not 
 facts. All is race.' So he returns to the gospel 
 preached with eloquent sincerity in his novels ; and 
 it may be said of him, as of few men, that, whatever 
 may be the subject of his discourse, he is always 
 honestly and candidly himself. He conceals nothing, 
 he attenuates nothing ; he does not hedge about 
 his statements ; and thus he presents the strongest 
 contrast to the politician who in after years was his 
 fiercest opponent and most dangerous rival. 
 
 His obiter dicta are always ingenious. He is equally 
 wise in the discussion of men and manners. Whether 
 he writes of Hume, who ' never once lost his temper,' 
 or of the aristocracy, which does not ' yield its con- 
 fidence grudgingly,' he finds the right word for the 
 sane thought. And it is Lord George Bentinck's 
 loyal championship of religious equality, his stout 
 advocacy of the admission of Jews to Parliament, that 
 
258 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 excuses his longest and most eloquent digression. 
 This digression is an echo, subdued to a deeper note, 
 of the paean sung to Judaism by Sidonia in the pages 
 of Coningsby. But it is something else than a paean : 
 it is an argument as well, the argument of a Jew ; 
 and, though it was written by one happily unaccus- 
 tomed to the theological jargon of the day, it is 
 closely reasoned and ingeniously conceived. Through- 
 out this chapter Disraeli shows a genuine pride in 
 his race, and exults, like the aristocrat that he was, 
 in what he believed to be his ancient lineage. Having 
 declared that the dispersion of the Jewish people was 
 not a penalty incurred for the commission of a great 
 crime, that such an allegation is * neither historically 
 true nor dogmatically sound,' he applauds the courage 
 and persistence which have survived the worst trials 
 ever put upon a wandering race. ' The Hebrew,' he 
 says, ' is sustained by a sublime religion.' ' The 
 trumpet of Sinai still sounds in his ear, and a Jew 
 is never seen upon the scaffold, unless it be at an 
 auto-da-fe. ,' Strengthened, moreover, by an inherited 
 virtue and energy, and justly proud of his blood, the 
 Hebrew despises the doctrine of human equality. 
 * Thus it will be seen,' says Disraeli, ' that all the 
 tendencies of the Jewish race are conservative. Their 
 bias is to religion, property, and natural aristocracy : 
 and it should be the interest of statesmen that this 
 bias of a great race should be encouraged, and their 
 energies and creative powers enlisted in the cause of 
 existing^society.' 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 259 
 
 Even those, who believe that anti-Semitism is 
 justified, can hardly read so loyal a defence of 
 a once down-trodden people without sympathy. 
 Natural as is the prejudice against the Jews has 
 not Disraeli himself told us ' that all is race ' ? the 
 most bigoted partisan may still be grateful for the 
 genius that Jewry has sent us. For genius transcends 
 the common rules of life and blood. And if it be true 
 that every nation harbours the Jews, which it deserves, 
 England may justly be proud of her forbearance. 
 At least she may profess a grateful admiration for 
 Disraeli, whose greatness lightened the chains of 
 nationality, and made him, despite his race, an 
 English patriot. But, having established the conser- 
 vatism of the Jewish race on a basis of pride and 
 wealth, Disraeli goes a step further, and attempts to 
 prove that Christianity is but perfected Judaism. 
 To profess the whole Jewish faith is, in his eyes, to 
 ' believe in Calvary as well as in Sinai.' If some 
 millions of Hebrews believe only in a part of their 
 religion, that is an accident which he deplores, and 
 which he attributes to the Romans. And thus we 
 arrive at the religious position of Disraeli himself. 
 In his own phrase, he was ' on the side of the Angels.' 
 He was a loyal and devout Jew, who held that the 
 religion of his race was not petrified by Moses. 
 ' Christians may continue to persecute Jews,' said 
 he in his famous peroration, ' and Jews may persist 
 in disbelieving Christians, but who can deny that 
 Jesus of Nazareth, the Incarnate Son of the Most 
 
26o POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 High God, is the eternal glory of the Jewish race ? ' 
 This is a digression, which, when it was written, 
 rightly estranged the most of Disraeli's colleagues, 
 and which to-day cannot be sustained. The real 
 purpose of the book is to set forth the part which 
 Lord George Bentinck played in the drama of the 
 Corn Laws, and Disraeli has performed the delicate 
 and difficult task of writing contemporary history 
 with the quick humour and shrewd observation 
 expected of him. 
 
 II 
 
 In 1845 Sir Robert Peel, the leader of the Pro- 
 tectionist Party in the House of Commons, suddenly 
 changed his opinions. Cobden's prophecy that 
 * three weeks of showery weather when the wheat 
 is in bloom or ripening would repeal the Corn Laws ' 
 was amply fulfilled. The autumn rain,which destroyed 
 much besides, rained away whatever scruples Peel 
 may still have cherished. The failure of the potato 
 crop in Ireland drove him into a panic, and he saw 
 in that panic an excuse for legislation. The symp- 
 toms of his change instantly showed themselves in his 
 letters. ' The accounts of the state of the potato 
 crop in Ireland are becoming very alarming,' he wrote 
 to Sir James Graham in October 1845, and the corre- 
 spondence which followed proves that Sir James 
 Graham was less master of himself even than the 
 Prime Minister. As to Peel's excitement there is 
 no lack of evidence. The Duke of Wellington told 
 
THE CORN LAWS: A GROUP 261 
 
 Sir Edward Knatchbull that c he never saw a man 
 in such a state of alarm. He was hardly himself the 
 potato disease seemed to occupy his whole mind.' 
 But, whatever alarm he may have felt, the illogicality 
 of his ultimate action would have appealed to any one 
 whose sense of humour was keener than Peel's. 
 
 * The Irish potato crop,' said he in effect, * has failed 
 in 1845. Therefore in 1849 I will admit corn free 
 of duty into the ports of Great Britain.' The evil 
 and its remedy had no sort of relation one to the 
 other, except that, as the evil inspired the panic, so 
 by the remedy the panic was allayed. 
 
 But there were other influences working upon the 
 plastic mind of Peel. The Anti-Corn Law League, 
 which had long been ' hiring theatres,' and making its 
 
 * tawdry speeches in tawdry places,' was not likely 
 to lose its opportunity. As has been said, there was 
 nothing better than a bad harvest for the success of 
 its schemes. * The Anti-Corn Law pressure,' wrote 
 Sir James Graham, ' is about to commence, and it 
 will be the most formidable movement in modern 
 times.' Cobden, in truth, knew precisely what was 
 his strength, and how to apply it. With perfect 
 cynicism he acknowledged six months later that 
 there were ' not a hundred men in the Commons, 
 or twenty in the Lords, who at heart are anxious for 
 total repeal,' and in October 1845 there were still 
 fewer. But Peel was coerced by out-of-doors opinion. 
 Like Sir James Graham, he feared the League, and 
 bowed his head in horror before its ' forty shilling 
 
262 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 bludgeons.' And what makes his position the 
 stranger is that he and the League were pursuing 
 opposite aims. If Peel may be said to have had any 
 clear object, it was to help the people. He asked 
 the Irish to tighten their belts until 1849, and then 
 he promised them the boon of cheap corn. Cobden 
 and Villiers, on the other hand, had little interest 
 in the masses. They were the champions of the 
 employers, and their end and aim was to reduce the 
 wages of the workmen. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone has told us that Villiers' argument 
 was as follows : ' Under the present Corn Laws, the 
 trade on which we depend is doomed, for our manu- 
 facturers cannot possibly contend with the manu- 
 facturers of the Continent, if they have to pay wages 
 regulated by the protection price of food, while their 
 rivals pay according to the natural or free trade price.' 
 And Cobden, frank as his colleague, does not hide the 
 truth. He confesses that the working-men have 
 neither attended his meetings nor signed his petitions, 
 that his agitation, in fact, has been ' eminently 
 middle-class.' ' We have carried it on by those 
 means,' says he, ' by which the middle-class usually 
 carries on its movements. We have had our meetings 
 of dissenting ministers ; we have obtained the co- 
 operation of the ladies ; we have resorted to tea- 
 parties, and taken these pacific means for carrying out 
 our views, which mark us rather as a middle-class set 
 of agitators.' This confession is candid enough, and 
 it increases our wonder that Sir Robert Peel, once 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 263 
 
 the leader of ' the gentlemen of England,' should have 
 adopted the policy of Cobden on a false ground, and 
 have ensured its triumph in a hostile House of 
 Commons. 
 
 However, so strong was Peel's panic, that he could 
 no longer endure the responsibility of office, and he 
 resigned with a patient and loyal majority behind 
 him. The many meetings of the Cabinet held in 
 November 1845 arrived at no certain conclusion, and 
 Lord John Russell, whose letter addressed from 
 Edinburgh to his constituents had hastened the un- 
 necessary crisis, was asked to form a Government. 
 Having failed in this enterprise, he could do nothing 
 else than ' hand back the poisoned chalice to Sir 
 Robert,' who thus became Prime Minister for the 
 third time. Bound by all the ties of custom and 
 honour to protect the Corn Laws and to defend the 
 agricultural interest, Peel re-assumed the duties of 
 government with the firm purpose of opposing those 
 who had sent him to Westminster. Yet so complete 
 was his ascendancy, so easy was his management of the 
 ministers, that in the shuffle of opinions he lost but 
 a single colleague Lord Stanley. One other minister 
 Lord Lincoln had a glimmering whither the path 
 of duty led him. In his eyes the ' manly and honour- 
 able course ' would be that ' in the session preceding 
 the dissolution Peel should propound to the country 
 his intention to propose to the new Parliament either 
 a modification of the Corn Law, expressly framed with 
 a view to its abolition within a given time, or a total 
 
264 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 repeal of the law.' He Saw the * manly course ' ; he 
 did not follow it. 
 
 But Sir Robert was far too clever to expose his 
 policy to the hazard of a dissolution. Though he 
 knew as well as Cobden that the country and the 
 House of Commons were both against him, he had 
 made up his mind to carry through the measures of 
 his opponents, and the sound advice of Lord Lincoln 
 fell upon a deaf ear. Indeed, so accurately did Peel 
 gauge the temper of the country that after an ominous 
 defeat in Westminster and a pitiful collapse in North 
 Notts, he resolved not to risk another bye-election, 
 and two Cabinet Ministers Mr. Gladstone and 
 Lord Lincoln remained during his last Parliament 
 without seats in the House of Commons. 
 
 Now Peel's position is perfectly intelligible : he 
 was an expert at the quick change. It is not so easy 
 to explain the conduct of the Duke of Wellington and 
 the rest. The Duke did not pretend that he had been 
 converted to the doctrine of Free Trade ; he claimed 
 it as a sort of virtue in himself that in not deserting 
 Peel he was helping to govern the country. As Lord 
 Stanley said, the Duke ' talked of supporting the 
 Queen's Government in measures of which he dis- 
 approves, as if he were not a member of the Govern- 
 ment to be supported.' ' The principle laid down,' 
 to cite Disraeli's words, ' may be an excellent principle, 
 but it is not a principle of the English Constitution.' 
 But the Duke with some reason believed his presence 
 in the Cabinet essential to the public welfare, and by 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 265 
 
 staying in he hoped that he was keeping Cobden out. 
 Disraeli's attitude was more honest. ' For my part,' 
 said he, ' if we are to have Free Trade, I, who honour 
 genius, prefer that such measures should be proposed 
 by the member for Stockport, rather than by one 
 who by skilful parliamentary manoeuvres has tampered 
 with the generous confidence of a great people and 
 a great party.' Peel, being an egoist, took another 
 view, and, while he adopted Cobden's opinions, he 
 suppressed Cobden's name until the hour of his 
 doubtful victory. ' The Manchester Confederates,' 
 wrote Disraeli, ' seemed to be least in favour with 
 Parliament and the country on the very eve of their 
 triumph.' The Front Bench might have sung with 
 one accord, ' Oh no, we never mention him, His name 
 is never heard ' ; and so sincere was it at first in its 
 suppression of the League and all its works that it 
 wore an air of martyrdom, as who should say, ' We 
 sacrifice our opinions to save the country from 
 Mr. Cobden.' But resignation was soon changed to 
 pride. That which Peel and his friends at first 
 defended as merely expedient, they presently boasted 
 to be virtuous. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Thus the contest was engaged, and the champions 
 on either side fought with a courage and pertinacity 
 worthy the occasion. First and foremost in the 
 attack upon the Corn Laws was Sir Robert Peel, whose 
 position alone made a sudden and complete change of 
 
266 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 opinion possible. He had sat in the House of 
 Commons for five-and-thirty years. He had served 
 the Crown in many offices and under many adminis- 
 trations. A long experience, added to a natural 
 faculty for affairs, had given him a unique place, a 
 unique influence. ' In the Senate,' says Disraeli, 
 ' he was the readiest, easiest, most flexible and adroit 
 of men. He played upon the House of Commons as 
 on an old fiddle.' And he played upon it because his 
 method of speech was perfectly adapted to its purpose. 
 He was neither eloquent nor impassioned. His was 
 not the art of oratory, which aroused sudden en- 
 thusiasms, or swayed vast multitudes. ' His flights,' 
 in Disraeli's words, ' were ponderous ; he soared 
 with the wing of the vulture rather than the plume 
 of the eagle ; and his perorations, when most elaborate, 
 were most unwieldy. In pathos he was quite de- 
 ficient ; when he attempted to touch the tender 
 passions, it was painful. His face became distorted, 
 like that of a woman who wants to cry but cannot 
 succeed. Orators certainly should not shed tears, 
 but there are moments when, as the Italians say, the 
 voice should weep.' Peel's voice never wept ; there 
 was no taint of the histrion in his nature that taint 
 which in later years made his pupil and successor, 
 Mr. Gladstone, a danger to the State. 
 
 On the other hand, his style was always clear, logical, 
 and persuasive. His command of facts was as rare 
 as his industry, and years of practice had made his 
 talent for speaking ' the most available that has ever 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 267 
 
 been brought to bear upon the House of Commons.' 
 Thus by the exercise of useful rather than brilliant 
 gifts, he had become by far the greatest political force 
 of his time. It had been his good fortune to rally, 
 even to recreate, the Tory Party, and for many years 
 he led the English aristocracy with a success which 
 was never repeated save by Disraeli. One would not 
 have thought that there was a strong bond of sym- 
 pathy between the aristocracy and Sir Robert Peel, 
 yet Disraeli tells us it was complete. ' An aristocracy,' 
 he says, in a passage already cited, and with a pre- 
 science of his own career, ' hesitates before it yields its 
 confidence, but it never does so grudgingly ' ; and Peel 
 could not complain that his parliamentary followers 
 lacked either troth or cordiality. They followed him 
 wherever he led them in blind obedience, and he 
 accepted their allegiance without question, as a tribute 
 justly paid to his masterful intelligence. In West- 
 minster, then, his supremacy was undisputed. He 
 managed the assembly, which registered his decrees, 
 with perfect tact and dignity, and he deserved the 
 compliment paid him by the fiercest of his opponents, 
 that he was * the greatest member of Parliament that 
 ever lived.' 
 
 But Peel's ascendancy was bounded by the walls of 
 the House of Commons. A frigid and unsympathetic 
 manner destroyed whatever influence he might have 
 exercised in the world outside. If we may believe 
 Greville, he had ' no popular and ingratiating qualities, 
 and few intimate friends.' It was not his business to 
 
268 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 argue with his colleagues or convince his party, but to 
 impose his views upon the House, and through the 
 House upon the country. ' The right honourable 
 Baronet's horror of slavery,' exclaimed Disraeli in an 
 immortal passage, * extends to every place, except to 
 the benches behind him. There the gang is still 
 assembled, and there the thong of the whip still 
 sounds.' And it was not only his avowed opponents 
 who condemned his autocratic temper. He strained 
 the forbearance of his loyal supporters to breaking 
 point. Sir Edward Knatchbull, 1 a leader of the 
 Country Party and the staunchest of Tories, has left 
 a character of Peel, which in every point is an unde- 
 signed confirmation of Disraeli. The character was 
 sketched in his Political Journal some three years 
 before the repeal of the Corn Laws, and was thus 
 unbiased by the violent passions aroused by the 
 defection of 1846. 
 
 ' I never in my time,' wrote Sir Edward, ' saw a 
 minister who possessed more absolute power in the 
 House of Commons than Peel. His influence and 
 power are most extraordinary. In the House he is 
 everything but there his power ceases. If he was 
 the same in Council, and in all his intercourse with 
 mankind, he would exceed anything this country, or 
 perhaps any other, ever saw, but I fear he is not equal 
 
 1 The extracts here given from Sir Edward Knatchbull's 
 Political Journal are printed for the first time, and my thanks are 
 due to Lord Brabourne, who has permitted me to make use of a 
 document as valuable as it is sincere. 
 
THE CORN LAWS: A GROUP 269 
 
 to the situation he fills, and to the times in which he 
 lives. By his power in the House of Commons alone 
 does he keep his party together. Out of the House 
 his conduct is well calculated to destroy it. Cold 
 and uncourteous to every one even to his colleagues 
 in office, who appear to me to be afraid to differ from 
 him at times in manner he is almost insolent. It 
 will be found when he dies that no minister ever 
 possessed fewer friends, or would be personally less 
 lamented. In his policy he is deficient in vigour and 
 in courage. He rather looks too much to popularity, 
 and if any great emergency were to arise ... I feel 
 that Peel would be found wanting.' Sir Edward's 
 sketch of Peel does not merely justify his own distrust 
 and consequent retirement from politics ; it explains 
 Peel's sudden success in the conversion of his Cabinet, 
 and his equally sudden defeat in what seemed the 
 moment of victory. 
 
 Peel's influence gained in intensity from its very 
 narrowness. He exacted obedience, and he got it. 
 So stern a tyrant was he that he thought it a patent 
 disloyalty if his party did not follow him in all 
 the tortuous twists and turns of a changing policy. 
 To-day it was treachery to support Free Trade ; to- 
 morrow none but a traitor dare say a word in favour 
 of Protection. In truth, Peel deemed himself far 
 superior to the principles of his party. He de- 
 manded allegiance for himself alone, and he would, 
 if he could, have forbidden his supporters the right of 
 private judgment. So stoutly convinced was he of his 
 
270 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 supremacy, that he believed he would encounter no 
 other than a fat-cattle opposition, and when a solid 
 phalanx of Tories resolved to secede, he regarded 
 their secession as a perfidy. ' I am fighting a desper- 
 ate battle here,' he wrote to Hardinge in 1846 ; ' shall 
 probably drive my opponents over the Sutlej ; but 
 what is to come afterwards I know not.' Hardinge 
 was fighting his country's foes ; Peel was fighting 
 against his friends of yesterday ; so that his Sutlej 
 was a very different river from that which Hardinge 
 had recently crossed. And Peel was implacable. 
 He put an end to a friendship with Croker, which 
 had lasted for more than thirty years, because Croker 
 did not change his views on the same day and in the 
 same direction as himself, and it is not difficult to say 
 which of the two men behaved with the truer faith- 
 fulness and the finer courtesy. 1 And as he treated 
 Croker, so most unreasonably he treated all those who 
 dared to preserve their ancient opinions. If Croker 
 and his friends were ' convinced that the Corn Laws 
 were essential,' as Greville said, ' not merely to the 
 prosperity, but to the existence of the landed interest,' 
 Peel had been mainly instrumental in confirming this 
 conviction, and it was not for him to regard a convic- 
 tion, which he had confirmed, as a rock of offence. 
 
 Moreover, Peel had already sacrificed his party 
 once, and it was a monstrous indiscretion to repeat 
 
 1 The last letters exchanged between Peel and Croker, printed 
 in the Croker Correspondence (vol. iii. 96-97), leave no doubt as 
 to Croker' s loyal conduct and Peel's unjust resentment. 
 
THE CORN LAWS: A GROUP 271 
 
 the manoeuvre. What is done once may be an acci- 
 dent ; done twice, it wears the sad appearance of a 
 habit. Sir Robert was long an energetic and con- 
 sistent enemy to Catholic Emancipation. He resisted 
 the arguments of colleagues and opponents alike. 
 Not even the persuasive eloquence of Canning availed 
 to move him. Nor had he formed his judgment 
 hastily and without experience. He had been Chief 
 Secretary in Ireland ; he was familiar with the facts 
 and prejudices of either side. And then, having re- 
 mained upright for some seventeen years, he threw a 
 political somersault, turned his head in the air, and 
 landed on his feet a staunch supporter of the Catholic 
 claims. What argument and reason could not achieve 
 was achieved in a moment by Canning's death and 
 the Clare Election. For Peel, being first minister 
 of the Crown, might now claim the glory of all his 
 actions, and O'Connell's majority spoke with an 
 eloquence denied to Canning. But the minister 
 cannot be extricated from both horns of the dilemma. 
 Either his sincerity or his prudence was at fault. It was 
 he who had changed, not the situation ; and, leaving 
 out of the question the justice of the case, his party 
 had a perfect right to resent what seemed a betrayal. 
 Sir Edward Knatchbull declared that Sir Robert Peel 
 was ' deficient in vigour and courage.' Disraeli, with 
 a keener subtlety, noted that he was without imagi- 
 nation and without the creative faculty. In effect 
 the two critics agree. To want imagination is, as 
 Disraeli said, to want prescience ; to want prescience 
 
272 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 is to want vigour. So Peel, not knowing what was to 
 come, supinely accepted the views of his opponents, 
 and made of necessity an ostentatious virtue. To 
 a more energetic statesman there would have been 
 no necessity. He would have fought for his own 
 cause to the last ditch. Peel surrendered at the 
 lightest hint of panic, and accused of treachery all 
 those who did not throw down their arms with him. 
 
 But, if he lacked the creative faculty, he had, as 
 Disraeli pointed out, ' a dangerous sympathy with 
 the creations of others.' He was always learning, 
 absorbing, appropriating, and so fierce was his egoism 
 that whatever he appropriated he deemed his own 
 exclusive possession. He followed many leaders ; 
 he picked up his policies in many corners. * In his 
 sallet days,' says Disraeli, ' it was Mr. Homer or Sir 
 Samuel Romilly ; in later and more important periods 
 it was the Duke of Wellington, the King of the French, 
 Mr. Jones Loyd some others and finally, Mr. 
 Cobden.' How, then, could he lead his party with 
 courage, when he knew not what lesson he would 
 learn on the morrow, or what new influence was 
 destined to turn his mind or shape his opinion ? 
 
 After his defeat in 1846 he made a bold attempt 
 to prove that he had been a consistent Free Trader 
 since 1841. And it is not surprising that this attempt 
 to throw the responsibility of defection upon his 
 Cabinet should have failed. If ever a statesman were 
 pledged to a policy, Peel was pledged to the protec- 
 tion of the agricultural interest. ' I believe that the 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 273 
 
 abolition of the Corn Laws,' said he in 1844, ' would 
 produce great confusion and distress ' ; and again, 
 ' I can say with truth I have not contemplated and 
 do not contemplate an alteration in the present Corn 
 Laws.' Politicians have short memories ; and not 
 merely did Peel contemplate in 1845 the change that 
 he had never contemplated in 1844, but in 1848, after 
 the episode was closed, he asserted in a certain letter 
 that the measures taken by his Cabinet in 1842 were 
 preparatory to and intended to lead up to the Repeal 
 of the Corn Laws. 
 
 To this statement Sir Edward Knatchbull, in the 
 Journal from which I have already quoted, gives a 
 plain denial. * I cannot hesitate to say,' he writes, 
 * that as far as my recollection goes, it is entirely in- 
 consistent with the truth. Whether my opinions 
 have been right or wrong, wise or unwise, they have 
 been deliberately formed, and acted upon with no 
 other view than the public good. But I have always 
 been in favour of the Corn Laws, in favour of pro- 
 tection to native industry, and opposed to what is 
 called Free Trade. I never could then, in Cabinet 
 in 1842, have consented to the measures, on which 
 every member of the Cabinet, except that poor, silly, 
 vain, and now ruined man, the Duke of Buckingham, 
 entirely agreed, if they had been proposed with a view 
 to the later measures of 1845. On this point my 
 recollection is quite at variance with the assertion of 
 Sir Robert Peel ; and I am quite certain that I am 
 correct. To satisfy my mind, I have personally com- 
 
 s 
 
274 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 municated with Lord Stanley, who admits at once 
 that my statement of the case is correct ; with Lord 
 Lyndhurst, whose recollection agrees with mine ; 
 with the Duke of Wellington, who agrees. I had a 
 long conversation with him. We felt it to be a very 
 awkward question. The Duke said, that possibly we 
 might both of us be called upon publicly to express 
 our opinion on the matter. " You and I both know 
 how the case is. All I shall say is that my recollection 
 does not quite enable me to agree in the accuracy of 
 the statement contained in that letter, and I advise 
 you to say the same and no more." I have also seen 
 Lord Hardinge since his return from India. He de- 
 clared to me, that no such measures as those which 
 were proposed in 1845, were spoken of or contem- 
 plated by the Cabinet in 1842. ... If in 1842 Peel 
 had hinted at any measures similar to those proposed 
 in 1846, or if he had been suspected of entertaining 
 any such opinions, his Cabinet I know would have 
 fallen to pieces.' 
 
 Thus the evidence against Peel is overwhelming 
 and irrefutable. Sir Edward Knatchbull is a sufficient 
 witness, and his colleagues are unanimous in support. 
 ' Either in 1842, and previously, Sir Robert was 
 acting a deceitful part, or his mind was of that unstable, 
 vacillating cast, as altogether to disqualify him for the 
 position he held, as first minister of his country.' 
 That is the conclusion, which cannot be evaded, and 
 it is not very creditable to ' the greatest member of 
 Parliament that ever lived.' 
 
THE CORN LAWS: A GROUP 275 
 
 IV 
 
 And all the while behind Peel there loomed the 
 figure of Richard Cobden. Peel was indeed no more 
 than the shadow thrown by the impassioned Free 
 Trader. Yet the two men were united by no bond 
 of sympathy or friendship. Hitherto nothing had 
 passed between them save hard words and bitter 
 recriminations. If Cobden distrusted Peel, the dry, 
 cold mind of Peel was never stirred by Cobden's hot- 
 gospelling. On the one hand was a minister eager 
 to come under a new influence. On the other was 
 an agitator, willing for the moment to suppress 
 himself, if only his measures were carried. What 
 manner of man was it, then, whose influence in the 
 theatre and lecture hall equalled that which Sir Robert 
 wielded within the walls of the House of Commons ? 
 
 Sincere, indefatigable, and narrow-minded, a man of 
 limited and pertinacious brain, who knew what he 
 wanted, and meant to get it, though he did not realise 
 its results such was Richard Cobden. He was, 
 moreover, an optimist, who believed devoutly in the 
 perfectibility of man, and who was sanguine enough 
 to be quite certain that he was himself incapable of 
 error. So sure was he of his own position that in his 
 eyes his opponents were either fools or knaves. He 
 had a faith in the finality of his scheme which was 
 almost touching, and since the future held as few 
 secrets for him as the present, he professed to know, 
 not only the cause of all existing evil, but its infallible 
 
276 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 remedy. Therefore he did not hesitate to convert 
 what should have been a mere matter of expediency 
 into a sort of religious belief. Protesting all the 
 while that he was a business man, he declared that 
 Free Trade was a panacea for all the evils to which 
 humankind is subject. ' Free Trade ! what is it ? ' 
 he asked. ' Why, breaking down the barriers that 
 separate nations ; those barriers, behind which nestle 
 the feelings of pride, revenge, hatred, and jealousy, 
 which every now and then burst their bounds, and 
 deluge whole countries with blood.' 
 
 Now, of course, there is no policy which could 
 gratify these loose, if noble, sentiments, and the 
 frequent recurrence in his speeches of such passages 
 as this is proof enough that Cobden did not take a 
 sternly practical view of his duties. Yet in one respect 
 he was sternly practical : he had a very shrewd notion 
 of what would profit him and his class. He entered 
 upon the struggle, not to benefit the whole com- 
 munity, but to enrich the manufacturers, of whom 
 none was more zealous than himself. If he could he 
 would have replaced the domination of the great 
 landowners, which in his eyes was an infamy, by the 
 far more disastrous domination of the capitalist. In 
 other words, he was supporting that new power 
 without responsibility which came into being in the 
 early years of the nineteenth century. As Enoch 
 Craggs says in Endymion : ' Master Thornberry is 
 the most inveterate capitalist of the whole lot, and 
 I always say, though they keep aloof from him at 
 
THE CORN LAWS: A GROUP 277 
 
 present, they will all be sticking to his skirts before 
 long. Master Thornberry is against the capitalist in 
 land ; but there are other capitalists nearer home, 
 and I know more about them.' And Enoch Craggs 
 proceeded to declare that he would ' sooner be ruled 
 by gentlemen of estate, who have been long among 
 us, than by persons who build big mills, who come 
 from God knows where, and when they have worked 
 their millions out of our flesh and bone, go God knows 
 where.' 
 
 Cobden, who sat for Job Thornberry's portrait, 
 did not share the scruples of Enoch Craggs. He 
 believed that there was something sacred in profitable 
 industry, that a mill-lord was invariably a nobler 
 person than a landlord, that the dukes of England 
 were criminals when they were not fools. And he 
 had no fear of them. ' If the Duke of Richmond,' 
 said he in a passage which clearly reveals his pre- 
 judice, * sets up the Noodles and Doodles of the 
 aristocracy, why, before we have done with them, 
 they shall be as insignificant and more contemptible 
 than the round-frocked peasantry upon his Grace's 
 estate.' In spite of rhetoric, then, Cobden's agitation 
 was conducted in the interests of a class. To buy in 
 the cheapest market and sell in the dearest this was 
 his maxim : a maxim, said he, agreeable to the highest 
 behests of Christianity, a mere paraphrase of the 
 Christian doctrine, ' Do to all men as ye would they 
 should do unto you.' 
 
 But it is when we consider the prophecies of Cobden 
 
278 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 that we discover most clearly the recklessness of his 
 argument. He was certain that if England adopted 
 the principles of Free Trade, the rest of the world 
 would instantly follow her example. On this point 
 he had no doubt whatever. He reiterates his pro- 
 phecy with a confident assurance, which to-day 
 appears ridiculous. ' We have a principle estab- 
 lished now,' said he in 1846, ' which is eternal in its 
 truth, and universal in its application, and must be 
 applied in all nations, and throughout all times, and 
 applied not simply to commerce, but to every item 
 in the tariffs of the world ; and if we are not mistaken 
 in thinking that our principles are true, be assured 
 that those results will follow, and at no very distant 
 date.' No politician ever delivered himself more 
 tightly bound hand and foot than did Cobden in 
 this astounding pronouncement. Many years have 
 passed, and ' those results ' have not followed. The 
 inference, therefore, is clear : Cobden and his fellows 
 were very much mistaken in thinking that their 
 principles were true ; and we are still asked to put 
 our faith in Free Trade on the mere word of an 
 agitator. 
 
 Again and again did Cobden repeat this vain boast. 
 ' I believe,' he exclaimed on another occasion, ' that 
 if you abolish the Corn Law honestly and adopt Free 
 Trade in its simplicity, there will not be a tariff in 
 Europe that will not be changed in less than five 
 years to follow your example.' And, vainest hope of 
 all, it was to America that he looked for the speediest 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 279 
 
 adoption of his opinions. ' Well,' he declared after 
 his cheerful fashion in 1846, ' there is one other 
 quarter in which we have seen the progress of sound 
 principles I allude to America ' ; and the America 
 to which he alluded with this reckless certainty has 
 resolutely supplied us with corn, and excluded our 
 manufactures by means of a tariff-wall. 
 
 Confident as he was that his example would be 
 followed, he was yet more confident that repeal would 
 not throw the land out of cultivation. ' Throw the 
 land out of cultivation by removing the Corn Law : 
 Who say that ? The worst farmers in the country 
 the landlords, rather, of the worst-farmed land.' 
 Those prophets who dared to hint that the repeal 
 of the Corn Laws would restrict agriculture were 
 denounced by Cobden as ' selfish, ignorant beings.' 
 In the same spirit he boldly asserted that, while the 
 landowners ' had nothing pecuniarily, had nothing 
 ultimately to fear from Free Trade in corn,' if the 
 principles of Free Trade were fairly carried out, * they 
 would give just as much stimulus to the demand for 
 labour in the agricultural as in the manufacturing 
 districts.' In brief, the bagman's millennium was to 
 be an age of gold for everybody ; wages would rise, 
 the landowners would increase their wealth, and, 
 above all, the tenant-farmers of England would reap 
 an enormous benefit. * I believe,' said Cobden, 
 * when the future historian comes to write the history 
 of agriculture, he will have to state in such a year that 
 there was a stringent corn law passed for the pro- 
 
280 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 tection of agriculture. From that time agriculture 
 slumbered in England, and it was not until, by the 
 aid of the Anti-Corn Law League, the Corn Law 
 was utterly abolished, that agriculture sprang up to 
 the full vigour of existence in England to become 
 what it now is, like our manufactures, unrivalled in 
 the world.' 
 
 So vain a pronouncement as this would be ludicrous 
 if it were not tragic. But in Cobden's eyes repeal 
 had no drawback. The importation of foreign corn 
 would not, he was sure, lessen the sale of home-grown 
 corn by a single bushel. With free commerce the 
 energies of the people would be so vast that they 
 would consume corn and provisions brought from 
 abroad faster than the quantity imported could in- 
 crease. And while we were to profit by throwing 
 open our ports to the food of all the world, we should 
 still preserve our independence intact. ' Depend- 
 ence on foreigners ! ' he exclaimed in the House of 
 Commons ; ' who in the world could have supposed 
 that that long-buried ghost would come again to light.' 
 In fact, the mere thought that Free Trade could inflict 
 a hardship upon any single Englishman was met by 
 Cobden with contemptuous derision. Even though 
 Russia and America deluged our country with corn, 
 the value of land could not possibly diminish. The 
 value of silks, of cottons, or of woollens might be 
 affected by competition ; but Cobden was perfectly 
 assured that the taste for land, inherent in human- 
 kind, would never let its value decrease a shilling an 
 
THE CORN LAWS: A GROUP 281 
 
 acre. And while the value of our English acres would, 
 in his fond imagination, never diminish, America 
 would be diverted by the prospect of supplying us 
 with corn from the development of her own manu- 
 factures. She would be content to dig and delve; she 
 would devote her energies to a beneficent agriculture, 
 and yet, by some miraculous process, would not pre- 
 vent the sale of a single quarter grown in England. 
 
 So the Corn Laws were repealed, and, as every one 
 knows, all Cobden's predictions were falsified. He 
 was not one to be daunted by the failure of his hopes. 
 Like most Radicals, he lived in a fool's paradise where 
 facts are of no account, and where, if principles prove 
 fallacious, it is not the fault of the optimist who 
 frames them, but of some vile conspirator against 
 the common good. For many years Cobden had 
 declared that repeal would increase the wages of the 
 labouring class ; nor was he abashed when he wit- 
 nessed their speedy fall. It was enough for him to 
 point out that the cost of living had decreased a little 
 more than wages, and he was wholly indifferent to 
 the fact that this argumentative jugglery was what 
 he had been denouncing in his speeches for ten years. 
 And he had a remedy ready. He told the landlords 
 that they must abolish battue-shooting, and, to 
 confront the depression of agriculture, which he had 
 said would never be depressed, he urged the labourers 
 ' to set gins and snares upon their allotments and in 
 their gardens to catch all the hares and rabbits they 
 could, and when they caught them, to be sure to put 
 
282 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 them in their own pots and eat them themselves.' 
 This is a sad descent from the dreams of eternal peace, 
 the visions of disbanded armies and of swords beaten 
 into ploughshares, which were wont to decorate the 
 agitator's harangues. The demagogue who once saw 
 in the principle of Free Trade ' that which will act 
 on the moral world .as the principle of gravitation 
 in the universe ' was three years later forced to sub- 
 stitute for his multi-coloured visions a humble policy 
 of gins, snares, and boiled rabbits. 
 
 Now, if politics be anything better than a gamble, 
 the failure of Cobden's predictions should have shaken 
 his own opinion, and given a sharp warning to his 
 countrymen. No disaster could dim the Free 
 Trader's self-satisfaction. He had formulated a 
 doctrine which in his eye was wholly independent of 
 fact, a principle of moral gravitation, immovable by 
 events. And the perfect trust, which he professed in 
 his own creed, has been reflected ever since in the 
 trust of others, to whom Cobden is but a name, and 
 who have never been at the trouble to test his state- 
 ments. Nor did Cobden limit his programme to 
 repeal he held firm and definite opinions on all 
 matters of high politics ; and it is well that those 
 who cherish a blind faith in him should realise whither 
 his leadership would have carried them. In the first 
 place, he was a stalwart opponent of the army and 
 navy. He held that the motto, si vis -pacem, helium 
 para, was a monstrous perversion of the truth ; and, if 
 he did not see an immediate return for money spent, 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 283 
 
 he was convinced that the enterprise was bad. ' Buy 
 in the cheapest market, sell in the dearest ' this 
 Christian maxim was sufficient for him, and it made 
 no allowance for national dignity or a policy of empire. 
 The brain which refused to look beyond a monthly 
 balance-sheet could not take a large view, and assuredly 
 Cobden saw no empire beyond Manchester, no policy 
 beyond a ' full breeches pocket.' 
 
 Though by his own action England became de- 
 pendent upon foreign countries for her supply of food, 
 he saw no reason why a navy should be built to keep 
 open the seas. When he first travelled abroad he 
 was struck with what he thought the extravagance 
 of the navy. ' The cost of the Mediterranean 
 Squadron,' said he, with a thought of his own com- 
 merce, ' in proportion to the amount of trade it was 
 employed to protect, was as though a merchant should 
 find that his traveller's expenses for escort were to 
 amount to 6s. 8d. in the pound on his sales.' This 
 might be true enough if hostile countries stood to 
 one another merely in the relation of buyers and 
 sellers ; and if Cobden had had his way, we should 
 long ago have lost any trade of our own that was 
 worth protecting. Nevertheless, so candidly alien 
 were his sympathies that he believed disarmament 
 the natural corollary of Free Trade. When Sir 
 Robert Peel had at last passed his famous measure, 
 Bastiat, a French economist and Cobden's friend, 
 was gravely disappointed. It was not enough that 
 the markets of England were thrown wide open to 
 
284 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 French commerce. * What you have to show France 
 above all else,' said Bastiat in an astounding letter, 
 ' is that freedom of exchange will cause the disappear- 
 ance of those military perils which France apprehends. 
 England ought seriously to disarm.' It would be 
 hard indeed to surpass the pedant naivete of this 
 French Free Trader. It was not enough that Eng- 
 land should surrender her markets she must sur- 
 render herself as well, or France would not believe in 
 her sincerity ! 
 
 And, while the policy which we should have pur- 
 sued towards foreign countries demanded our dis- 
 armament, so also did our colonial policy. Cobden 
 denied that our dependencies oversea needed any 
 protection. Doubtless he would have let our colonies 
 go, in the same spirit in which he would have re- 
 nounced India, or ' thanked his stars that America had 
 broke loose.' He indignantly repudiated the argument 
 that ships of war were necessary to protect our colonial 
 trade, and he had so little knowledge of mankind as 
 to believe that wealth and commerce were the real 
 test of a nation's power in the eyes of its enemies. 
 Which is to say that a traveller is safest from a high- 
 wayman when he carries most money in his pocket. 
 The disarmament which he advocated was, of course, 
 one-sided, like his free trade ; but happily the country 
 which followed him innocently in quest of that cost- 
 liest commodity, cheap food, was not prepared to 
 disband its army and break up its ships at the bidding 
 of a rival. 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 285 
 
 In truth, it was not his business to reason or to 
 doubt. His sanguine mind pictured the whole world 
 one vast Manchester, in which ' the stream of com- 
 modities was allowed to flow freely,' in which the 
 manufacturers, the true salt of the earth, might collect 
 mountains of gold, high beyond the dreams of avarice. 
 Had this famous ideal of ledger and balance-sheet 
 been realised, the working-man would have had as 
 short a shrift as the landowner. Now, when Cobden 
 wished to create a prejudice against the great land- 
 lords of England, he declared that high rents and 
 uncertain tenure were driving the farmers to emigrate, 
 and thus depriving the country of its noblest citizens. 
 What was sauce for the goose was not sauce for the 
 gander. While he thought that the farmer needed a 
 practical sympathy, he held that the millowner and 
 his workmen should be left to fight it out. He hated 
 Factory Acts as bitterly as he hated trades-unions. 
 He would have permitted nothing to come between 
 the manufacturer and his profit. If it were necessary 
 to restrict the hours of labour, the workmen should 
 rely, not upon Parliament, but upon their own efforts. 
 Combination being manifestly intolerable, the remedy 
 of each man was plain : he should save 20 and 
 emigrate to America. In other words, what was 
 tyranny in a landowner was enterprise in a manu- 
 facturer. And those eager Radicals who believe that 
 the teaching of Cobden is infallible would do well to 
 remember his famous pronouncement upon work- 
 men's combinations. * Depend upon it,' said he, 
 
286 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 in the true accent of Manchester, * nothing can be 
 got by fraternising with trades-unions. They are 
 founded upon principles of brutal tyranny and 
 monopoly. I would rather live under a Dey of 
 Algiers than a Trade Committee.' 
 
 In the war of wits, which was waged in the early 
 months of 1846, Peel and Cobden met more than 
 their match, and the opposition which they encoun- 
 tered was at once unexpected and well deserved. 
 If Cobden's sincerity was less doubtful than his 
 wisdom, Peel showed himself a politician rather than 
 a statesman, and his devious past exposed him 
 nakedly to the piercing shafts of his adversaries. His 
 opponents, moreover, were marshalled by two leaders 
 whose zeal was equal to their discretion, and whose 
 honesty of purpose was as conspicuous as their 
 prowess in debate. And of these one was the English 
 worthy, whose life was afterwards written by Disraeli, 
 ' the self-denying spirit, scorning rest,' who lived for 
 a cause, and wore himself out in the service of his 
 country. 
 
 When Lord George Bentinck rose to address the 
 House on the 27th of February 1846, he began a career 
 unparalleled in the history of our Parliament. Though 
 in his youth he had served his kinsman, George 
 Canning, in the post of secretary, though for eighteen 
 years he had sat at Westminster as the representative 
 of King's Lynn, he had hitherto taken little interest, 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 287 
 
 and no part, in the debates of the Commons. Nor 
 was the hour of his speech less remarkable than the 
 fact that he should have spoken at all. He stood up 
 at twelve o'clock to face a House already jaded by some 
 days of debate, and he spared his hearers no detail 
 of an elaborately studied case. With an unsuspected 
 mastery he discussed the commerce of the country, 
 the trade in silk and wool, the price of corn and 
 cattle, and the many questions whose solution 
 establishes a policy, if they fatigue an audience of tired 
 legislators. But Lord George did not hesitate. 
 ' Diffident but determined,' he pursued his argument 
 to the bitter end. With that facility of managing 
 figures which always distinguished him, he showed, at 
 two o'clock in the morning, how many hundredweight 
 of guano would produce an extra quarter of wheat, 
 and nicely calculated into how many pounds of 
 mutton a ton of swedes might be converted. Never, 
 until his peroration, did he leave the arid field of reality, 
 and stately as his peroration was there was only one 
 phrase, in which he pictures the aristocracy of Eng- 
 land * proud in the chastity of its honour,' that 
 lingers in our memory. And by this single speech, 
 Lord George Bentinck was changed from * the Lord 
 Paramount of the Turf ' to a serious politician ; by 
 this single speech he proved that there was one man 
 left to rally the broken forces of the Tories, and to 
 lead at least a single campaign against the minister 
 who had betrayed them. 
 
 His aspect and antecedents, moreover, alike afforded 
 
288 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 a contrast to the high seriousness wherewith he 
 pleaded the cause of Protection. A dandy after the 
 manner of D'Orsay, he displayed in his attire and 
 bearing something of the * majestic frivolity ' which 
 distinguished his class. His vest was rolled back 
 with as magnificent a sweep as that affected by his 
 great exemplar ; his cravats, the envy of his contem- 
 poraries, rivalled those works of art which conferred 
 imperishable fame upon George Brummell, and 
 though, as we are told by an admirer, they cost a 
 guinea apiece, he never wore the same twice. Such 
 a fashion was perfectly adapted to the passion of his 
 early life ; for until 1846 politics had been but an 
 interlude in his pursuit of sport. He had attended 
 the House as though by accident, and more than once 
 he had gone into the lobby with the pink of the 
 hunting-field concealed by a greatcoat of sombre hue. 
 Meanwhile, if he was little known at Westminster, 
 his sway upon the turf was undisputed. For twenty 
 years he had bred horses and backed them. He 
 easily outstripped the most reckless of his contem- 
 poraries both in the magnificence of his stables and 
 the splendour of his wagers. On more than one 
 occasion he had stood to win 150,000, and yet he 
 was always something better than a mere gambler. 
 It pleased him to prove his confidence in the horses 
 he bred, and he was a sportsman fine enough to 
 subordinate his gain to his pride. He liked to win, 
 not that he valued the money, but because money 
 was * the test and trophy of success.' As Greville 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 289 
 
 says, ' he counted the thousands he won after a great 
 race as a general would count his prisoners and his 
 cannon after a great victory.' l And his courage was 
 equal to his generosity. No disaster availed to turn 
 his purpose, and however vast was the hazard, he 
 never betrayed the smallest flutter of excitement. 
 
 Moreover, with the pertinacity and grasp of facts 
 which he presently turned to excellent account in 
 another field, he permitted no detail of the racecourse 
 to escape him. He watched over his stables at 
 Goodwood with a tireless and intelligent zeal. Every- 
 thing which concerned the diet and care of his horses 
 was of the highest interest to him. The letters which 
 he addressed to his trainer are so long and serious 
 that they are comparable only to state papers, and 
 they are a complete explanation of the eager policy 
 which he pursued upon the turf. Indeed, Lord 
 George proved himself a statesman as well as a 
 gambler so long as his colours were carried to victory, 
 and, when at last he threw himself into the cock-pit 
 of politics, he began the new fight strengthened by 
 a vast experience gained in the old. On the turf his 
 triumphs had been great. In 1845, for instance, he 
 
 1 On this point Greville and Disraeli are in perfect agreement, 
 and, strangely enough, they use the same phrase. To whom 
 the phrase belongs I do not know. Greville's character of 
 Lord George Bentinck purports to have been written before 
 Disraeli's, and Greville declares that he read a part of his sketch 
 to Disraeli. But, of course, Disraeli's biography was published 
 many years before Greville's death, and it is not easy to award 
 the credit of an admirable judgment. 
 
 T 
 
290 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 had won eighty-two races, and his profit in stakes 
 alone amounted to ^31,502 ; and he had gained a 
 keen knowledge of the world in addition to the money. 
 ' I don't pretend to know much,' said he, * but I can 
 judge men and horses ' ; and it was this judgment, 
 combined with unwearied industry and a keen sense 
 of honour, which enabled him after a few months' 
 trial to lead a party in the House of Commons. 
 
 None knew better than he that politics were not 
 his natural vocation, and nothing less than a crisis 
 would have dragged him from his retirement ; but 
 he could not look on with equanimity while his prin- 
 ciples were sacrificed and his party betrayed. For 
 a second time, as has been said, Peel had surrendered 
 his friends to his ambition ; and he had made the 
 surrender with so fine an adroitness, he had hood- 
 winked Parliament with so masterful a skill, that it 
 seemed as if he would repeal the Corn Laws without 
 opposition. It was then that Lord George Bentinck, 
 goaded by a sense of duty, * came out like a lion forced 
 from his lair.' His opposition to the Manchester 
 School was sincere and well grounded. Peel's sudden 
 desertion of the party which had placed him in power 
 was repugnant alike to Bentinck's sense of justice 
 and feeling of sport. On the one hand, he held that 
 it would have been easier ' to contend against Free 
 Trade when completely and openly avowed, than 
 when brought forward by one who had obtained 
 power by professing his hostility to it.' On the other 
 hand, he resented with all his sportsman's soul the 
 
THE CORN LAWS: A GROUP 291 
 
 suspicion of foul play. When Rogers, his jockey, 
 lost a race for his own profit, Lord George was not 
 happy until he proved the rider's guilt to the Jockey 
 Club and got him disqualified. And he looked upon 
 Peel as he looked upon Rogers. ' I keep horses in 
 three counties,' said Lord George once to a Cobdenite, 
 * and they tell me that I shall save fifteen hundred 
 a year by Free Trade. I don't care for that. What 
 I cannot bear is being sold.' 
 
 He was inspired also by a deeper feeling than 
 sportsmanship and the dislike of being sold. He 
 honourably and devoutly believed that Free Trade 
 would be the ruin not only of his class but of his 
 country. His opinions were as strong and as wise as 
 Disraeli's own. He was strenuously opposed to the 
 Manchester School because he knew that, when once 
 its tenets were accepted, our territorial constitution 
 would be subverted, our freedom impaired, an irre- 
 parable injury done to Ireland, and our colonial 
 empire weakened to dissolution. Unlike his oppon- 
 ents, he possessed the real gift of prophecy which 
 comes of a knowing imagination. He foresaw at the 
 very outset the danger incurred by our colonies ; he 
 realised that one of the inevitable results of Free Trade 
 would be to alienate the affection of Canada ; and, 
 resolved to protect British capital wherever it might 
 be invested, he fought against the measures of Peel, 
 which should have been called the measures of 
 Cobden, with all the energy and force of an indomi- 
 table temper. 
 
292 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Henceforth unto the day of his death he was Peel's 
 bitterest opponent. He was at the House early and 
 late. He worked harder than a slave, and lived like 
 an anchorite. He ate no lunch, and dined at two in 
 the morning. He overcame his natural defects of 
 speech and gesture with a determined consciousness 
 of his own shortcomings, and he atoned for a belated 
 education by a superhuman industry. ' Virtually 
 an uneducated man,' he wrote to Croker in 1847 ; 
 ' never intended or attracted by taste for political life 
 ... I am well aware of my own incapacity properly 
 to fill the station I have been thrust into.' A know- 
 ledge of incapacity is the first step towards its removal, 
 and Lord George was presently pushed by sheer 
 capacity into the leadership of a broken party. 
 
 When he exposed the fraud of Running Rein, the 
 attorney who conducted the case declared that there 
 was ' no sum he would not give to secure the pro- 
 fessional assistance of such a coadjutor.' And Ben- 
 tinck treated the sophistries of Peel with the same 
 perseverance and ingenuity wherewith he baffled the 
 supporters of Running Rein. He got up his case 
 with a skill and energy that are beyond admiration. 
 His speeches were incomparably superior in depth 
 and compass to any others delivered during the cam- 
 paign. He spared no trouble in amassing infor- 
 mation. He was, so to say, a whole commission in 
 himself. In his speeches he continually mentions a 
 mysterious gentleman * who had waited on him that 
 morning,' and that gentleman was always a specialist 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 293 
 
 unrivalled in his own subject. There was no trade 
 whose battle he did not fight, and whose grievances 
 he did not master : the Irish graziers and butter- 
 merchants, the Leicestershire stockingers, the silk 
 manufacturers of Coventry, the hop-growers of Kent, 
 were all championed by this elegant and handsome 
 sportsman, who had sometimes seemed too lethargic 
 to make a match or lay a wager. 
 
 Though he proved an astonishing faculty of ac- 
 quisition, he was at first disinclined to make even his 
 own speech. For, despite a naturally arrogant 
 temper, he had not an atom of conceit, as friends and 
 foes agree. 1 He would, if he could, have remained, 
 like Latour d'Auvergne, in the rank and file. ' We 
 have had enough of leaders,' said he ; but here, as in 
 other points of policy, he allowed himself to be over- 
 persuaded, and with Disraeli's help he put together 
 again the broken pieces of the Country Party. Nor 
 could he have found a better colleague than Disraeli, 
 who was in all respects his complement. Lord George 
 had the command of dry, hard facts. Disraeli, on 
 the other hand, was distinguished by the dash and 
 brilliance which Lord George candidly owned himself 
 to lack. No sooner had Lord George shattered his 
 
 1 Lord George Bentinck went so far as to take counsel with 
 a distinguished barrister, who recommended Serjeant Byles as 
 the proper man to plead the cause of Protection in the House of 
 Commons. But Serjeant Byles, though a convinced Protec- 
 tionist, remained loyal to his profession, and dedicated to 
 Political Economy no more than the leisure which sufficed for 
 the composition of his Sophisms of Free Trade. 
 
294 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 opponents with the heavy artillery of argument, than 
 Disraeli rushed in with his light cavalry of taunt and 
 epigram to complete the rout. 
 
 When the Lords had passed the second reading of 
 the hated measure, its opponents did not relax their 
 efforts. One battle was lost, yet, even in the moment 
 of victory, the triumphant general might be stripped 
 of his army, and with it of the power to win a second. 
 And so opposition not unworthily became vengeance. 
 Peel was a minister, in Lord George's eyes, whom 
 the country might not trust ; he had been coerced, 
 as Cobden confessed, by ' the out-of-doors opinion ' 
 and the dread of the League ; and Lord George in- 
 creased his ferocity as the chance of victory dis- 
 appeared. He was always a good hand at damaging 
 an enemy, and he now employed his gift with a mar- 
 vellous energy. It has been justly said that Lord 
 George introduced a frankness of attack into parlia- 
 mentary warfare that had been unknown before his 
 time. That he had ample justification not even a 
 Peelite would deny. Had Peel been an open and 
 avowed Free Trader there would have been no ground 
 for anger ; despite the certainty that the Bill would 
 pass, the Protectionists were confident that ultimately 
 they would triumph over their foe ; and the Country 
 Party, discomfited as it was, had something of the 
 satisfaction which comes of satisfied revenge. 
 
 For, by a stroke of unconscious drama, the Coercion 
 Bill was thrown out on the very night when the Corn 
 Bill became law, and Peel closed his public career in 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 295 
 
 what should have been the hour of victory. Lord 
 George Bentinck, though his first fight was fought, was 
 now fascinated by politics, and had no intention of 
 returning to his stables. If the Corn Bill was passed, 
 there was still work for him and his party to accom- 
 plish. And let it not be supposed that he was 
 eminent merely as a destructive critic. He was, in 
 truth, a statesman of exceedingly wise and moderate 
 views. He would have been satisfied with a duty of 
 four or five shillings on corn, which, he was sure, 
 would not sensibly raise the price in this country. 
 He was the unfailing friend of religious liberty, and 
 he urged that equal privileges should be given to Jews 
 and Catholics alike. He regarded Ireland never with 
 the eye of a partisan ; he publicly proclaimed his 
 dislike of absentee landlords ; he would have voted 
 for any measure designed to improve the relations of 
 landlord and tenant ; and that he had always the 
 welfare of the Irish at heart is proved by his elabor- 
 ate scheme of railway enterprise in Ireland, his most 
 ambitious attempt at constructive legislation. The 
 scheme was rejected, of course ; the speech in which 
 it was advocated remains a masterpiece of accumu- 
 lated fact and serried argument. 
 
 Meanwhile he had discovered that the breeding of 
 horses was incompatible with a political career. He 
 was of those who do nothing by halves, and eighteen 
 hours devoted to hard work left him little leisure in 
 the day to attend to his stables. He therefore deter- 
 mined to renounce the sport of racing for ever, and 
 
296 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 the episode of his renunciation is a dramatic episode 
 even in a life packed with drama. It was on the 
 evening of the third day's racing at Goodwood in 
 1846 that Lord George, appearing half asleep after 
 dinner, suddenly put the question, ' Will any one of 
 you give me ^10,000 for all my lot, beginning with 
 old Bay Middleton and ending with little Kitchener ? ' 
 The question was not more startling than the method 
 of putting it. And to keep the drama at a high level, 
 George Payne instantly offered to pay a forfeit of 
 ^300 if he did not accept the offer by noon the 
 following day. He paid his forfeit, and the ' lot ' 
 presently became the property of Mr. Mostyn. This 
 act of devotion, as Greville says, has never been 
 sufficiently appreciated and applauded. Lord George 
 did not put a trifling price upon his horses because 
 he did not know their value. He was perfectly 
 conscious that there were at that moment in his 
 stable the best yearlings that ever he had bred. But 
 expedition was important ; he had sacrificed his 
 pleasure to what he deemed his duty ; and his only 
 wish was to rid himself of his horses as quickly as 
 possible. 
 
 Though the sale was inevitable, it cannot be said 
 that he never regretted it. Two years later, Surplice, 
 a horse that once had been his, won the Derby, to 
 achieve which had for twenty years been the end of 
 his ambition. The disappointment can be described 
 only in Disraeli's magniloquent words. ' He had 
 nothing to console him,' wrote the biographer, ' and 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 297 
 
 nothing to sustain him but his pride. Even that 
 deserted him before a heart which he knew at least 
 could yield him sympathy. He gave a sort of superb 
 groan : " All my life I have been trying for this, and 
 for what have I sacrificed it ! " he murmured. It was 
 in vain to offer solace. " You do not know what the 
 Derby is," he moaned out. " Yes, I do ; it is the blue 
 ribbon of the turf." " It is the blue ribbon of the 
 turf," he slowly repeated to himself, and sitting down 
 at the table, he buried himself in a folio of statistics.' 
 The passage is superb as Lord George's groan, and 
 nobly characteristic both of the biographer and his 
 hero. 
 
 The distinguishing mark of Lord George Bentinck's 
 character was a lofty seriousness. He was serious in 
 horse-racing, serious in Parliament, serious in gather- 
 ing knowledge, most serious in attacking and worsting 
 his enemies. The truth is, this dignified debonair 
 sportsman could do nothing lightly. He must always 
 be at work, and the transport and diet of horses satis- 
 fied him until he found his true profession in politics. 
 His friend and biographer says of him in an admirable 
 passage : ' He never chattered. He never uttered a 
 sentence in the House of Commons which did not 
 convey a conviction or a fact.' He never chattered ! 
 What man can hope to earn a better epitaph ? And 
 the compliment does more than many pages to light 
 up the doubtful corners of Lord George's character. 
 His sincerity was too deep for idle phrases, and his 
 sincerity won him a wide popularity, which not even 
 
298 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 his arrogance and his talent of bitter speech could 
 diminish. 
 
 Moreover, like all sincere men, he was both simple 
 and courageous. Though he speedily mastered the 
 mysteries of politics, he never concealed his designs, 
 nor permitted intrigue to obscure the simplicity of 
 his motive and action. And he was of so high a 
 courage that he never shrank from the performance 
 of an unpleasant duty. A shrewd observer of men 
 and events, he possessed (or acquired) the gift of 
 prophecy, in which Cobden was pitifully deficient. 
 He was wont to say that ' the first who would wish 
 again for Protection would be the manufacturing 
 interest of Great Britain.' And at a time when Dis- 
 raeli was either feared or disliked, even by his own 
 side, he did not hesitate to proclaim his approaching 
 triumph. ' His speeches this session have been first- 
 rate,' he writes to Croker in 1848. ' His last speech, 
 altogether burked in the Times, but pretty well given 
 in the Post, was admirable. He cuts Cobden to 
 ribbons, and Cobden writhes and quails under him 
 just as Peel did in 1846. And, mark my words, spite 
 of Lord Stanley, Major Beresford, and Mr. Phillips 
 and the Herald^ it will end, before two sessions are 
 out, in Disraeli being the chosen leader of the party.' 
 Here is a prescience founded upon judgment, which 
 is very different from the facile predictions of unin- 
 formed optimism. 
 
 That he possessed certain faults which would have 
 interfered with his ultimate success may be admitted. 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 299 
 
 He was prolix and insistent both in speech and on 
 paper. He could give no touch of gaiety to his 
 orations. Being a stern realist he could not and 
 would not go an inch beyond the warrant of his facts. 
 Perfectly decorative in himself, he had not a decorative 
 style, and thus was a complete contrast to his great 
 colleague. Moreover, he had not the power of 
 selection. He was a late learner, and like all late 
 learners, was sometimes overcome by the weight of his 
 material. It was a passion with him to exhaust his 
 subject, and when he took up his pen to write he was 
 never content until he had covered many sheets of 
 paper. Against this prolixity no constitution could 
 battle with success, and Lord George Bentinck fell 
 a victim to his own energy. To die of hard work is 
 not the most picturesque of deaths ; yet, in his own 
 despite, Lord George could not escape the touch of 
 drama, even at the end. 
 
 He died suddenly on the 2 1st of September, between 
 Welbeck and Thoresby died when his work was un- 
 accomplished, and when his hope of the future was 
 at its highest. It was but for two brief years that he 
 played the game of statesmanship with perfect gravity. 
 Yet in those two years he made a place for himself 
 in our history, and, though the silence of death over- 
 took him in 1849, he seems to belong to our own time 
 more intimately than any of our contemporaries save 
 one. His speeches, purged of their acerbity, are as 
 true to-day as when they were uttered, and they 
 might be delivered again without losing their force 
 
300 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 or impairing their argument. And when anxious 
 partisans still applaud the services of Mr. Cobden, it 
 is well to recall the strong resolution and splendid 
 achievement of Mr. Cobden's great adversary, who 
 with tireless loyalty sacrificed his pleasure and his life 
 to the cause whose triumph he believed essential to 
 his country's welfare. 
 
 VI 
 
 It has already been pointed out that, in writing the 
 life of Lord George Bentinck, Disraeli with a rare 
 modesty suppressed himself. Now and again he 
 declares that ' a friend ' said this, or that ' a friend ' 
 counselled that, and though it is always evident who 
 the ' friend ' was, his exclusion from the history is a 
 conspicuous defect. For Lord George Bentinck could 
 not have achieved what he did without the aid of his 
 faithful and generous supporter. Never has there 
 appeared in the House of Commons a more brilliant 
 debater, a severer critic of inefficient policies, than 
 Disraeli. And as he won the attention, and aroused 
 the enthusiasm of the House, he had the added satis- 
 faction that the arrogant prophecies of his youth had 
 one and all been fulfilled. He had stood upon his 
 head, and there was no head in England better worth 
 standing on. The time had come, indeed, when the 
 House should listen, and when, at his rising, a dropped 
 pin might be heard. One disappointment he had 
 suffered in that he got no office in 1841, but they who 
 pretend that a place in the ministry would have per- 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 301 
 
 suaded him to endure Peel's autocratic temper sin- 
 gularly misjudge him. For the rest, he had an equal 
 confidence in his own abilities and in the justice of his 
 opinions. Already famous as a man of letters, he did 
 not leave his splendid talents on the threshold of the 
 House. He carried into politics his gift of literature, 
 and his speeches are quick with the wit and epigram 
 which sparkle in his novels. 
 
 The years, which had brought with them assurance 
 and respect, had but increased the vigour of his mind 
 and put a sharper edge upon the bitterness of his 
 tongue. In spite of his achievements, and the place 
 he had conquered in what he called the Senate, he 
 was still the Young Disraeli, young in hope, young in 
 courage, young in resource. His attitude towards 
 Protection and Free Trade was logical and consistent. 
 In 1842 he had voted for Peel's industrial measures, 
 because he believed that ' they were founded on sound 
 principles of commercial policy : principles which, 
 in abeyance during the Whig Government of seventy 
 years, were revived by that great Tory statesman, 
 Mr. Pitt.' Moreover he objected that the term 
 Free Trade should ever have been usurped by Cobden 
 and his followers. * I am a Free Trader, not a Free 
 booter,' he said ; and he pointed out again and again 
 that the policy of honest Free Trade was the inven- 
 tion of the Tory Party. No man was ever less a 
 pedant than he. ' What is Protection,' he asked, 
 ' but an expedient ? ' And if it be an expedient, it 
 must depend on circumstances, and could not there- 
 
302 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 fore be condemned or approved by the abstract 
 dogmas so dear to Mr. Cobden and his friends. 1 
 
 Moreover, he saw clearly enough that the alter- 
 native offered to Protection was not Free Trade, 
 which was never possible, but Free Imports ; and, 
 when Sir Robert Peel deserted his party, Disraeli's 
 course was clear. He was not one of the converts. 
 He was, as he said, ' a member of a fallen party, a 
 party which had nothing left on its side, except 
 the constituencies it had betrayed.' He supported 
 in Parliament the same policy which he advocated 
 with a greater deliberation in his Lord George Bentinck. 
 The views which he expressed in the one place were 
 identical with those which he expressed in the other, 
 and from the pages of Hansard it is possible to fill 
 the gaps which a too scrupulous modesty left in his 
 political biography. But there is a difference in style 
 and temper between the spoken and the written word 
 appropriate to the occasion. Disraeli wrote of his 
 friend when time and death had lessened the bitter- 
 
 1 The followers of Cobden now, as then, mistake a problem 
 for a theorem. They speak as though the interchange of com- 
 modities obeyed an inexorable moral law. With a similar indis- 
 cretion they detect in cheapness an inherent virtue. How far 
 wiser was Coleridge ! ' You talk about making this article 
 cheaper,' he said, ' by reducing its price in the market from 8d. 
 to 6d. But suppose in so doing you have rendered your country 
 weaker against a foreign foe ; suppose you have demoralised 
 thousands of your fellow-countrymen, and have sown discontent 
 between one class of society and another, your article is tolerably 
 dear, I take it, after all. Is not its real price enhanced to every 
 Christian and patriot a hundred-fold ? ' 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 303 
 
 ness of the conflict ; he made his speeches in the 
 House excited by debate, and aroused to indignation 
 by what seemed to him the perfidy of the minister. 
 Though he does not spare Peel in his book, he attacked 
 him face to face with a greater contempt and a more 
 savage irony. And yet in his angriest invective there 
 is a spice of wit, which probably made it less galling 
 to bear than the serious indictment of Lord George 
 Bentinck. 
 
 The head and front of Peel's offence in Disraeli's 
 eyes was, of course, his disloyalty to his colleagues. 
 He had come into power on the strength of Tory 
 votes, and he relied for the permanence of his ministry 
 upon his political opponents. ' The right honour- 
 able gentleman,' said Disraeli in a memorable phrase, 
 ' caught the Whigs bathing and walked away with their 
 clothes.' He had surrendered his ancient ideals, and 
 trampled on his ancient prejudices. * I remember 
 him making his Protection speeches,' said his pitiless 
 adversary. ' They were the best speeches I ever 
 heard. It was a great thing to hear the right honour- 
 able gentleman say, " I would rather be the leader of 
 the gentlemen of England, than possess the con- 
 fidence of sovereigns." That was a grand thing. 
 We don't hear much of the gentlemen of England 
 now. But what of that ? They have the pleasures 
 of memory, the charms of reminiscence.' And then, 
 in the firm conviction that a Conservative Govern- 
 ment is an organised hypocrisy, he poured the acid 
 of his scorn upon Peel's egoism. He reminded the 
 
304 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 House that Peel had urged it to follow him on the 
 ground that he had held high office under four 
 sovereigns. * Follow him ? ' asked Disraeli ' who 
 is to follow him, or why is anybody to follow him, or 
 where is anybody to follow him to ? ' He recalled 
 the time when Peel delivered himself of the oracle, 
 
 * Register, register, register.' Why were they to 
 register ? To save the Corn Laws, the Monarchy, 
 or the Church ? For none of these things : when 
 his supporters had registered enough, Peel ' showed 
 them the sovereign passion they were to register 
 to make him a minister.' 
 
 In his biography Disraeli pictures Peel as always 
 influenced by the opinions of others, as a man whose 
 mind was always in process of education. In the 
 House of Commons he made the same charge, but in 
 more violent terms. ' For between forty and fifty 
 years,' said he, ' from the days of Mr. Horner to those 
 of the honourable member for Stockport, the right 
 honourable gentleman has traded on the ideas and 
 intelligence of others. His life has been one great 
 appropriation clause. He is a burglar of others' 
 intellect. Search the index of Beatson from the days 
 of the Conqueror to the termination of the last reign, 
 there has been no statesman who has committed 
 political petty larceny on so great a scale.' Even more 
 effective was the ridicule poured upon Popkins's plan. 
 
 * We know all about it,' said a Radical to Disraeli of 
 Peel's plan ; ' it was offered to us. It is not his plan ; 
 it 's Popkins's plan.' And, asks Disraeli in scorn, is 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 305 
 
 the England of Burleigh and Walsingham, of Boling- 
 broke and Walpole, of Chatham and Canning, to be 
 governed by Popkins's plan ? Nor did he spare 
 the watcher of the atmosphere, the man who never 
 originated an idea, the minister who thought only of 
 posterity of posterity which very few people reach. 
 And in his scorn he involved the whole of the Treasury 
 Bench. 
 
 * Throw your eyes over the Treasury Bench,' said 
 he, in his finest passage of contempt. ' See stamped 
 on each ingenuous front, " The last infirmity of noble 
 minds." They are all of them, as Spenser says, " Imps 
 of Fame ! " They are just the men in the House 
 you would fix upon as thinking only of posterity. 
 The only thing is when one looks at them, seeing of 
 what they are composed, one is hardly certain whether 
 " the future " of which they are thinking is indeed 
 posterity, or only the coming quarter-day.' How 
 excellent is the unexpectedness of the ' coming 
 quarter-day ' ! How the ingenuous fronts of the 
 Treasury Bench must have blushed at the ridicule ! 
 And Disraeli, tireless in scorn, gave them no peace 
 until Peel had led his ragged majority into the lobby, 
 and had himself fallen before a hostile vote. 
 
 Disraeli, in his opposition to Peel, was not content 
 with ridicule. He seldom made a speech which did 
 not lift the debate to a high plane of argument. 
 For some years before the Prime Minister had divided 
 his colleagues, Disraeli had been the leader of the 
 Young England Party, and though after his speech 
 
306 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 on the Maynooth Grant he ceased to act with it, the 
 views of Young England had a profound and lasting 
 influence on him ; and nowhere can this influence be 
 more clearly detected than in the speeches which 
 were inspired by the debates on the Corn Law. A 
 pride in England, a love of the people, the champion- 
 ship of labour these are the substance of his most 
 eloquent perorations. He taught in his speeches 
 the same lessons of devotion and honour which he 
 had taught in Sybil. When he said that he wished 
 to secure a preponderance of the landed interest, he 
 was thinking of the welfare, not of a single class, but 
 of the whole country. With Lord John Manners 
 and George Smythe he regretted the decay of the 
 feudal system. He pointed out that the Conqueror 
 did not distribute the land without exacting re- 
 sponsibility. ' You shall have that estate,' said he, 
 * but you shall do something for it : you shall feed 
 the poor ; you shall endow the Church ; you shall 
 defend the land in case of war ; and you shall execute 
 justice and maintain truth to the poor for nothing.' 
 This, at any rate, was a better ideal than the ideal of 
 Manchester, to buy in the cheapest and sell in the 
 dearest market, to become rich and ever richer with- 
 out the interference of industry and toil. So Dis- 
 raeli's ambition was to see not a ' spinning-Jenny 
 machine kind of nation,' but an England which once 
 more possessed a free Monarchy and a privileged and 
 prosperous People. A very different hope from that 
 of Richard Cobden, who cared as little for the people 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 307 
 
 as he cared for the landed gentry, and who was strain- 
 ing every nerve to transfer the power to the middle 
 class, to create the most dangerous of all things 
 wealth without responsibility. 
 
 And already Disraeli had struck the note of Im- 
 perialism which, familiar to-day, was then rarely 
 heard. ' I for one,' said he in 1843, * am not prepared 
 to sit under the power of a third-class, if I can be a 
 citizen of a first-class empire.' Moreover, he saw 
 clearly that Peel and his supporters were losing the 
 chance of binding the Colonies to the mother country. 
 * You turn up your noses at East India cotton,' said 
 he to the House, * as you have done at everything 
 Colonial or Imperial.' And it is the fashion to say 
 that Disraeli had no interest in our empire oversea. 
 The detractors who bring this charge rely on a hasty 
 phrase in a private letter, as though a statesman were 
 on oath if he aired a grievance to a friend. 1 Not only 
 in his speeches but in his policy, he was a consistent 
 champion of Colonial interests. In 1863 he already 
 prophesied that Canada would become the Russia 
 of the New World, and he declared that, if we were 
 to quit the possessions that we occupied in North 
 America, ' we might then prepare for the invasion of 
 our country and the subjection of the people.' 
 
 1 The sentence may be found in a letter addressed on August 
 13, 1852, to Lord Malmesbury. 'These wretched colonies,' he 
 wrote, ' will be independent in a few years, and are a millstone 
 round our necks.' Against this one petulant expression, not 
 meant to be published, may be set the constant policy of many 
 years. 
 
3 o8 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 In 1872 he was still more definite in his opinion, 
 still nearer to the policy of to-day. ' The two great 
 objects of the Tory Party,' he declared, ' are to 
 maintain the institutions of the country and to up- 
 hold the empire of England.' In the same speech 
 he advocated an imperial tariff, he insisted that the 
 people of England should enjoy unappropriated lands, 
 which belonged to the sovereign as their trustee, he 
 urged that a military code should define precisely 
 the means by which the Colonies should be defended, 
 and by which the country should call for aid from the 
 Colonies themselves. Thus he anticipated all that 
 a generation, keenly alive to the importance of our 
 Empire, has hoped or thought, and thus he takes his 
 place in the long line of patriotic ministers who since 
 the time of Bolingbroke, his master, have guided the 
 destinies of England. 
 
 When once the Corn Laws were abolished, Disraeli 
 took the only course that was open to him : he 
 accepted the accomplished fact. His speeches on 
 agricultural distress, delivered within five years 
 after Peel's measure was passed, sufficiently prove 
 that he had not changed his opinion ; and when, 
 having gathered together the disjecta membra of the 
 old Tory Party, he assumed the leadership of the 
 House, the question was closed. Whatever distress 
 assailed the country, the remedy of protection had 
 passed for the moment beyond the range of practical 
 policy, in spite of Disraeli's opposition, and with the 
 reiterated approval of the people. ' Under these 
 
THE CORN LAWS : A GROUP 309 
 
 circumstances,' as Disraeli said in 1879, * it was im- 
 possible for a public man, whatever had been his 
 opinions upon these great commercial questions, when 
 these important changes were first introduced, to have 
 had an open controversy for a quarter of a century. 
 The government of the country could not have been 
 carried on.' Nor, when reciprocity was suggested as 
 a cure for the evils which beset the State, did reci- 
 procity seem possible. We had nothing to reci- 
 procate. We had given up the means by which an 
 honourable system of commercial treaties could be 
 established. But they err who assert that Disraeli 
 renounced in his old age the principles for which he 
 fought so valiantly in 1846 ; and, though it is idle to 
 vaticinate what course he would have followed in 
 another age, the consistent policy of his whole life is 
 an eloquent proof that he would never have surren- 
 dered the commercial supremacy of England for the 
 sake of a dogma. 
 
 VII 
 
 With such combatants engaged on either side, the 
 contest could not but be dramatic, and Disraeli has 
 described it with all the resources of a literary crafts- 
 man. And most finely dramatic of all is the closing 
 scene when triumph and defeat overtook Sir Robert in 
 the same hour. The passage in which Disraeli describes 
 this last act of the tragedy has an epic touch. He 
 marshals the * men of metal and large-acred squires, 
 the Manners, the Somersets, the Bentincks, the 
 
310 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Lowthers, and the Lennoxes,' in the same spirit 
 wherewith Homer numbers the ships of the Greeks. 
 Sir Robert was beaten by 73. ' He looked very grave, 
 and extended his chin as was his habit when he was 
 annoyed and cared not to speak. He began to com- 
 prehend his position, and that the emperor was 
 without his army.' Nor did the emperor ever re- 
 assemble his shattered forces. And losing his army, 
 he had lost his influence. ' Peel can never be at the 
 head of any party,' said the Duke of Wellington to 
 Sir Edward Knatchbull ' that is, of any consider- 
 able party. He will keep his seat in the House of 
 Commons, and will endeavour to act as a sort of 
 umpire between parties. He will not be disposed 
 himself again to take office. The country will not 
 trust him again.' 
 
 Nor did the last speech which he delivered as a 
 minister tend to recover his lost friends. For the 
 first time he mentioned Cobden by name, and paid 
 an unexpected tribute to the agitator. Even Mr. 
 Gladstone was outraged by this indiscretion. * Mr. 
 Cobden,' said Mr. Gladstone, ' has throughout 
 argued the Corn Question on the principle of holding 
 up the landlords of England to the people as plun- 
 derers and as knaves for maintaining the Corn Law 
 to save their rents, and as fools because it was not 
 necessary for that purpose. This was passed by, 
 while he was praised for sincerity, eloquence, in- 
 defatigable zeal.' Thus politics also has its ironies, 
 and it is strange to find Mr. Gladstone in public 
 
THE CORN LAWS: A GROUP 311 
 
 supporting the sad, lost cause of the landlords. The 
 reception of the Corn Bill by the country emphasised 
 the truth that it was passed not for the people, but 
 for the manufacturers. The news, we are told by 
 the Annual Register, caused much rejoicing in the 
 manufacturing districts of England and France. 
 ' Bells were rung ; flags and banners, bearing appro- 
 priate inscriptions, were displayed from factories 
 or carried in procession about the streets. ... In 
 many places arrangements were made by employers 
 to give their workmen a holiday and an entertainment.' 
 To the bald eloquence of this statement no word 
 need be added. 
 
THE EIGHTH DUKE OF 
 DEVONSHIRE 
 
 THE career of the Eighth Duke of Devonshire 
 has an interest which is already archaeological. 
 If he were a statesman, we know not what they are 
 who have presumed to carry on the traditions of his 
 craft. Between him and his successors there is no 
 binding link of purpose or ambition. When he had 
 been dead less than four years, he seemed already as 
 remote as the heroes of Plutarch's world. So fast 
 have we travelled down the inclined plane of lawless- 
 ness, that we can hardly realise that this staunch 
 champion of law and order ever lived and spoke in our 
 midst. But the wanton revolutions which have taken 
 place since his death in the conduct of affairs increases 
 the worth of his achievement, and we can wish our 
 politicians no better fate than that they should keep 
 before them the high example of this wise and 
 patriotic Duke. 
 
 For fifty years, as Lord Cavendish, the Marquis of 
 Hartington, and the Duke of Devonshire, he took part 
 in the government of his country, and never for a 
 moment did he loosen his hold upon the faith and 
 
 312 
 
EIGHTH DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE 313 
 
 respect of the people. There was none, either friend 
 or foe, who did not trust his high sense of honour and 
 his profound knowledge of affairs. His countrymen 
 always recognised that he brought far more to the 
 task of government than he expected to get out of it. 
 For him politics was no adventure. He was not 
 forced by necessity or a false ambition to trim the 
 sails of his bark to the popular breeze. The son of a 
 noble and distinguished house, he inherited the best 
 traditions of English policy, and he hoped to serve 
 England, not to compel England to serve him. A 
 sense of duty sent him into the House of Commons, 
 and a sense of duty kept him there. There is a vast 
 deal of evidence in Mr. Holland's volumes l to prove 
 that, if he could, he would early have retired to the 
 private life of an English gentleman. ' We are in 
 again, I am sorry to say,' he wrote in 1873, ' not with- 
 out an attempt on my part to get free.' Though he 
 would not put his colleagues to any inconvenience, 
 he had already ' come to detest office.' When 
 Mr. Gladstone had discovered prematurely that he 
 was arriving at ' the closing of his days,' Lord Hart- 
 ington hoped against hope that he might not be forced 
 to succeed that eminent man. ' It will really be a 
 great relief to be out of it,' he wrote ; ' and not only 
 on idle grounds. I should never have liked it ; but 
 I don't think I could endure the toleration I should 
 have to put up with.' When he saw that he could 
 
 1 See The Life of Spencer Compton, Eighth Duke of Devonshire, 
 by Bernard Holland. 
 
314 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 no longer escape the leadership, he assumed it with 
 a strong hand. Yet the reluctance to lead never left 
 him. * It is extraordinary,' he wrote to Lord Salis- 
 bury many years later, ' what an attraction office 
 seems to have for some people.' It had none for him, 
 and he boasts the unique distinction of having refused 
 three times to be Prime Minister. 
 
 This is the first secret of his profound influence : 
 the whole world knew him to be disinterested. And 
 not merely was he disinterested ; he had an uncon- 
 cealed dislike for cant of every sort. When Mr. Glad- 
 stone was rushing up and down the country denoun- 
 cing what he called ' Bulgarian atrocities,' Lord 
 Hartington deplored the summoning of a Conference. 
 * I see no great harm,' he wrote to Lord Granville, 
 ' if it is a failure, so long as the moderate men of the 
 party are not mixed up in it. They cannot talk more 
 nonsense than has already been talked at the meetings ; 
 but why should we encourage any respectable member 
 of the party to go and listen to, and be in some sense 
 perhaps committed by the speeches of men like 
 Freeman, Canon Liddon, Jenkins, Maxse, Lyulph 
 Stanley, etc., etc., and innumerable parsons ? The 
 number of the latter on the list is quite enough 
 for me.' 
 
 It was this same hatred of cant that made him take 
 a modest view of his parliamentary services. He did 
 not believe that because he was returned to the 
 House of Commons by an enthusiastic constituency 
 he was the saviour of his country. The vice of pom- 
 
EIGHTH DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE 315 
 
 posity was impossible to him. * I have seen much of 
 the shorthorn world,' he wrote, when men's minds 
 were inflamed by the Eastern Question, ' who do not 
 appear to be wiser than other people.' Once upon 
 a time when an orator in the House of Lords said, 
 ' this is the proudest moment of my life,' the Duke 
 murmured to his neighbour, ' the proudest moment 
 of my life was when my pig won the first prize at 
 Skipton Fair.' It was his great virtue never to put 
 false values upon things, nor to disguise his prefer- 
 ences. He firmly believed that his birth and destiny 
 called him to the political field. The obligation of 
 honour did not leave him a free man. Had he been 
 free, perhaps he would have given to sport not his 
 leisure but his life. ' Sometimes I dream that I am 
 leading in the winner of the Derby,' he said, * but I 
 am afraid it will never be anything but a dream.' It 
 is certain that he never dreamed that he was Prime 
 Minister. 
 
 With this nonchalance were bound up a trans- 
 parent honesty, and a perfect sense of truth. He 
 made no sacrifice to the exigence of the moment. 
 By a happy fate he was spared the disgrace of rhetoric. 
 Such words as he had, and they were persuasive rather 
 than many, he employed not to cloak but to reveal his 
 mind. As Mr Holland says, ' the witch, Imagination, 
 had no power over him.' It was his constant en- 
 deavour to strip falsehood of her trappings. A mag- 
 nificently ingenuous passage in a letter of Mr. Glad- 
 stone lucidly explains the difference between the 
 
316 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 two men. ' I have been a good deal distressed,' wrote 
 Mr. Gladstone in 1883, ' by a passage as reported in 
 Hartington's very strong and able speech, for which 
 I am at a loss to account, so far does it travel out into 
 the open, and so awkward are the intimations it seems 
 to convey.' It would be impossible to surpass the 
 unconscious humour of these observations. Candour 
 is always * awkward ' in the eyes of the politician, and 
 to travel out into the open ways of truth is inexcusable 
 when it might cost a vote. 
 
 And the Duke of Devonshire was always in the open. 
 ' He cared only to state things as they were.' His 
 opinions were plain for all men to approve or discuss. 
 If his colleagues did not share his opinions, then he 
 resigned ; and the fact that he and others resigned at 
 certain crises of our history reminds us that politics, 
 even Radical politics, were once the pursuit of honour- 
 able men. I can imagine few differences of opinion so 
 great that they would have persuaded a single mem- 
 ber of any subsequent Government to resign. The 
 Duke himself noted this pitiful falling off in public 
 morality. ' I take a very gloomy view of the prospect,' 
 he wrote in 1908. * Campbell-Bannerman seems 
 prepared to go to any lengths, and Asquith, Haldane 
 and Co. will do nothing effectual to stop him.' He, 
 of course, in such a case would have resigned instantly. 
 For the limpets of office there is no resignation, but 
 a wicked responsibility in the misdeeds of others. 
 
 When Lord Hartington severed the last link which 
 bound him to Gladstone, Auberon Herbert, who 
 
EIGHTH DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE 317 
 
 disagreed ' with him in politics, wrote him a letter 
 which it were well for politicians of either side 
 to remember. I make no apology for printing 
 here these sentences of honest wisdom. ' I think 
 we may go right or wrong about Ireland, or almost 
 any great matter,' wrote Auberon Herbert, * and, 
 if wrong, recover from our mistake ; but the one 
 thing from which I think there is no salvation is 
 when men begin to have no confidence in themselves 
 and their own opinion, and to become the mere instru- 
 ments of party. I have long hoped to see you break 
 with what I have believed to be a false position, and I 
 think your having done so will give a new sense of duty 
 and a new power of action to hundreds of men through- 
 out the country. Every man who consents to action 
 of which he is believed to disapprove helps to lower 
 the sense of individual responsibility in all others 
 whom he influences, and the moment he refuses to 
 do so any longer he wakes others from a mental and 
 moral sleep.' There, expressed by another, is the 
 Duke of Devonshire's creed of politics a creed long 
 since trodden under foot by ambitious adventurers, 
 not one of whom will ever wake himself or others from 
 the torpor of self-interest. 
 
 In the common sense of the word the Duke was 
 not nimble-witted. ' All through life,' he said, * I have 
 had to work with men who thought three times as 
 quick as I did, and have found this a great disadvan- 
 tage.' The disadvantage was not as great as he 
 thought. The very slowness of his reasoning added 
 
318 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 enormously to his tenacity. When once he had 
 determined upon a course of action, he was not easily 
 driven from his course. The ample simplicity of his 
 mind enabled him to discard all that was not essential 
 to the policy in hand. He could not juggle with right 
 and wrong. He would have scorned to assume the 
 facile omniscience dear to some of his colleagues. 
 He gladly acknowledged an ignorance of what he did 
 not know, and thus discovered another reason why 
 all men should trust him. His attitude towards the 
 Fiscal question was straightforward and character- 
 istic. He had been brought up in the school of Free 
 Trade, and his Conservative instincts persuaded him 
 not to change his view. It is clear that he did not 
 understand the arguments of Mr. Balfour and Mr. 
 Chamberlain. And, not understanding them, he very 
 rightly left the Government. The uncertainty of 
 his position he explained to a friend with his own dry 
 humour. ' The politics of the family are rather 
 mixed,' he said. * Victor is a Balfourian, Dick is an 
 out-and-out free-trader, and God knows what I am.' 
 There is no jugglery here. 
 
 The deliberation of his thought saved him from the 
 worst pitfall which yawns for public men. He was 
 never the victim of a discursive cleverness. He could 
 not chatter idly of Shakespeare and Shelley. The 
 light which came from his brain was intense, not 
 diffused. He regarded art and literature with the 
 same candour wherewith he looked upon life and 
 politics. It is recorded that he once picked up 
 
EIGHTH DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE 319 
 
 Paradise Lost and began to read it aloud. Then 
 stopping for a moment he said, ' How fine this is ! I 
 had forgotten how fine it was.' Try to imagine what 
 Mr. Gladstone would have said on a like occasion, 
 and you may measure roughly the contrast between 
 the two men. It is indeed this contrast which most 
 forcibly seizes the mind of him who reads the annals 
 of the time. For many years Mr. Gladstone and the 
 Duke were colleagues or adversaries. They repre- 
 sented two sides of English politics. They were in- 
 compatible always in method and ambition, and the 
 wonder is that they worked together as long as they 
 did. It was unfortunate for Mr. Gladstone that 
 they were at last disparted. For if the influence of 
 Mr. Gladstone upon Lord Hartington was inap- 
 preciable, the influence of Lord Hartington upon 
 Mr. Gladstone was always salutary. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was an actor, protean and irre- 
 sponsible. For him words were a thousand times 
 more important than deeds ; and by a cruel irony, 
 even the words which he spoke were almost meaning- 
 less, if unaccompanied by his massive gesture and the 
 flashing of his vulturine eye. His mind was in a 
 constant state of fluidity. The heresy of yesterday 
 was converted by opportunity into the gospel of 
 to-day. The past was nothing to him ; the future 
 immaterial. He vaunted only with persuasive elo- 
 quence the advantage of the present. In all things 
 the Duke was his antithesis. He was far too honest 
 and sincere ever to act a part. So securely anchored 
 
320 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 was he to the traditions of his race and time, that he 
 could not separate the present from the past. Un- 
 changing as the rocks of his native Derbyshire, he 
 was loyal always to himself and to others. The story 
 that he yawned in the middle of his own speech is 
 true in essence, if not in fact. He cultivated a plain, 
 even a dull, presentation, partly because plainness 
 was natural to him, partly because he had a wise dis- 
 trust of rhetoric. He had that quality which the 
 French call morgue, and this prevented him from 
 displaying an enthusiasm which he did not feel. 
 
 He was a first-rate administrator, with a vast power 
 of work, and he could get the heart out of a blue- 
 book with astonishing speed and accuracy. As Mr. 
 Holland has said in precisely the right words, ' his 
 work was done with a weary, or bored thoroughness.' 
 His attitude was that of a man * refusing to be 
 hurried.' He could never have been described, like 
 Mr. Gladstone, as * an old man in a hurry.' His char- 
 acter, as summed up by Mr. Holland, wholly justifies 
 his influence. ' Hartington,' writes Mr. Holland, ' as 
 Lord Granville once told him, resembled a certain 
 diplomat of the day, who says that his head is so 
 constructed that it can take in very little of what is 
 not perfectly clear. He was, as the French say, 
 of a caractere tres uni t or, as we say, " all of a piece," 
 unum hominem. . . . His speeches only succeeded, 
 so far as they did succeed, because of the weight and 
 sincerity of his character. His word was known to 
 be one with himself ; he was, as the saying goes, " as 
 
EIGHTH DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE 321 
 
 good as his word." He was averse to speaking, nor 
 was he flattered by the applause of the crowd. Had 
 he evoked any loud applause, he would probably have 
 felt like the Greek aristocrat who, hearing plaudits, 
 turned to a friend near him and asked, " Have I said 
 anything very foolish ? " A far different statesman 
 from the noisy rhetoricians who since his time have 
 usurped the reins of power, and who have thought 
 the Empire well lost if only the raucous voices of 
 the mob echoed in their ears. 
 
 Such was the man who was appointed by provi- 
 dence to be a watch-dog upon the actions of Mr. 
 Gladstone. How faithfully he performed his office 
 is known to us all. It was particularly in Ireland 
 that he dogged the footsteps of his great chief and 
 opponent. His qualifications to speak of Ireland 
 were many. He was an Irish landlord who liked and 
 understood the people of the country. He had been 
 Irish Secretary, and was familiar with all the tricks 
 and deceits of the agitators. His clear sense of reality 
 convinced him that you could not solve a difficult 
 problem of government by such empty phrases as 
 ' a nation struggling to be free.' He believed in re- 
 form, in land reform especially, and he believed in law. 
 He was therefore at the opposite pole from Mr. Glad- 
 stone, whose sentimentality assured him that you 
 could staunch the blood of dying men and relieve 
 the persecuted from boycotting by murmuring such 
 empty words as ' the union of hearts.' The diver- 
 gency between the two showed itself early. In 1870, 
 x 
 
322 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 when the sanguine Mr. Gladstone was confident that 
 the disestablishment of the Church had created a 
 new Ireland, Lord Hartington poured a cold douche 
 upon his colleague. ' It would be the height of in- 
 sanity,' said he, 'to -suppose that the establishment 
 of religious equality or the passing of a law regulating 
 the tenure of land would put a stop to the Ribbon 
 conspiracy. I cannot see on what possible ground 
 it could be imagined that the establishment of equal 
 and just legislation should have any effect on the 
 minds of men who have a system of laws of their own 
 not just laws, but the most unjust, the most arbitrary, 
 the most tyrannical, the most barbarous. I cannot see 
 what sympathy such men could have with good legisla- 
 tion.' These words were spoken in 1870, and they are 
 the prelude of as wise and consistent a policy as ever 
 was followed by a wise and consistent statesman. 
 
 Henceforth he exposed, with all the force of sin- 
 cerity that was his, the lightest suspicion of Home 
 Rule. ' I said that I believed, and I believe it fully 
 now' thus he spoke in 1880 'that it would be 
 fatal to all hopes the Liberal party might ever have 
 of getting a majority and of regaining power in this 
 country, if they were to show any complicity with 
 those who agitated for the separation of Ireland from 
 the Empire.' It was not mere expediency which 
 moved him ; his resolution was based upon reverence 
 for law, a reverence far deeper than any desire he might 
 have cherished of getting a majority. ' Whatever 
 may be the fate of our efforts,' he said a year later, 
 
EIGHTH DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE 323 
 
 ' to improve the law, we hold now, as we have always 
 done, that it is our duty to carry out the existing law 
 as it stands, and not to surrender the powers, ordinary 
 or extraordinary, which Parliament has confided in 
 us into the hands of the Land League or any other 
 body.' How strangely antiquated sounds this public 
 respect for the law in the ears of those who have not 
 forgotten the contempt of the Duke's successors and 
 the condoning of the Irish rebellion ! 
 
 It was in 1885 that the real struggle against Home 
 Rule began, and the value of the letters which Lord 
 Hartington wrote and the speeches that he made then 
 and in the following years cannot be overrated. The 
 revolution of time has brought England back since 
 to precisely the same situation she was in then, and 
 Lord Hartington still speaks with all his ancient force 
 and cogency. Truly he forged an armoury of weapons, 
 which those who come after him may wield. Some 
 are still left, we trust, who can draw the bow of 
 Achilles and scatter, with aim unerring as his, the 
 enemies that gather about us on every side. The 
 first clear note of warning was struck in December 
 1885, in a letter to Lord Granville. ' From all I can 
 hear,' wrote Lord Hartington, * Gladstone appears 
 to be acting in a most extraordinary manner, and I 
 should think will utterly smash up the party. I don't 
 know who is going to support him in proposing a 
 Home Rule policy for Ireland. Chamberlain and 
 Dilke, as at present advised, are, I hear, entirely 
 opposed to it ; but they may come round.' 
 
324 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 Meanwhile Gladstone had no counsel to give his 
 followers, except that they should not * commit them- 
 selves.' By this he meant not to commit themselves 
 against Home Rule. In favour of Home Rule he said 
 and wrote what seemed good to him. Lord Hart- 
 ington at once pounced upon this discrepancy. 
 ' Mr. Gladstone,' he wrote, ' may say as much as he 
 likes about our not committing ourselves ; but he 
 has committed himself up to his chin.' There was 
 a vast deal of clamour and discussion on all sides. 
 Chamberlain and Harcourt were as much opposed to 
 Home Rule as Lord Hartington, though, as we all 
 know, Harcourt presently found it convenient to 
 swallow his views. Lord Hartington never wavered. 
 His course was clear at the outset. In January 1886 
 Gladstone offered him office, which he declined. 
 ' He was very civil,' says Lord Hartington, ' and we 
 parted apparently good friends.' But the severance 
 was now final and complete, nor did Lord Hartington 
 delay in making clear his position to the House of 
 Commons. The first speech which he made after 
 the parting left no room for doubt. Its peroration 
 has lost none of its meaning in the years which have 
 elapsed since its delivery. ' I believe that now, at 
 all events,' said Lord Hartington, ' the people of this 
 country will require that their representatives shall, 
 in relation to Irish affairs, agree to sink all minor 
 differences, and to unite as one man for the main- 
 tenance of this great Empire, to hand it down to our 
 successors compact as we have received it from our 
 
EIGHTH DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE 325 
 
 forefathers, and at the same time to maintain through- 
 out its length and breadth the undisputed supremacy 
 of the law.' Even if Lord Hartington's views ap- 
 peared contemptible in the eyes of Mr. Gladstone's 
 successors they will still be cherished unto the end 
 of time by the sane majority of his countrymen. 
 
 It was, indeed, the sanctity of the law which came 
 first in Lord Hartington's esteem. When Sir 
 William Harcourt defended the Plan of Campaign by 
 citing the lawless and rebellious habit of the Whigs, 
 Lord Hartington was cold in his contempt. * It is 
 extremely difficult,' said he, ' to argue with opponents 
 who avow there is a moral justification for defiance of 
 the law. I believe we are here in this House to 
 amend the law, if necessary ; but to support the 
 Government in the enforcement of the law. We are 
 not here for preaching or condoning resistance to the 
 law, either passive or overt.' While his general 
 principles of law and order were perfectly sound, he 
 covered in detail the whole field of the controversy, 
 and it is this thoroughness which makes his speeches 
 about Ireland of the utmost importance. He spoke 
 of Ulster in a tone which flippant Ministers might 
 still regard as serious were they not the kept puppets 
 of self-interest. ' The people of Ulster,' said he, 
 ' tell you they will not willingly submit to the form 
 of government which it is proposed to impose upon 
 them. I have never attempted to say whether 
 you are to believe that the people of Ulster say what 
 they mean or not, but I will say that it is a very ill- 
 
326 POLITICAL PORTRAITS 
 
 advised action, at all events, on the part of the sup- 
 porters of the Bill, to treat the manifestations of 
 Ulster as mere bluster.' Ill-advised was the action 
 of the Home-Rulers then, ill-advised is it likely to 
 prove always, and not ill-advised merely, but un- 
 supported by a shred of argument. If Ireland were 
 right to resent the rule of England, then would Ulster 
 be doubly right to refuse to bear the yoke which her 
 enemies would lay upon her. 
 
 In one other respect the situation has remained 
 constant. In 1885 Home Rule was a policy which, as 
 Lord Hartington said, * emanated from the brain and 
 will of a single man.' As in 1885 so in 1893. * It 
 is not a policy,' said the Duke of Devonshire, ' which 
 has proceeded from a political party ; it is not a 
 policy advocated by a political party and then adopted 
 by its leaders. It is a policy which has been imposed 
 upon his followers by the single will of one man.' 
 Every word spoken those many years ago is still true. 
 Home Rule has never been the policy of the nation ; 
 it has never been the policy of a party. Ireland, 
 secure in her prosperity has never wanted it. It 
 has meant always a career for this or that adventurer, 
 not a national aspiration. And whenever it has 
 seemed near to be realised, the leaders have shrunk 
 back, because they would not have their occupation 
 gone. 
 
 Another argument, the confusion and fallacy of 
 which remains to be exposed, was countered again 
 and again by the Duke of Devonshire. The advo- 
 
EIGHTH DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE 327 
 
 cates of Home Rule could never make up their mind 
 whether Ireland was to stand in the same relation to 
 England as Canada, or whether henceforth England 
 and Ireland should be related one to the other as 
 the separate provinces of Canada are related. The 
 Duke demanded a clear answer to his question : 
 'When the Government speak of the measure some- 
 times as one preserving the unity of the United 
 Kingdom, and sometimes the unity of the British 
 Empire, are we to read these terms in the sense in 
 which they are now applied to the United Kingdom, 
 or only as they are now applied to the British Empire ? ' 
 To this question the Duke received no answer. The 
 world since has fared no better than he. And yet on 
 the answer will always depend the fate, not only of the 
 United Kingdom, but of the British Empire. Thus 
 the unending battle is fought, and we fight it with 
 a better courage, because we have before us the 
 shining example of those who defended the Union 
 under the auspices of this staunch upholder of the 
 law. Nothing contributed to win the battle then so 
 much as the wisdom and moderation of the Duke of 
 Devonshire, and we can imagine no better preparation 
 for the fray which will repeat itself interminably 
 than a deep and faithful study of his orderly and 
 honest career. 
 
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press 
 
GOUMUlNKSINGf 
 
 FOURTH AVE. 
 
*.T 
 
 D 
 
 ate Due 
 
 
 
 Library Bureau Cat. No. 1137 
 
 )0 8