THE LIBRARY 
 
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 $arUametttarj? portraits; 
 
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 SKETCHES 
 
 PUBLIC CHARACTER 
 
 OF SOM8 OF THE 
 
 MOST DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN THE EXAMINER. 
 
 Dica pur quanto sii rancor severe : 
 Contro le sue saette ho doppio usbcrgro; 
 
 Non conosco interesse e son sincere. 
 Non ha 1'invidia uel mio petto albergo ; 
 
 Solo zelo lo stil m'adatta in mano ; 
 E per util comnne i fogli verge. 
 
 3 Sat. SALVAT. Ros. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY, 
 
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 v 
 
 Vj gaiwoffa ai ' 'i 
 
 TO 
 
 orfi tedJ t wyn>l ?.Y,wl; I Jmiv/ 
 
 LEIGH HUNT, ESQ. 
 
 j$m IIB 
 
 <efl( ~ ""i 
 
 ,il 'io mcb-joii sdj idi bungo't 
 
 MY DEAR HUNT, 
 
 . 
 
 AN addition to the strong motive of a long 
 and sincere friendship, existing from the 
 time of our school-days, I am bound to de- 
 dicate this small volume to you, as a public 
 acknowledgment of the candour and liberality 
 
 ^J with which you inserted in your Journal* 
 these Parliamentary Sketches, though fre- 
 
 1 quently containing opinions contrary to your 
 
 4^ own. This conduct did not surprise me, nor 
 
 did I ever think it necessary to apologize to 
 
 you for the expression of my sentiments. I 
 
 ^ had known your turn of mind too well from 
 the earliest youth to offer you such an insult : 
 but at the same time 1 am glad that I have 
 
 * The Examiner.
 
 IV DEDICATION. 
 
 been partly instrumental in showing to the 
 Public, what I myself always knew, that the 
 man, whom they perhaps looked upon as 
 merely an ingenious politician conscientiously 
 supporting his favourite opinions, has also a 
 regard for the freedom of truth, superior to 
 all considerations of self-love and self-interest. 
 I should be proud to give my name at length, 
 while I am thus proclaiming myself as enjoy- 
 ing your friendship : but on second thought 
 I believe it will be better for me not to draw 
 aside the mysterious veil which has given 
 an importance to the assumed name of 
 
 CRITICUS.* 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Toner Temple, 
 15th March, 1815. 
 
 ".$% vrn'io iiot?.0'iu/9 otto lo'i uo^ 
 * The signature assumed in the Examiner.
 
 TO 
 
 THE READER. 
 
 THESE articles have appeared in the 
 Examiner at different times during the 
 last year and a half: they will be found 
 sometimes to contain allusions to tem- 
 porary matters now almost forgot. The 
 Author could not well cure this defect 
 without re-casting the characters : but this 
 he declined to do, as the volume would 
 then have had an air of pretension, from 
 which, if it is considered, as it is intended, 
 as merely a series of hasty sketches, it 
 will be entirely free.
 
 

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction 1 
 
 Lord Castlereagh 11 
 
 Mr. Ponsonby 22 
 
 Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Fitzgerald 34 
 
 Mr. C. W. Wynne and Mr. Bankes 43 
 
 Mr. Tierney 55 
 
 Mr. W. Smith and Mr. Wilberforce 65 
 
 Sir W. Garrow and Sir S. Romilly 75 
 
 Mr. Canning 88 
 
 Mr. B. Bathurst and Mr. Ryder 99 
 
 Mr. Grattan 108 
 
 Mr. W. Pole arid Mr. Croker 118 
 
 Lord Milton and Lord Morpeth 128 
 
 Mr. Creevey and Mr. Brand 137 
 
 The City Members , 146 
 
 Sir William Scott 154 
 
 Dr. Duigenan and General Montagu Mathew . . 165 
 
 Mr. Robinson and Mr. Peel 173 
 
 Mr. Rose 181 
 
 Mr. Yorke and Mr. Stephen 189 
 
 Sir John Newport and Sir H. Parnell 195 
 
 Sir Francis Burdett 202 
 
 Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Horner 210 
 
 The Speaker of the House of Commons 217 
 
 Mr. VVhitbread . . 225
 
 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 J.T cannot be a speculation unacceptable to 
 those who feel an interest in the transactions 
 of Parliament, and who does not ? to review 
 the ranks of our political leaders ; and, while 
 they pass before us, to criticise their preten- 
 sions to eminence either for their wisdom, 
 their eloquence, or their integrity. It is not 
 my purpose to examine at large the various 
 questions which occupy the attention of our 
 legislative assemblies ; I have neither the 
 leisure nor the presumption to undertake 
 so portentous an enterprize : besides, there 
 are other and abler pens which are constantly 
 dedicated to this difficult and useful service, 
 and I am not anxious to begin a competition 
 on an arena where I should certainly not be 
 able to carry off the first honours. Some in- 
 struction however, some entertainment at
 
 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 any rate, may result from the contemplation 
 of the principal persons who figure on the 
 great scene : as it is curious to investigate 
 minutely the individual members of a large 
 machine, though the consideration of their 
 combined effect is without doubt the more 
 exalted and more pleasing study. 
 
 In turning our thoughts to the composition 
 and proceedings of a great popular assembly, 
 all whose transactions appear at least to be 
 conducted through the medium of speech, it 
 is impossible not to be struck with the dearth 
 of dexterity and excellence in the manage- 
 ment of the chief instrument of its operations. 
 What should we say of the main army of a 
 military nation which had not attained com- 
 mon precision in the use of fire-arms ; or, to 
 descend lower, of a company of watchmen, 
 who, like Dogberry's followers, should think 
 " it belongs to a watch to sleep." Something 
 to this effect, however, may be predicated of 
 the conclave who meet at Westminster to talk 
 for the public good. The spirit of oar con- 
 stitution directs, and its ostensible practice 
 complies with that direction, that all public 
 measures shall be proposed and canvassed 
 in the representative council of the people,
 
 INTRODUCTION. -3 
 
 and shall be approved or rejected on their 
 demonstrated merits or defects. Subjects of 
 almost incalculable interest are to be dis- 
 cussed : peace and war, laws, morals, manu- 
 factures, commerce, all that concerns the 
 wealth, the happiness, the glory of nations. 
 Can the imagination conceive a finer field for 
 oratorical emulation ; more powerful incen- 
 tives to awaken the mind to develope all its 
 energies and all its graces through its noble or- 
 gan, the tongue'? What is the fact ? About half 
 a dozen speakers, who have acquired a certain 
 fluent mediocrity, are allowed to settle the 
 disputed proposition with little knowledge 
 and less spirit, whilst the rest remain idle and 
 almost unconcerned hearers, sometimes yawn- 
 ing, sometimes sleeping, and sometimes, to 
 evince perhaps their claims to sit in a speaking 
 assembly, shouting in a style to be envied only 
 by a Stentor or a whipper-in. It is indeed 
 matter of humiliating reflection that, in a 
 country like England, whose philosophers, 
 and poets, and artists, may go side by side 
 with the proudest names of antiquity whose 
 wealth and power make Greece dwindle into 
 insignificance, and might dispute the prece- 
 dence even with the gigantic despotism of Im- 
 IJ 2
 
 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 perial Home ; in a country too, blest with a 
 popular congress, where the voices of the chiefs 
 of the nation may be heard, that scarcely 
 one man has arisen who deserves the title of 
 orator j scarcely one, who like Cicero, by the 
 mere power of words, has darted the public in- 
 dignation against a state delinquent, or like De- 
 mosthenes has electrified a whole people with 
 one universal impulse of patriotism. From 
 the earliest period of a free senate to the pre- 
 sent day, scarcely one such name appears on 
 our historical records : great political names 
 indeed are to be found, which might distin- 
 guish the annals of any country, our Went- 
 worths and Hydes, our Harleys and St, Johns, 
 our Walpoles and Pulteneys, our Pitts and 
 Foxes : but would any man in his senses 
 think of comparing these eminent persons, I 
 mean simply as orators, with those mighty 
 orators of Greece and Rome. I have heard 
 (and I dare say that at one time it was a com- 
 mon topic) the first Lord Chatham mentioned 
 as superior to them both. The noble ab- 
 sence of selfishness, the unimpeachable in- 
 tegrity, the strait-forward manliness of think- 
 ing, and the ardent intrepid spirit of that il- 
 lustrious Minister, are beyond my feebly
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 praise, and for their sake I am proud that 
 " Chatham's language was my mother 
 tongue." But I cannot consent to that in- 
 sulting mockery which would place on his 
 head a crown which does not belong to him : 
 to invest him with splendours which only dis- 
 cover his real insignificance. Certainly it is 
 not easy to read unmoved the glowing invec- 
 tive, the terrific denunciations which he 
 pours out against the supporters of a weak 
 and pernicious system, and I have no doubt 
 that, when accompanied with his mighty voice 
 and eye of fire, they appalled and almost an- 
 nihilated his unequal and puny antagonists. 
 But to an impartial observer of the present 
 day, do they contain any specimen of that 
 energetic reasoning and vehement passion, 
 that stupendous intellect chastised by the 
 correctest taste, those inimitable graces and 
 sublimities of manner and language in short, 
 that combination of the mightiest means 
 wielded by the mightiest power which as- 
 tonish and overwhelm us in the rival of 
 ^Eschines and adversary of Philip. Are they 
 characterised by that union of profound eru- 
 dition, of extensive and philosophic observa- 
 tion of men and manners, as well as of those
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 most exquisite artifices of elaborate rhetoric, 
 which mark the first name in Roman history 
 him who at once improved the taste, en- 
 larged the thinking, and saved the liberties of 
 his country the more than Bacon of his day 
 in various learning and comprehensive intel- 
 lect, the more than Sidney in his fearless and 
 powerful assertion of national independence 
 against the encroachment of a profligate 
 tyrant.* Compare (as one instance) the best 
 speech of Lord Chatham on the American 
 war with the famous vindication which the 
 Athenian has left against his enemies : then 
 say if the half-educated, half-informed under- 
 standing, and even tasteless puerilities of the 
 Englishman are to be put in competition with 
 the sublime harmony of thought and diction 
 which distinguish the Greek. One glorious 
 name indeed remains, which for scope of 
 thought, for extent of knowledge, for wisdom 
 almost more than human, may rank even with 
 Demosthenes or Cicero ; but then Burke dis- 
 graces his page with the most revolting ine- 
 qualities, and his best efforts are certainly 
 not his speeches. 
 
 It would require a long dissertation to in- 
 
 * Antony.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 vestigate the cause of this oratorical inferi- 
 ority of our countrymen. Some have foolishly 
 ascribed it to the good sense of our nation, 
 which despises those meretricious ornaments 
 (as they phrase it) which oratory throws over 
 the fair form of truth ; as if Pericles and De- 
 mosthenes, Caesar and Cicero, had not as 
 much good sense as Lords Liverpool and Cas- 
 tlereagh. A better reason may perhaps be 
 found in the constitution of that Assembly, 
 which only assumes the character of being 
 popular ; and, while it pretends to regulate its 
 decisions by deliberative wisdom, in fact lis- 
 tens only to the voice of power. In such a 
 meeting, however grand the matter of de- 
 bate, there is little stimulus for any but the 
 most enterprising mind to waste its powers 
 on a predetermined audience : for what could 
 the voice of an angel do against a silent vote 
 bought in silence. These purchased deci- 
 sions, these previously bargained securities 
 against the possible effects of eloquence, are 
 sufficient to extirpate all the motives for ex- 
 ertion in the common run of ambitious men. 
 Even a man, whose love of fame is purified 
 from mere selfishness, may be forgiven, if he 
 hesitates a little before he will devote the
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 i 
 
 whole faculties of his mind to astonish an 
 audience, who are bound by honour or by 
 covenant not to be convinced, though De- 
 mosthenes should rise from the dead ; and to 
 whom is left merely the half-animal capacity 
 of receiving pleasure from the sound of well 
 narmonized periods. It asks a mind of no 
 common firmness, of no common benevo- 
 lence, to persevere in haranguing an impene- 
 trable assembly from the almost baseless hope 
 that some better spirit may disenthrall itself 
 from its ignoble bondage, and dare to act 
 solely at the direction of virtue and intelli- 
 gence. There are however (thank Heaven) 
 among us at present two or three eminent 
 characters, who seem actuated.by this stimu- 
 lus of a generous utility ; and who find their 
 reward not indeed in the intoxicating accla- 
 mations of popular unanimity, enforced by 
 their eloquence, but in the slow yet regulated 
 benefits which, in spite of every obstacle flow 
 from their speeches, to the amelioration of 
 every part of a reluctant, but conscience^ 
 struck Administration. Bad therefore as 
 the prospect may appear to a young orator, let 
 him not despair : he cannot command a ma- 
 jority of votes, but he can command a majority
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 of the Reasoning and the Good throughout 
 the Country, and through them the ultimate 
 control over the proudest and most corrupt 
 Minister. But this tempting subject is car- 
 rying me beyond all reasonable limits ; I 
 will therefore, without farther preface, pro- 
 ceed to the critical exhibition of our several 
 Parliamentary Leaders, and weigh, in the 
 most impartial balance which my judgment 
 can frame, their talents and their conduct, 
 chiefly, however, with reference to their skill 
 and influence as Parliamentary Speakers.
 
 ; >u LORD CASTLEREAGH. 
 
 _ .>'. .-.. 
 
 JL AM aware that the task which I have un- 
 dertaken is one of considerable delicacy, and 
 even peril : to cite before a self-created tri- 
 bunal all the leading rank, and power, and 
 talent of the'dav, to call them to strict ac- 
 
 / * 
 
 count, and pass upon them an unhesitating 
 sentence of censure or of praise, may ap- 
 pear a vast reach of presumption in an un- 
 known individual : while, at the same time, 
 the risk of failure amounts almost to certainty, 
 and failure brings with it a storm of indigna- 
 tion and contempt. The usefulness as well as 
 interest of the investigation can alone justify 
 the boldness of the attempt, and would 
 alone console the ignominy of ill success : con- 
 scious, meantime, as the author is (in the lan- 
 guage of his motto) that his opinions are 
 honestly formed, and that malice is out of the 
 question, where he is discussing a great di- 
 versity of characters with whom he never 
 was, and very probably never will be, con- 
 nected. 
 
 6
 
 12 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 In the exhibition of ray gallery of portraits, 
 I shall begin with the Members of the 
 Lower rather than of the Upper House, be- 
 cause, rapid as are the strides which our Go- 
 vernment is taking towards mere monarchy, 
 and even Mr. Leckie could hardly wish to ac- 
 celerate its velocity, yet there remains to 
 the Commons some show of will, some spark 
 of legislative interference, which gives them a 
 decided superiority over the acquiescing aris- 
 tocracy, who slumber in scattered array on 
 the crimson benches of their gaudier cham- 
 ber. The House of Lords has been called, 
 not inaptly, an Hospital of Invalids. The 
 House of Commons presents the more im- 
 posing spectacle of an army of strong men, 
 though, to a close observer, the heroes will 
 appear fettered with all the graduated varieties 
 of subordination, and acting only as the mas- 
 ter-influence directs : serving by the way as 
 an useful illustration to those puzzling and 
 puzzled metaphysicians, who have insisted on 
 the inseparable union between free-will and 
 necessity. 
 
 I shall not marshal my phantoms according 
 to their merit, so much as according to their 
 rank : the Commoner who is the Minister of
 
 LORD CASTLEREAGH. 13 
 
 the day is always considered as the Manager* 
 of the House of Commons, and seems on that 
 account alone worthy of our first notice ; and, 
 indeed, less curious persons must at once 
 imagine him to be the most eloquent as well 
 as the most powerful Member, whose speeches 
 never fail to carry conviction to such large 
 majorities. The present Administration, be- 
 sides the various satellites which move about 
 the large bodies, and are, by the way, much 
 more luminous than their unwieldy principals, 
 has sent three of its greater stars to illumi- 
 nate the nether hemisphere : two of these, 
 unfortunately, happen to be opaque bodies, 
 while the third casts such faint glimmerings 
 of light as would appear darkness to any but 
 those who had been used for some time to 
 the atmosphere of Greenland. 
 
 To descend, however, from these celestial 
 metaphors, which, indeed, have no very ob- 
 vious connexion with our very terrestrial 
 governors, it is rather new for a Ministry to 
 have but one advocate of its measures in the 
 of Commons, only one man to fight 
 
 * I use this term because it is familiar to every body, 
 though the very sound of it portends all that is impudent 
 and unconstitutional.
 
 14 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 the pitched battles with the armies of 
 Whiggism, or to ward oft" the desultory at- 
 tacks from the adventurous marauders who 
 start up occasionally from all quarters of the 
 House, and fire their little vollies just loud 
 and teasing enough to make their silence 
 worthy to be purchased. Even in the auto- 
 cratical reign of Mr. Pitt, his attendant spirits 
 were allowed now and then to exert their 
 small energies, and the voices of Lord 
 Hawkesbury, Mr. Hobart, and Mr. Dundas, 
 resounded during many an hour, through all 
 the gradations of official explanation and re- 
 crimination. Poor Addington, indeed, who 
 most wanted assistance, had nothing to sup- 
 port him, except the stiff nonentity of his 
 brother Hiley, and the prattling dulness of 
 his brother Bathurst, that illustrious pair, 
 whose very appearance begets ennui, and has 
 distended more faces, into a yawn than ever 
 Sheridan wrinkled into smiles. Mr. Perceval 
 condescended to adopt the barking aid of Mr. 
 Yorke, though we must say that he seemed 
 to approve his thundering cheers'much more 
 than his broken-limbed speeches. But Lord 
 Castlereagh is the universal and unsupported 
 defender of every Ministerial project : even 
 Mr. Vansittart's patent scheme of finance
 
 LORD CASTLEREAGH. 1.5 
 
 hung lingering between life and death, its 
 parent being unable to utter one intelligible 
 sentence against the fierce and persevering 
 denunciations of Mr. Tierney, till Lord Castle- 
 *eagh brought a long speech to its support, 
 and carried it through, amid the acclamations 
 of those TV'ho could not speak one word in its 
 favour. Whatever, indeed, be the subject, 
 up starts Lord Castlereagh, a sort of Pericles 
 in miniature, and developes his tedious thread 
 of ideas in a speech seldom less than of two 
 hours length : for his Lordship seems to have 
 an opinion similar to the Pharisees, that he 
 shall be heard for his much talking. Well, 
 but somebody will perhaps interrupt, his 
 Lordship must .be a prodigious man who can 
 talk on every thing and for so long a time. 
 This faculty is undoubtedly curiously peculiar, 
 but, I apprehend, not miraculous. It may 
 be thus explained: His ideas are few and 
 puny, but his words, the symbols or phantoms 
 of his ideas, are extended to a supernatural 
 expansion, so that the signifier and the thing 
 signified bear the same proportion which one 
 sometimes observes between a small heavy 
 stone and its alarming shadow, elongated to 
 the distance of many a rood. 
 
 It is peculiar also to Lord Castlereagh to
 
 16 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 be heard with much apparent respect, and 
 even fondness, though the style of his ha- 
 rangues is decidedly the dullest in the Lower 
 House. He has no imagination, no energy 
 either of thought or language, no spirit in 
 his manner ; and though he is perpetually 
 aiming at uncommon words and forms of ex- 
 pression, yet I never remember him to have 
 struck out one happy combination. His in- 
 volutions of sentences have been much ridi- 
 culed as rendering his meaning frequently in- 
 accessible : and his adversaries and rivals 
 have generally ascribed this obscurity to de- 
 sign, and call it a stratagem to escape from 
 any open declaration of his sentiments, which 
 might be in the way of future arrangements. 
 I do not think so : I believe Lord Castlereagh 
 to be sincere in most of his opinions, and 
 more free from uncandid evasions than most 
 of the political aspirants of the day : he has 
 at least as much public integrity, and as 
 strong claims to public confidence, as Mr. 
 Pohsonby, and a vast deal more, I appre- 
 hend, than Mr. Canning. The perplexity of 
 his diction I impute to that anxious laborious- 
 ness so common to a mind inquiring but not 
 acute, whose ideas being indistinct and half- 
 fpnned, can of course never produce clear
 
 LOUD CASTLEREAGH. 17 
 
 and perfect images, but which, being eager to 
 communicate its notions, endeavours, by 
 every artifice of variety, quantity, and length, 
 to supply the place of simplicity and energy. 
 It is like the variegated patch-work of a 
 beggar's garment, where a thousand diver- 
 sities of rags, however artfully placed, form 
 but an ill substitute for a firm and uniform tex- 
 ture ; or like an unwieldy levy-en-masse, in- 
 stead of a compact, well-organized, and ma- 
 nageable army. A more trifling peculiarity is 
 that affected pronunciation with which he 
 enervates the masculine sounds of our tongue; 
 such for instance as calling " knowledge," 
 " nulllge ;" " Commons," " cummins ;" " dis- 
 cussion," " deskissin" and several others : 
 this is so curious an exception to the usual 
 plain dull common sense of Lord Castlereagh, 
 that I can only account for it by supposing 
 that Lady C., who is a lady of letters, may 
 have some favourite theory of enunciation, 
 intended to supersede Sheridan's or Walker's, 
 and that she has engaged her noble husband 
 to try its efficacy and power of pleasing in 
 the first assembly of the nation. One puerile 
 affectation may be forgiven him, because it 
 seems to arouse all his energies, and really 
 
 c
 
 18 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 stirs him into a sort of warmth : a military 
 subject is to him what Galvanism is to a dead 
 frog : he jumps about with symptoms of life, 
 which might deceive a common observer, till, 
 on looking for the animating soul, you find 
 that all these exertions were merely acci- 
 dental. Whence this military propensity 
 proceeds, I cannot tell : his father was a 
 Colonel of Volunteers, and himself com- 
 mands a regiment of Militia ; but this is the 
 case with a score or two other Members of 
 the House. It can hardly arise from his 
 looking well in the military dress, though he 
 is fond of appearing in it ; for he must know 
 that he looks the accomplished gentleman in 
 any garb. Indeed this is the favourable side 
 of Lord Castlereagh : his handsome person, 
 his intelligent and well-defined countenance, 
 his conciliatory tone, his graceful manners, 
 his mildness, urbanity, and invincible cour- 
 tesy, ensure him popularity and even fond- 
 ness from the House of Commons, in spite of 
 his dulness and in spite of his political errors. 
 Personal and even political animosity loses 
 daily some of its rancour, from the influence 
 of that gentleness which never irritates, and 
 is as slow to be irritated ; whose polish makes
 
 LORD CASTLEREAGtt. 19 
 
 the sharpest arrow, which anger can shoot, 
 glide from him harmless, and whose softness 
 neutralizes the most acrid venom. Thus, 
 though he is utterly deficient in the marks of 
 the real English character, and is as little like 
 his native Irish, though he has no honest 
 indiscretions, no bursts of feeling, no fearless 
 unhesitating avowals, at once imprudent and 
 noble, yet he is perhaps the greatest fa- 
 vourite, since the time of Lord North, in an 
 assembly consisting four-fifths of Englishmen. 
 Mr. Perceval was liked, and deservedly, as an 
 amiable gentleman, but then he fancied him- 
 self a wit, and he really had some power of 
 sarcasm. With this dangerous talent often 
 has he roused the sleeping Whigs into all the 
 rancour of party-rage at the end of a long 
 debate, which had been for hours conducted 
 with the prevailing apathy of the day. Thus 
 he had almost as many political enemies as 
 Mr. Pitt, though he was as gentle as the other 
 was haughty and unaccomodating. Lord 
 Castlereagh has no wit, nor power of satire ; 
 and he is too prudent or too good-natured to 
 show the wish to strike without the energy 
 sufficient to make the blow effectual. 
 
 It is impossible to close a character of Lord 
 c 2
 
 2O PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 Castlereagh even as a speaker, (and this sketch 
 pretends to nothing else,) without alluding to 
 the universal hatred with which the majority 
 of Irishmen pursue his name. All the atro- 
 cities of the late Rebellion are attributed to 
 him, though he had scarcely any concern in 
 them : the abdominous dulness of Lord Cam- 
 den, and the brainless impetuosities of Ge- 
 neral Lake, are game too mean for the Irish 
 politicians : they overlook at once " et adi- 
 pem Cassii, et Cethegi furiosam temeritatem ;" 
 but all the fierceness of party, all the popular 
 fury, is to be turned against that .man, whose 
 abilities and industry made him a formidable 
 rival to his political opponents, and whose 
 amiable character must have been irresistibly 
 victorious, unless stained with charges of 
 cruelty and tyranny. But it is not my office 
 to enlarge on such subjects, and I gladly turn 
 away my eyes from those frightful scenes of 
 national suffering, where both sides seem 
 madly to have rushed to mutual destruction, 
 with all the savageness and all the hatred of 
 the blindest terror. It is a subject too early 
 for discussion by a century, and Irishmen 
 should not be eager to provoke a review, 
 where faults will be seen to attach to their
 
 LORD CASTLEREAGH. 21 
 
 friends as well as their enemies. In the 
 language of an eloquent sufferer* in those 
 dreadful days, " let that event and its name 
 rest in obscurity and peace till other times 
 and other men can do justice to its character." 
 
 * Emmet's speech 4 he uses those expressions with re- 
 ference to himself, but they may as well be applied to the 
 tragedy in which he was one of the principal actors.
 
 MR. PONSONBY. 
 
 JL AM no friend to political creeds or party- 
 badges, for besides the servility of putting on 
 a livery, it is a ridiculous presumption in any 
 set of men to pretend to the exclusive posses- 
 sion of all that is enlightened or honest, and 
 to denounce every man as weak or corrupt 
 who does not choose to be enclosed within 
 their best of possible pales. I do not deny 
 the use of parties in a Government so consti- 
 tuted as that of England, though, except for 
 the purposes of personal aggrandizement, I 
 doubt whether the thickest phalanx which 
 was ever marshalled against a Ministry would 
 produce one half of that solid benefit to the 
 country which may result from the sensible 
 speech of an independent, unsupported mem- 
 ber. The great disadvantage of a systematic 
 opposition is its necessity of attacking every 
 project of the existing Administration, whe- 
 ther good or bad, so that twice out of four 
 times it must almost necessarily be wrong ;
 
 MR. PONSONBY. 23 
 
 for I suppose it is presumable, on every prin- 
 ciple of common sense and human conduct, 
 that no Ministry will be gratuitously wicked, 
 that on the contrary they will act rightly if 
 they can, and on a combination of the doctrine 
 of chances with the usual rules of action, one 
 may conclude that it is quite as probable that 
 the Prime Minister will endeavour to act well 
 as ill. All this is perfectly known to the Oppo- 
 sition : but then they are a great body with a 
 vast number of hungry retainers, and they 
 must fight for place and forage ; and as the laws 
 of war are not remarkable for the niceness of 
 their morality, it is of little consequence whe- 
 ther they attack an offending or an innocent 
 territory. This sort of petty warfare of course 
 destroys the respectability of the body using 
 it, and its public usefulness must decrease 
 in the same ratio as the public confidence. 
 
 With this view of party-objects, it is not 
 likely that I should be very anxious to enlist 
 myself under any particular banner : still when 
 a person has undertaken to canvass the con- 
 duct of political men, it seems quite natural 
 to inquire into his individual opinions, whe- 
 ther he be Tory, Whig, or Reformer. With 
 the best attention which I have been able to
 
 24- PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 give to the Constitution of my country, and at 
 least an earnest examination of the causes of 
 its' grandeur and strength, I profess myself an 
 ardent admirer of the principles of Whiggism : 
 in other words, 1 venerate that wise maxim 
 which, referring the origin of all power to 
 the people, allows only such an exercise of 
 the delegated authority as shall contribute to 
 the general weal, and which, looking upon 
 princes and governors only as persons enno- 
 bled by the sublime importance of their func- 
 tions, frowns with indignation on the courtly 
 flattery which would make a nation's welfare 
 subservient to a private opinion. But though 
 I love Whiggism, I cannot extend this feel- 
 ing to its professors : for the Whigs themselves 
 I feel the most violent distaste, whether they 
 be of modern or ancient date : I am equally 
 disgusted with the turbulent profligacy of 
 Lord Shaftesbury, the elegant cowardice of 
 Lord Somers, the sordid dishonesty of Mr. 
 Pulteney, and the inaccessible pride of Lord 
 Grey.* One name indeed the Whigs may 
 
 * It is not my intention to invade the sanctuary of pri- 
 vate life; but injustice to Lord Grey I must say, that he 
 is reported to be as gentle and good-natured in private 
 life, as in public he is stiff, arrogant, and supercilious.
 
 MR. PONSONBY. 25 
 
 boast, their glory, and the glory of his 
 country, the gentlest, the firmest, and the 
 lionestest of human beings, whose heart 
 more than any man's seems to have been 
 purged from all hateful and malignant pas- 
 sions, and to have opened itself with equal 
 zeal to private friendship and the public good. 
 Mr. Fox, after the first indiscretions of his 
 youth, never lost sight of the great principles 
 of his profession, and his frank simplicity of 
 manners formed a beautiful concord with the 
 popular tendencies of his political conduct. 
 But let not this illustrious name be confound- 
 ed with those dull and pompous Aristocrats, 
 who, assuming a popular title for private pur- 
 poses, despise equally popular feelings and 
 popular sentiments j who bolstered up with 
 heaps of wealth, and stiffened into one com- 
 pact mass by family alliance, with cold selfish- 
 ness turn their backs at once on the Monarch 
 and the nation, and never think or speak of 
 the people, except perhaps once a Session to 
 point a sentence, or build a climax. Are 
 such men constitutional advocates of a peo- 
 ple's rights ? are they even a healthy part 
 of the body politic of England ? No ! they 
 are indolent and indurated tumours, equally-
 
 26 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 dangerous by their stay or their removal, 
 but which it is the interest both of the King 
 and People to soften or disperse as much as 
 possible by their united skill and energy. 
 They are the powerful obstacle in the way of 
 all reform, yet dare to retain a name which 
 throws shame and inconsistency on all their 
 actions and all their sentiments. Let me ex- 
 cept one eminent character " who bears 
 no token of these sable streams/' though 
 sometimes ingulfed in their general vortex. 
 For Lord Holland it is impossible not to feel 
 the deepest respect : his open disposition and 
 honest feelings remind one every moment of 
 his great relative j while his fine good sense, 
 enlarged and liberalized into philosophy, 
 shows that if his talents are not so prodigious 
 as those of his uncle, they are at least of the 
 same sterling nature. 
 
 But I must beg pardon for keeping Mr. 
 Ponsonby so long in waiting: his rank, as 
 leader of the Whig Opposition, suggested 
 these remarks, and must excuse my delay in 
 bringing forward for public view so conspicu- 
 ous a personage. 
 
 It is a novel and not very pleasant feature 
 in the Whig-regiment, that its leader is an 
 6
 
 MR. PONSONBY. 27 
 
 Irishman : genius and worth are indeed of all 
 countries ; and what Englishman would not 
 be proud to be directed by Burke, or Sheridan, 
 or Grattan, as far as intellect is concerned ? 
 J am, however, yet to learn, and the nation 
 has yet to learn, what are the intellectual pre- 
 tensions of Mr. Ponsonby, whence it is that no 
 Englishman can be- found, of at least equal 
 abilities, to fill the usual post, and why, 
 cateris paribus, a heavy Irish lawyer, but 
 newly acquainted here, is to be selected by 
 preference for that place, which, from various 
 circumstances, seems to demand a man bred 
 up in English habits, and . thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with English manners and customs. 
 The reason seems to be his close connexion 
 with most of the great aristocratical families, 
 or what perhaps is of still more consequence, 
 that the Whigs who are pledged to him do not 
 know what else to do with him. Certainly 
 a worse leader could not have been chosen : 
 a man who fills that important situation should 
 have extensive knowledge, commanding 
 eloquence, perpetual vigilance, and last, 
 though, not the most trifling qualification, 
 pleasing and conciliating manners. Let us 
 examine Mr. Ponsonby by this standard. It
 
 28 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 is said that he was an excellent Chancellor, 
 which implies that he has considerable erudi- 
 tion in his profession ; and though a vain and 
 selfish Englishman is apt to laugh when you 
 talk of lawyers out of England, yet the law 
 must be allowed to be a well-cultivated science 
 in a country which has produced such men as 
 Plunkett, Saurin, and Burroughs. I will sup- 
 pose, therefore, that Mr. Ponsonby is a learn- 
 ed lawyer, though with a curious sort of cour- 
 tesy the phrase of " Learned Gentleman," 
 which usually is given to legal members, is 
 dropped with reference to him. Is he ashamed 
 of his business, or would the title which 
 is borne by Sir Samuel Romilly disgrace Mr. 
 George Ponsonby ? Be this as it may, the 
 knowledge of law seems almost the only 
 knowledge possessed by this gentleman. He 
 does not speak very often, but in all the 
 speeches which I have heard, I cannot re- 
 collect any happy historical applications ; any 
 illustrations from those arts or sciences which 
 ought to be to a certain extent familiar to 
 every gentleman's mind ; no allusions bor- 
 rowed from the sublime fictions of poetry, at 
 once to embellish and strengthen the cause 
 of truth. All this, and tenfold more
 
 MR. PONSONBY. 29 
 
 this, were found in Mr. Fox ; and some of 
 this may of right be expected from any per- 
 son who puts himself forward as the intellec- 
 tual leader of a band of well-educated gentle- 
 men. Has he any eloquence ? This question 
 may best be answered by saying that he is 
 never animated : nothing seems to rouse him 
 except personal pique, and then he is warm 
 without spirit, like the sullen, uncomfortable 
 heat before a thunder-storm. Subjects of 
 the deepest interest, occasions which electrify 
 men of the usual feelings, are all met by him 
 with the same dull measured offerings of a 
 scanty understanding. Thus he is the coldest 
 debater of the Catholic Claims among the 
 Irish Members, and even at the dinner 
 given to the Catholic Delegates, where the 
 social glow of honestly-indulged feelings 
 seemed to elevate every mind for a time into 
 a moral enthusiasm, Mr. Ponsonby uttered a 
 few trite dogmas in his usual bow-wow way, 
 neither his thoughts being raised nor his feel- 
 ings warmed by the noble spectacle around 
 him. What, however, most unfits this states- 
 man for his imposing situation is his habitual 
 and apparently incurable indolence. A per- 
 son who goes into the House of Commons 
 4
 
 SO PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 for the first time must be rather puzzled with 
 his appearance. He sees a stout and rather 
 ungainly Gentleman, not remarkably well 
 dressed, with dirty boots and old unbrushed 
 hat, sitting cross-legged, and his head almost 
 sunk in his breast, as if asleep after the 
 fatigues of a fox-chase. The sleepy person- 
 age then doffs his hat and rises ; his un- 
 polished manner and grim features hold forth 
 but little promise : with the aid of jumping, 
 and violent jerking of his head, which like the 
 cadence of a mallet, which it imitates, seems 
 a most appropriate exemplification of a knock- 
 down argument, he gives utterance to about 
 a score of sentences. The stranger expresses 
 some surprise, and exclaims, " Why really 
 that Country Gentleman says some sensible 
 thigs : but pray, Sir, don't you think his 
 manner not exactly the thing in a polished 
 assembly?" What then is his astonishment 
 when he learns that the person of whom he is 
 speaking so disrespectfully is the chief of the 
 aristocratical faction, and considered as the 
 fittest person to conciliate and preserve the 
 confidence of the people. What would be 
 his astonishment if he should attend every 
 day for a Session, and should observe that
 
 MR. PONSONBY. SI 
 
 this leader of a party could not prevail upon 
 himself to rise a dozen times during the 
 whole season ; that questions of vast impor- 
 tance were suffered to pass without one 
 single observation ; that when Mr. Whitbread 
 brought forward his motion on the American 
 war, neither the Whigs nor their leader were 
 to be seen at their post ; that when the cause 
 of an injured Princess occupied the thoughts 
 and feelings of a whole nation, Mr. Ponsonby 
 had nothing to remark except a few words in 
 defence of his political friends ; and lastly, 
 when the Parliament was legislating for the 
 interests of an almost boundless empire, Mr. 
 Ponsonby, after one or two puny efforts in a 
 subject which he allows to be of incalculable 
 importance, steals away to the other side of 
 the Channel, to follow fox-hounds in his 
 county of Kildare. After this, it will seem 
 mere anticlimax to state that there is nothing 
 prepossessing in his appearance, or concilia- 
 tory in his manners, nothing to please the eye 
 or soothe the senses, in the absence of those 
 greater qualities which command conviction 
 and enforce regard. After all, I am not so 
 foolish as to imagine or to wish that I could
 
 S2 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 convince any person that Mr. Ponsonby has 
 no claims to respect. He is a sensible, clear- 
 headed man, with too much prudence to incur 
 ridicule by any attempts beyond his powers ; 
 but except on the score of family, he is no 
 more fitted for his post than the lowest re- 
 tainer of his party. Some persons think he 
 has humour : he certainly has some skill in 
 sarcasm j but then he exercises it on the 
 paltry satellites, instead of bravely attacking 
 the chiefs of the party. The official fidgetti- 
 ness, self-importance, and small-shotted anger 
 of Mr. W. Pole were fair game, but why should 
 the Right Honourable Leader of the Whigs 
 waste his ammunition on such mean opponents 
 as Messrs. Croker and Courtney ? It was not so 
 that Mr. Fox consulted the dignity of his 
 character. But enough, and more than 
 enough, has been said of a man, about whom 
 the public feels as little curiosity as about 
 his footman. Mr. Ponsonby is said to be fond 
 of fox-hunting, and to have regretted the day 
 when he left that intellectual amusement 
 for politics : let him go back to it he will 
 not be missed : if he kills but one fox in 
 a season he will do more service to the com-
 
 MR. POttSONBY. 33 
 
 mon weal, than by whole years of stiff, re* 
 luctant, lazy sitting on a bench, .which was 
 once adorned by I^ox, and which, since 
 Mr. Whitbread will not take it, hoping to 
 be more useful in another capacity, may yet 
 be filled by Brougham^
 
 MR. VANSITTART AND MR. FITZGERALD. 
 
 ANY person who should merely read the 
 names at the head of this article without refer- 
 ring to the official duties of the persons so de- 
 nominated, might imagine that I had selected 
 them for the sake of a ludicrous contrast, to 
 relieve the offensive bluster of the young 
 Irishman by the insipid tranquillity of the 
 elderly Englishman. Certainly it is hardly 
 possible to bring under one view two persons 
 more dissimilar : if there is any difference 
 between sedate intelligence and bubbling 
 shallowness, between unpretending mildness 
 and impertinent irritability, between modesty 
 self-humiliating almost to a degree of debase- 
 ment, and conceit soaring to the height of 
 insolence, then there is an interval wide as 
 the poles asunder between the two gentlemen 
 whom I now undertake to exhibit. They are 
 presented in one picture, merely because they 
 hold similar situations, the one being Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer for England, the 
 other for Ireland. Those persons who think
 
 MR. ^I? I>R? 4^D MR. } J'TSGfJ^ALD. 3,5 
 
 that the same quantity qf ftlent and 
 ledge is requisite for the appropriate dis- 
 charge of the same duty, must be a little 
 amused to see the patriarch qf the present 
 generation of financiers sitting side by side 
 under the same official laurels which shade 
 the youngster who, yery probably, scarcely 
 knows the distinction between simple and 
 compound interest. It is pretty well known 
 that the business of the Exchequer does not 
 require the utmost reach of the human intel- 
 lect. Mr. Sheridan once declared that a 
 competent knowledge of the rule of threp 
 was a sufficient qualification for that impor- 
 tant department. This, however, was merely 
 the dictum of a man of genius, to whom all 
 things are easy, and who is apt to undervalue 
 any feats which may be achieved by mere 
 perseverance and common sense. If an in- 
 timate acquaintance with the rule of three 
 were all that were necessary from the chief 
 of the budget-division of the Treasury, then 
 the present officer in England might fairly be 
 considered as the prince of political arithme- 
 ticians. His knowledge of figures is so pro- 
 found, that I question if he would not be 
 able to discover a new method of extracting 
 D 2
 
 36 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 the cube, if he would devote himself to sup- 
 ply that long-sought desideratum instead of 
 constructing pigmy fabrics of patent finance. 
 In fact, he is such a master of figures, that 
 like most conquerors of a hard-earned terri- 
 tory, he has changed the very nature of his 
 acquired province : thus in his hands the rule 
 of three has long ceased to be golden, and he 
 has lately projected to increase the velocity * 
 of an infinite series by clipping its wings and 
 forcing it to stand still. Yet though I thus 
 venture to laugh at the airy attempts of a pro- 
 jector, I should ill explain myself if I did not 
 express the highest respect for Mr. Vansittart. 
 He is certainly the most learned man in the 
 financial profession, which the House of Com- 
 mons can boast. Mr. Huskisson always bows 
 with due respect to his old teacher, and even 
 Mr. Tierney drops some of his cool sarcasm, 
 and speaks with apparent or real respect (for 
 it is not easy to discover when Mr. Tierney 
 is in earnest) when he is combating the 
 measures of a man who is able to detect all 
 his fallacies, and unravel all his labyrinths of 
 ciphers. But having paid this tribute of re- 
 
 * See his late scheme for appropriating part of the Sink- 
 ing Fund.
 
 MR. VANSITTART AND MR. FITZGERALD. 67 
 
 spect to the first financier of the day (for 
 such with all his whims, and in spite of all 
 the ill-timed dogmas of the Bullion Com- 
 mittee, Mr. Vansittart assuredly is) I should 
 be rather weak than candid if I should say 
 any thing else to elevate this gentleman. His 
 intellect, independently of his technical 
 science, is so scanty and so ill-furnished with 
 materials, that he cannot command the most 
 obvious illustrations, or the most accessible 
 varieties of diction in support of any the 
 most darling measure. Born to admire what- 
 ever is, it is only in the unsubstantial region 
 of ciphers that he is an innovator : in all 
 things else he is as irremovable from the 
 ground in which he has grown as the merest 
 weed that ever encumbered a soil : parsley 
 and horse-radish are but a type of his un- 
 eradicable tenacity. He loves the Govern- 
 ment, and so he would if it had been a de- 
 spotism as bylaw established under that best of 
 monarchs James the Second : he loves Christ- 
 ianity, and so he would if Pope Gregory 
 still swayed the holy sceptre : he loves the 
 administration of affairs as now regulated, and 
 so he would if by some incredible reverse
 
 of fortune the Reformers should chance to 
 perch on the Treasury benches. Do I mean 
 to accuse him of dishonesty or insincerity ? 
 From my soul I disavow so calumnious an 
 imputation : I believe him to be an highly 
 honourable and disinterested man : but I 
 think him to be one of those feeble unen- 
 lightened understandings that dare not open 
 their eyes to a light which they fear will be 
 too strong for them, but are content to con- 
 nive and wink so long as they themselves can 
 tread along in security and peace. 
 
 It is to indolence, to timidity, to an imbe- 
 cility which shrinks from the task of com- 
 bating prejudice : it is to these causes, and 
 not to mean selfishness, that I attribute the 
 time-serving conduct of this and some other 
 gentlemen. For the rest, his public charac- 
 ter may be dismissed in two words : on the 
 one part, his utter inability to connect to- 
 gether half a dozen intelligible sentences 
 would detract all respect from his addresses j 
 but, on the other hand, his well known in- 
 tegrity, his primitive simplicity of manner, 
 (for he looks as honestly prepossessing as the 
 white hairs and unworldly-gentleness of the
 
 MR. VANSITTART AND MR. FITZGERALD. 39 
 
 most saintly priest,) and above all, his per- 
 petual good nature, alway secure him a patient 
 and even half-affectionate attention. 
 
 The Irish Chancellor is so testy a gentle- 
 man, that a very timid and superficial ob- 
 server might be afraid to meddle with him ; 
 those however who view him closely are 
 rather amused than alarmed by his gun-pow- 
 der speeches, and sword and pistol aspect, 
 and think they see that he has no more ef- 
 fectual fire in him than a paltry squib, which 
 spirts out its fretful anger to the danger only 
 of the hand that wields it. This young gen- 
 tleman may be looked upon as one of the spoil- 
 ed children of the House of Commons : an as- 
 sembly indeed, which, on all occasions, shows 
 a most unwise good-nature towards the efforts 
 of its younger members. I call it unwise, be- 
 cause it tempts many a half-informed stripling 
 to waste its sacred hours with crude conceits, 
 against which there afterwards lies no remedy 
 except by the rude operation of coughing or 
 hooting down. Mr. Fitzgerald, however, af- 
 ter being heard often enough to make him 
 believe himself of some importance, has at 
 length reached that pitch that no cough or 
 hooting can silence him. He puts on a big
 
 40 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 face, and " threatens the threatener:" when 
 the cry against him is loudest, (for the House 
 begin to be tired of him,) instead of yielding 
 quietly to the storm, he looks about him to 
 single out some victim whom he may de- 
 nounce for want of courtesy : and with the 
 true spirit of unchivalrous valour he^is sure 
 to pitch either on some quiet country gen- 
 tleman, or some humble friend at the corners 
 of the Treasury bench. He has, indeed, all 
 the absurd susceptibility of a person who, 
 conscious of his own weak and ridiculous 
 points, fancies that every body sees them as 
 -well as himself, and forgets that there is a 
 graduation in the scale of insignificance be- 
 low which the most active and malicious vigi- 
 lance holds it worthless to direct its attention. 
 Let me reassure him ; whatever notice has 
 been bestowed upon him is to be ascribed to 
 the kindness of the House, to his family con- 
 nexions, and perhaps a little to his exceed- 
 ingly well-cut though strangely coloured coat 
 and pantaloons. As to any thing else, he 
 may be confident that he may be as silly and 
 as pompous as he pleases, and that no one 
 will heed it except perhaps now and then to 
 divert the spleen. Sir John Newport may in-
 
 MR. VANSITTART AND MR. FITZGERALD. 41 
 
 deed sometimes condescend to ejaculate a 
 few fiery sentences about Irish distilleries 
 and Irish excise ; but Mr. Fitzgerald must 
 not mistake this opposition as a personal at- 
 tention. He should recollect that Sir John 
 talks partly because h,e is very fond of talking, 
 and partly because, having once been Chan- 
 cellor himself, he abides by the good old rule 
 of disliking every thing done by every other 
 possible Chancellor. 1 cannot explain whence 
 it arises, but it seems peculiar to Irish Chan- 
 cellors and Irish Secretaries to imagine them- 
 selves to be the sole important and respon- 
 sible personages in the Irish Government. 
 Some of this feeling may be discovered in the 
 Right Honourable Baronet just mentioned: a 
 vast deal of it in the late officer Mr. W. Pole : 
 and the mantle has lost none of its dignifying 
 influencing by investing the shoulders of 
 Messrs. Peel and Fitzgerald. Cannot these 
 very humble under-agents understand that 
 all which is expected from them is a clear 
 and modest detail of their duties, and, when 
 called for, a quiet explanation of the motives 
 of their superiors ? Yet to hear these persons 
 talk, a stranger would imagine that in them 
 was vested all the dignity and power of Irish
 
 42 PARLIAMENTARY PORTHAITS. 
 
 Administration, and that a Lord Lieutenant 
 or a Commander in Chief were merely their 
 acting constables. Lord Castlereagh, who 
 seems to love humour though he has none, 
 and whose calm good sense is abhorrent from 
 all sort of pretence, maybe frequently seen to 
 smile at the ludicrous self-importance and 
 boyish hastiness of the Irish financier : and 
 not seldom appears to hint the propriety of 
 silence to the bouncing orator, which how- 
 ever the youth in general disregards. I have 
 however wasted too much time on this vain 
 young gentleman, and shall conclude by ad- 
 vising him to study with a little more ac- 
 curacy that noble rule of three (which, from 
 Mr. Sheridan's notion, may be called the 
 Chancellor's rule or touchstone) whence he 
 may perhaps be able to discover more nicely 
 than he knows at present, the proportion be- 
 tween his talents and the respect which be- 
 longs to them.
 
 MR. C. W. WYNNE AND MR. BANKES. 
 
 1 HAVE associated these gentlemen, not so 
 much for any strong resemblance to each 
 other in their individual qualities, as because 
 they both, influenced no doubt by sufficiently 
 powerful motives, but at any rate unembar- 
 rassed with the inconsistently uniform slavery 
 of party, dare to maintain a tolerably inde- 
 pendent aspect, and to avow sentiments which 
 probably are entirely their own. It must not 
 be imagined that I intended to designate 
 these respectable persons as very stern 
 patriots, as the Hampdens or Sidneys of their 
 day examples which, I suppose, they would 
 no more think of following, than of devoting 
 themselves, like Scsevola or Curtius, or any 
 other of those heroes, who, it is to be feared, 
 are now admired chiefly by school-boys. 
 Though nothing of this must be expected, 
 yet the contemplation of two quiet characters 
 may be some refreshment to those who are 
 wearied, on the one side, with office, ever
 
 44 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 bustling, prattling, and smirking, and, on the 
 other, with opposition always ill-humoured, 
 malignant, and pretending to be the sole pro- 
 prietary of all the virtue and wisdom extant. 
 
 To begin with Mr. Wynne : it would in 
 some respects be an advantage to this gentle- 
 man not to be heard, but only to be read : 
 the soundness * and honesty * of his opinions 
 excite a high respect for his person, which 
 however may be diminished among superficial 
 observers, when they witness his ungraceful 
 and almost absurd delivery. His face, when he 
 speaks, is as full of creases " as a wet cloak 
 ill laid up:" it looks as if all the acids of 
 nature had conspired to crisp its wrinkles. 
 His voice is a child's treble, occasionally 
 deepened, for the sake of dignity, into a sort 
 of roar. The impression is quite ludicrous 
 to those who do not know him : to those who 
 do, it is painful, because they lament to ob- 
 serve very good sense not only weakened in 
 its effect, but even rendered disagreeable, by 
 the discordant tones t in which it is uttered. 
 
 * These words ought to be synonymous, but somehow 
 it is usual to give them distinct significations, out of com- 
 pliment perhaps to Machiavelians and men of the world. 
 
 f Mr. Wynne's brother, Sir. Watkin, is as remarkable
 
 MR. C. W. WYNNE AND MR. BANKES. 45 
 
 I should not have thought this defect, strange 
 and striking as it is, worthy the least notice, 
 except for the unaccountable circumstance, 
 that Mr. Wynne himself seems utterly un- 
 aware of it, and holds himself out, in the 
 most marked and obtrusive manner, as a can- 
 didate for the Speaker's chair, a place for 
 which an imposing voice seems at least as 
 essential as the flowing wig. A call to 
 " order" from him must be almost a signal to 
 laugh : and on very disorderly occasions, when 
 the Irish and Country Gentlemen, well 
 warmed with Bellamy's * claret, begin, at 
 five o'clock in the morning, to shout for the 
 question, when chaos seems come again, and 
 the House c< scarce holds the wild uproar," 
 when even the solemn importance and skilful 
 precision of the present Speaker's tones are 
 lost in the tumult ; at such a time what 
 would become of Mr. Wynne's tiny articula- 
 tions ? Where a wolf might howl unheard, 
 is a grasshopper likely to arrest the attention? 
 Having, however, stated this disqualifica- 
 
 for the grumbling, indistinct, smothered rumbling of his 
 voice : the brothers are known in the House by the name 
 of " Bubble and Squeak." 
 
 * The Coffee-house keeper of the House of Commons.
 
 46 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 tion of Mr. Wynne for the object of his pur- 
 suit (and it appears to me not to be entirely 
 unimportant), I will most cheerfully allow 
 that in every other respect he is the fittest 
 Member to succeed the present Chairman. 
 To an acute and well-judging understand- 
 ing, he adds a large portion of that peculiar 
 knowledge which is necessary to direct the 
 proceedings and decide the doubts of the 
 House : there is a straight-forward integrity 
 in his conduct, which is calculated to in- 
 spire the utmost confidence, and a liberality 
 and justness of thinking which will be a 
 security against the operation of petty alarms 
 and imaginary dangers. This last is even 
 a more useful quality in a President than 
 honesty itself; for without an enlarged mind 
 a mere good man must ever be at the mercy 
 of the plausible cunning of others, or of his 
 own short-sighted timidity. In this quality 
 Mr. "Wynne will have the advantage over the 
 present Speaker, whose worthy intentions are 
 unfortunately limited by the narrow range of 
 his intellect. In other respects there are 
 strong points of similarity about them : the 
 same industry, the same learning, the same 
 courtesy, the same desire to act right, and
 
 MR. C. W. WYNNE AND MR. BANKES. 47 
 
 the same unyielding steadiness to support the 
 dignity and privileges of the House : in short, 
 if ever this aspirant should come to the Chair, 
 it will be found, that, in almost every thing 
 except voice, " Charles the Second reigns 
 like Charles the First." I have almost taken 
 it for granted that Mr. Wynne will be success- 
 ful in the object of his ambition, which he 
 pursues with such continued ardour. Every 
 word he utters seems directed to this end ; 
 he stands like a personification of Hatsell's 
 Precedents ; and from the oracular seat of his 
 memory, shows how nothing is new in the 
 House of Commons, except the impunity 
 with which great delinquents insult the sacred 
 face of justice. Besides, he does not seem 
 likely to have a competitor, except perhaps 
 in the person of Mr. Davies Giddy, who has 
 a sort of shambling, slovenly knowledge of 
 precedents, picked up in Committees above 
 stairs: but, if the House have any self-re- 
 spect, they will never prefer the shuffling in- 
 decision of such a character as Mr. Giddy,, 
 to the honest manliness of Mr. Wynne : who, 
 indeed, on several occasions, has evinced a 
 very noble firmness. To mention no other 
 instances, one ought not to forget his efforts
 
 48 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 to bring the Duke of Cumberland before the 
 proper tribunal, when a timid Committee had 
 shrunk from its duty : nor, what perhaps is 
 better, his enlisting with the small but inde- 
 pendent minority, which pronounced a verdict 
 of Guilty on the Duke of York. Mr. Wynne 
 might perhaps feel with Mr. Windham, and 
 what every gentleman must feel, that he 
 would rather have been the Duke than the 
 accuser on that occasion, because human 
 frailty is more pardonable than base, unmanly 
 artifice : but he scorned to shelter himself 
 under this fair-seeming plea, when he was 
 called upon to declare his solemn sentiments 
 on a question of fact. He knew what all 
 should have known, that the infamy of the 
 informer could weigh nothing against well- 
 proved circumstances. This honest conduct 
 alone deserves the Chair. I confess I have 
 some partiality for this gentleman, who is a 
 lawyer without the pedantry or servility of his 
 profession ; who, having proposed to himself 
 a very honourable object of pursuit, disdains 
 to farther his wishes by an obsequious accom- 
 modation to the views of party, or a politic 
 reservation of even his boldest opinions. 
 I do not feel the same partiality for Mr. 
 1
 
 MR. C. W. WYNNE AND MR. BiANKES. 49 
 
 Bankes, who is indeed rather a distasteful 
 Gentleman. He belongs to a very distaste- 
 ful party, being for general purposes a kiad 
 of leader of the Saints in the House of Com- 
 mons. This holy band consists of somewhat 
 more than a dozen persons of that descrip- 
 tion which is usually called Methodistical : 
 but it is not my intention to quarrel with their 
 religious opinions, towards which indeed, I 
 feel some kindness ; for after all, Religion 
 should have some enthusiasm about it, and 
 ought not to be chained down to the rules of 
 Cocker's Arithmetic. It is their political con- 
 duet which I dislike : an affectation of can- 
 dour which smiles equally on the opposing 
 views of contending parties, though they may 
 be as adverse as truth and falsehood : a per- 
 petual oscillation between the right and the 
 expedient, with at the same time the cor- 
 rectest notion of the abstract excellence of 
 the one, and the humble hope that it may give; 
 way without injury, once at least, to the 
 local propriety of the other. These tiaita,. 
 together with a whining, coxcomical parade 
 about pure motives, perfect disinterestedness, 
 and the general good, are the ingredient 
 characteristics, which distinguish this, body of
 
 30 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 men ; and of these Mr. Bankes is the Chief. 
 He is not, however, the best of his party. 
 Mr. H. Thornton has at least three time.s 
 more knowledge, Mr. Grant ten times more 
 penetration, and Mr. Wilberforce incalcula- 
 bly more eloquence and address. On the 
 whole, however, he is not a bad leader : he is 
 sufficiently plausible and is tolerably good- 
 humoured : he has some fluency and a good 
 deal of industry ; and above all, can adopt 
 that apparently unconscious solemnity which, 
 to the uninitiated, appears to elevate a sub- 
 ject without intending it, and gives to a mere 
 party or personal design all the imposing at- 
 titude and aspect of a great national object. 
 In all the pomp and circumstance of speech, 
 the measured utterance, the unfamiliar ca- 
 dence, and the unvaried gravity of manner, 
 he is hardly inferior to Mr. Canning himself, 
 though I am not disposed to compare the 
 scanty mind of Mr. Bankes with the con- 
 siderable acquirements of Mr. Canning: yet 
 each of these Gentlemen, in a different de- 
 gree, is aware that assumed superiority of un- 
 derstanding, like an usurped tyranny, must 
 not be approached too nearly. And no bar- 
 rier appears so effectual as the affectation of
 
 MR. C. W. WYNNE AND MR. BANKES. 51 
 
 profundity and slow deliberation. Mr. Bankes 
 however, as to mere delivery, is not so pomp- 
 ous as Mr. Canning, for his voice is thin and 
 of small compass : though, however, it can- 
 not strike the ear by sonorous impulse, it 
 takes a faster hold of that organ by a linger- 
 ing insinuation : in a word, it is a complete 
 whine, which one is astonished to meet out 
 of the precincts of a conventicle. An in- 
 genious but morbidly fanciful poet, who is 
 also a Methodist,* says of Adam j that there 
 was 
 
 -" In his speech 
 
 A dialect of heaven no art could reach." 
 
 Whether this be an elevated or a childish 
 idea, I shall not now stop to determine : but 
 it serves as a clue to develope the reason for 
 that strange, unnatural style of enunciation 
 adopted by a certain class of Religionists, who, 
 it is now evident, think that their modulation, 
 if it resemble nothing on earth, must be per- 
 fectly celestial, as (to compare great things 
 with small) a fustian poetaster conceits that 
 
 > 
 
 I do not use this term contemptuously, but merely as 
 the one most generally known to designate a sect who pro- 
 fess the more mystic and sublime doctrines of Christinnily 
 r, 2
 
 5SJ fABUAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 he is writing poetry because he is not writing 
 plain prose. I have before said that this 
 gentleman evinces some independence in his 
 public conduct ; he certainly is not the tool 
 
 
 
 of Administration : much less is he the obse- 
 quious partisan of opposition. The best parts 
 of his conduct are his efforts to reform the 
 expenditure, which though weak and not re- 
 markably consistent, appear at least to have 
 been \vell-intentioned. On the subject of 
 economy, indeed, he is a thorn of some 
 sharpness in the side of a Minister, but I do 
 not recollect any strenuous opposition on any 
 other measures which Government has ever 
 been anxious to carry. A Minister may gag 
 the press, or keep the Catholic chained, with 
 impunity, but woe to him if a shilling too 
 much be expended in a bargain for tar or 
 a building-contract. It is hardly necessary 
 to say, that in the present condition of 
 the finances of this country, economy should 
 be the primary object with every statesman : 
 I blame the small pedantry which thinks it 
 the only one, and which, fortified by a few 
 scraps from Mr. Burke, and dignified by 
 having presided over a Committee of Fi- 
 nance, prates of price as the sole criterion in
 
 MR. C. W. WYNNE AN'D MR. BANKES. 53 
 
 every bargain or transaction, as if utility and 
 national honour should never make a stan- 
 dard vary. Indeed, Mr. Bankes presumes 
 too much on this head ; for his plans of re- 
 formation have but little tendency to effect 
 their proposed aim. His Bill for the Aboli- 
 tion of Sinecures and Reversions has a pretty 
 sound with it ; but what other merit can be 
 ascribed to a measure which, while it was 
 nominally removing a grievance, in fact 
 would have aggravated it with double inten- 
 sity, by its substitution of pensions to reward 
 the exalted merits of servants of the Crown. 
 I call it doubly expensive, because, by the 
 present vile scheme of reversions, a possessor 
 and an expectant are fed with the same 
 single bribe, while the viler pension-plan 
 would be compelled to apply distinct and 
 separate baits. 
 
 On the whole, neither side of the House 
 is very anxious for the support of Mr. Bankes, 
 unless the contest for votes is very close : 
 they seem to think of him, as Falstaff says 
 of Mrs. Quickly, " that he is an otter; 
 neither fish nor flesh ; a man knows not 
 where to have him." He certainly is a man 
 who considerably over-rates himself, because
 
 54- PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 perhaps his self-importance and complacency 
 are not much disturbed by the House ; ex- 
 cept that now and then his very provoking 
 candour stimulates Mr. Whitbread to push 
 aside, somewhat rudely, the flimsy mask 
 which looks all ways, and smiles on all with- 
 out cheering any.
 
 MR. TIERNEY. 
 
 1 HERE are two vices, hypocrisy and apos- 
 tasy, against which, more than against any 
 others, the indignation of mankind appears to 
 be universal and unqualified. Crimes, even of 
 the most atrocious character, are scarcely more 
 abhorred for their mischief than they are pitied 
 as the lamentable incidents to human frailty : 
 but let a hypocrite or an apostate be exhibit- 
 ed, and our nature sickens at the view : the 
 heart acknowledges no kindred with such a 
 being, and refuses all sympathy even to its 
 misfortunes, which it considers as exotic ad- 
 ditions, and not the natural produce of the 
 human soul. This indignant feeling is not so 
 much the consequence of education, as an 
 instinct born w'+h us as a pledge of the neces- 
 sity of mutual confidence and good faith, 
 without which not only would the foundations 
 of civil society be subverted, but each in- 
 dividual man must shun his fellow, and the 
 human race become lees gregarious ttyan
 
 56 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 tigers or hyenas. The intuition which can 
 penetrate into the recesses of the heart, the 
 foresight which through the fair-seeming ex- 
 cellence of the character of to-day can dis- 
 criminate all the errors and the crimes of the 
 future these powers are denied to us as too 
 mighty for our uses : but they are amply 
 compensated by the wisdom of an uncon- 
 scious impulse, which acts with a precision 
 that no worldly experience could confer, and 
 with $n utility proportionate to its great 
 origin. At the same time there is great dan- 
 ger lest this fine adjunct of our nature, this 
 faithful touchstone of conduct, may be as- 
 sumed and arrogated by those who are in- 
 fluenced by far different feelings: by men 
 who, while they pretend to detest an in- 
 terested inconsistency, in fact only envy the 
 good fortune of those whose change has been 
 accompanied with advantages, or by others 
 who hate the magnanimity which they dare 
 not imitate, which could emancipate itself 
 from prejudices or errors once perhaps too 
 openly and strenuously avowed. Let not 
 this sentiment be considered as an apology 
 for the real apostate, for him who, for the 
 paltry motives of wealth or perferment, aban-
 
 MR. TIERNET. 57 
 
 dons the firm convictions of his understand- 
 ing, still less for that meaner sort of renega- 
 does, who would denounce and persecute all 
 those who honestly cling to the cause which 
 themselves have deserted. But it may serve 
 to palliate or excuse the aberrations of those 
 who, in the ardour of youth, have shown that 
 the energy of their feelings was not equalled 
 by the extent of their knowledge, or the 
 comprehensiveness of their intellect ; who, 
 in their impatience to establish a darling 
 theory, have, with an unhesitating, imprudent 
 bravery, overlooked all obstacles of time and 
 place, and circumstance. Indeed, there 
 can hardly be a more real object of compas- 
 sion than the young man who, warmed by the 
 contemplation of Utopian excellence, and of 
 generous examples, but with a skill too little 
 experienced for an appropriate application of 
 them, or with an understanding too limited 
 to view a subject in all its branches, yet im- 
 petuousk begins his career by a fearless 
 avowal of general propositions of unattainable 
 perfection. Old courtiers laugh to see the 
 youngster caught in a net, where to stay and 
 to escape will be almost equally fatal to the 
 character : better-natured men view with
 
 58 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 pain the aspiring intrepidity of the unwise 
 Phaeton, which will precipitate him into dif- 
 ficulties insurmountable by common skill. 
 What is the progress? The ardent theorist, 
 as his knowledge and views become enlarged, 
 would willingly qualify his too general decla- 
 mations. To persist in error contrary to 
 conviction, he feels to be unworthy of a gen- 
 tleman : to confess his mistakes he knows will 
 be misconstrued, and thathimself will be brand- 
 ed with contempt. If he is a weak man, terri- 
 fied equally by his own self-condemnation and 
 the hisses of the public, he fluctuates for 
 ever in a despicable state of indecision : if 
 his mind be of a stronger cast, he at once 
 makes the bold avowal of recantation, which 
 afterwards renders his motives for ever dubi- 
 ous, and detaches all confidence from all his 
 actions. 
 
 Reflections like these will naturally be sug- 
 gested by the contemplation of several of our 
 Parliamentary Characters : many of them of 
 necessity arose from even a cursory view of 
 the public life of Mr. Tierney. This Gen- 
 tleman, when he considers his present un- 
 popularity in the nation, and his utter want 
 of weight in, the House of Commons, must
 
 MR. TIERNEY. 59 
 
 look back with some astonishment or regret 
 on those days of juvenile ardour when, either 
 from intemperate zeal or from the sordid 
 desire of inveigling a foolish faction, he ut- 
 tered those glowing denunciations against 
 existing systems, which stole the hearts of the 
 Borough Electors. The man for whose pre- 
 sence no one cares, and whose sentiments 
 scarcely ever elicit one smile of regard, must 
 hold it to be the very baseless dream of a 
 shadow, when the recollected scenes of far- 
 mer times pass before his mind, when his 
 imagination pictures to him those stately bur- 
 gesses, Messrs. Alcock and Favell, almost 
 dancing with rapture at his oracular sen- 
 tences, when even a glance of his person 
 was sufficient to convert that most reputable 
 but dirty district of Southwark into a theatre 
 for gaiety and festivity, when even the in- 
 fants of the enthusiastic electors* were bap- 
 tized by his name, to pledge them to the 
 future admiration and imitation of so great a 
 patriot. Was Mr. Tierney then sincere in 
 his popular professions ; or, at the time when 
 
 * Some years afterwards, when Mr. Tierney became 
 odious to his old friends, they took an odd method of show- 
 ing their contempt, by calling their dogs by his name.
 
 60 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 he presided with so much eclat over that 
 sacred band " the Real Friends," in a paltry 
 club-room, (Mr. Tierney will understand the 
 allusion,) when the active citizen worshipped 
 no idol except that rather Nebuchadnessar 
 image, the majesty of the people, did he even 
 then adhere to the opinions of his aristocratic 
 friends the self-named Whigs did he even 
 then feel that love of place which made him 
 so easy a prey to Mr. Addington ? These are 
 questions which none but Mr. Tierney can 
 answer. I certainly shall not erect myself 
 into a judge of hidden motives and impene- 
 trable causes. There are not sufficient data 
 for the solution ; and Mr. Tierney, great 
 arithmetician as he is, knows that even in the 
 doctrine of chances, some sure and definite 
 quantities must be given to find merely a pos- 
 sible result. I can discover no such cer- 
 tain starting-grounds for this investigation : 
 neither in the nature of man nor in the 
 character of Mr. Tierney. I will not believe 
 that it is easy and obvious for any individual 
 man to assume and personate whatever figure 
 he pleases : still less will I believe that a 
 Gentleman of such education and such steady 
 sagacity, as all must feel the late Southwark re- 
 6
 
 MR. TIERNEY. l 
 
 presentative to be, could miscalculate or mis- 
 apprehend so grossly as to think that a solid 
 superstructure could stand on the flimsy basis 
 of insincerity. The matter must however 
 remain undecided to the world, unless the 
 only person who can elucidate the mystery 
 will condescend to instruct our ignorance by 
 a confessional treatise which, as it shall turn 
 out, may serve either for a comment or an 
 antidote to the politics of Machiavel. As 
 to myself, taking it for granted that Mr. 
 Tierney's professions were honest believing 
 that he was actuated by the sincerest princi- 
 ples when he opposed Mr. Pitt with such 
 vehemence, and defied him " to the utter- 
 ance," even at the hazard of his life : (for 
 though many have laid down their lives from 
 mistaken zeal, yet few if any have done so 
 merely to give effect to a joke) believing 
 also that his former ardour of Reform was, 
 though he was not quite a boy or a novice, 
 yet a relic of the fiery heedlesness of youth, 
 and that his subsequent conversion was the 
 consequence of impartial conviction : with 
 all these items of belief in my mind I must 
 say, that Mr. Tierney has been very ill used 
 by the misjudging Public. They have hastily
 
 62 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 taken a rational alteration for an interested 
 tergiversation, and suppose that one of the 
 ablest and clearest-headed men of the age 
 could not see what every child sees, that con- 
 sistency is the best policy. This unjust dis- 
 like,, these unkind suspicionsof thepeople,have 
 been of serious injury to Mr. Tierney, and I 
 think to the community. From this cause it 
 comes, that the most disposable and useful 
 talents for business, the utmost shrewdness of 
 discernment, the most perspicuous views of 
 trade and finance, the most powerful because 
 the most intelligible logic, and above all the 
 most penetrating sarcasm and the most invul- 
 nerable self-possession, qualifications which 
 might raise him to the highest eminence in a 
 popular assembly, are nevertheless entirely 
 robbed of their use and effect. Such is the 
 result of that unfavourable opinion which is 
 attached to the man who has abandoned his 
 old professions. He who could even make 
 the firm seat of Mr. Pitt to totter, and might 
 frequently, almost without an effort, have 
 shoved the present Ministry from their stools, 
 must now be content to get a majority on a 
 matter of form, and think it gain to beat such 
 a. statesman as Mr. Garrow on a technical
 
 MR. TIERNEY. 63 
 
 objection. But though Mr. Tierney unfor- 
 tunately has but little weight in the House, 
 yet from his abilities he is always heard with 
 pleasure : nor is there any man who is treated 
 with more external respect by a Minister. 
 This is but politic ; for Mr. Tierney has a 
 power of ridicule, and a caustic severity of 
 satire, which can corrode the very heart's 
 core ; which, therefore, those who love safe 
 skins are not eager to provoke. One thing 
 there is which, independently of all the above- 
 mentioned causes, greatly diminishes the con- 
 fidence of Mr. Tierney's auditors : in his most 
 serious and earnest speeches as to argument, 
 there is an air of conversational carelessness 
 and levity in the manner which seems to hint 
 that the speaker is almost indifferent as t6 
 success, and that he would be the first to 
 laugh at those who should be persuaded by 
 his ratiocination. This I have no hesitation 
 in saying would be a most illiberal inference : 
 the defect in question evidently arises from 
 that coolness of temperament, which reasons 
 rather than feels, and which scorns to attain 
 its end by any surprise on the heart, when it 
 can fairly and dispassionately convince and 
 conquer the understanding.
 
 64 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 In a popular assembly, however, where for 
 one man who thinks there are ten who feel, 
 such a manner cannot fail to be detrimental, 
 or at least useless, to him who adopts it. Upon 
 the whole, Mr. Tierney may be quoted as one 
 of the most unfortunate instances of popular 
 injustice. I will not annoy him by stating to 
 him what he might have been, if he had been 
 less precipitate and unreserved in former 
 times ; but shall merely lament, in the name 
 of the public, that youthful errors, or popular 
 mistake, have deprived the nation of the ef- 
 fective services of a man who might have 
 been the most useful (I can scarcely except 
 Mr. Whitbread) of all the Parliamentary 
 Characters of the day.* 
 
 * This character, I cannot tell why, was by some 
 tmderstood as if it was intended for a panegyric on Mr, 
 Tierney : the obscurity, if any, arises from the perplexed 
 nature of the subject : for the motives and intentions of 
 Mr. Tierney must be classed among those things which. 
 are perfectly inaccessible to the human understanding.
 
 MR. W. SiMITH AND MR. WILBERFORCE. 
 
 Ji HERE are some men who confer dignity 
 on the cause which they espouse ; there are 
 others who derive all their dignity from it. 
 Hampden and Russell and Sydney throw an 
 additional glory even over the sacred head of 
 Liberty, while, on the other hand, the worthy 
 persons who assemble at taverns to eat anni- 
 versary sirloins and quaff periodical port, in 
 honour of the same illustrious deity, ex- 
 cite rather our good will for the honesty of 
 their opinions, than our respect or admiration 
 for the energies either of mind or body with 
 which they prosecute the designs that they 
 have embraced: All who are embarked in 
 the same good undertaking deserve their full 
 portion of praise : but there is that natural 
 feeling of aristocracy among mankind I 
 mean that natural deference to the rightful 
 supremacy either of superior intellect or 
 superior virtue, that all attendant spirits are 
 willing and happy to yield the precedence to 
 the one whose lustre is felt to add brilliancy 
 
 F
 
 66 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 to their own spheres of operation. Jove and 
 his satellites describe the same grand orbit in 
 the Heavens, yet " Jove's satellites are less 
 than Jove." Cato and his legions equally 
 chose, and supported with equal perseverance, 
 that noble party, which a fine-minded youth * 
 has placed on a basis of rivalry even with the 
 gods : yet to the hardy followers and com- 
 mon men, it has been thought sufficient re- 
 ward that they fought for Roman freedom, 
 while the poets and the philosophers have 
 lavished all their stores of panegyric upon 
 the hero of Utica. Indeed I suspect that the 
 expiring liberty of Rome would have hardly 
 elicited a sigh of regret, unless her fate had 
 involved also the fate of Cato and of Tully. 
 But I am wandering ; indeed how is it possi- 
 ble to stand still on classic ground: some 
 fresh beauty invites us at every step : some 
 splendour, never to be staled by frequency, 
 opens itself in every vista. There was how- 
 
 * f allude to that generous burst of enthusiasm from 
 Lucan: 
 
 " Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni." 
 Translated with great spirit by Stepney : 
 
 ' The Gods and Cato did in this divide, 
 
 They chose the conquering, he the conquered side,
 
 MR. W. SMITH AND MR. WILBERFORCE. 6? 
 
 ever in old time a word of disenchantment 
 which could turn in a moment the golden 
 palaces of fairy land into dreary deserts ; 
 there is also now a magic phrase ".the House 
 of Commons," the bare repetition of which 
 at once drives from the head all thoughts of 
 Grecian genius and Roman independence* 
 Scared at this word I return directly to my 
 starting post : I mean then to quote Mr. 
 W. Smith as one of those persons whose rank 
 and consideration are to be attributed solely 
 to the cause in which he has thought proper 
 to engage himself. He has had the courage 
 to touch the awful ark of the pure English 
 Constitution, and it is his praise, and no 
 slight praise, that he has not utterly sunk in 
 so great an attempt. He always comes before 
 Us in the pleasing form of an advocate of the 
 civil and religious rights of the people : and 
 what friend of humanity can find it in his 
 heart to say a word against so good and 
 liberal-minded a person. What criticism 
 Would not be hooted down which should aim 
 to point out the defects of such a character. 
 To be sure his intellect is rather small : but 
 then his little energy is all exerted on the 
 right side. It may be said that he is rather 
 conceited ; be it so : it is the vanity of con- 
 
 F 2
 
 68 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 scious rectitude. There is no denying that 
 he prattles too much : but does he not prattle 
 about reform ? It is probable indeed that if, 
 by the accident of education, or perhaps of 
 a more limited way of thinking, Mr. Smith 
 had been enlisted among the general ranks of 
 Ministerialists or Oppositionists, the public 
 would have heard nothing of him, except 
 that now and then he moved an address, or 
 seconded a motion : but he is at the head of 
 a party which, however small, begins at last 
 to assume some consequence in the nation, 
 and to agitate a little the ponderous securit} 
 of the Church. The light troops of Methodism 
 (I call them so rather on account of their 
 activity, than of their elegance or skill) have 
 considerably annoyed the grand army of the 
 establishment : the slow however, but well- 
 directed fire of the Socinian engineers seems 
 calculated to make more effectual breaches 
 and havoc in their ranks. I must say that I 
 do not myself apprehend much danger from 
 the attacks of either: the question of a 
 clerico-political institution has so little to do 
 with religion, and so much with the practice 
 and prejudices of nations, that no state of 
 society can easily be imagined where at some 
 period of its ^progress that ill-matched pair,
 
 MR. W. SMITH AND MR. WILBERFORCE. 69 
 
 the Church and State, will not be forced into 
 an union. Every art has its quackeries, and 
 this strange affinity, the darling of politicians, 
 is like the wonder-working stone of the 
 chemists. But this is not a place to discuss 
 this important question : I merely allude to 
 it in passing to comfort the episcopal bench, 
 who might be afraid that their mitres might 
 fall from them at the touch of Unitarian 
 reason. Much as I respect Mr. W. Smith, 
 I cannot help thinking that he now and then 
 assumes too much on this supposed power : 
 he evinces sometimes a prim petulance, which 
 however belongs rather to his party than 
 himself. I am not very anxious to provoke 
 the anger of a whole body of respectable per- 
 sonages : but there really is a coxcomical pre- 
 tension to superior rationality about these 
 sectarians, which would be perfectly ludicrous 
 if they did not sometimes presume to be in- 
 solent and dogmatical. Be this as it may, the 
 prevailing spirit of his corps induces Mr. W. 
 Smith occasionally to affect a tone not war- 
 ranted by his mental powers, and to inter- 
 meddle in business which does not stand in 
 need of such an auxiliary. It is not however 
 my wish to be severe on a man who, how-
 
 70 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 ever limited in his capabilities, is always right 
 in his intentions, and who, whenever the 
 good cause is to be pleaded, furnishes towards 
 it all the help which his understanding and 
 exertions can afford. I love goodness in 
 whatever shape it may present itself, and only 
 regret that its grandeur of power does not 
 compel me to add admiration to my love. 
 
 To go from the calm good sense of Mr. 
 W. Smith to the enthusiastic declamation of 
 Mr. Wilberforce, may seem to some a very 
 i apid transition : but those who have watched 
 the conduct of these gentlemen must, I 
 think, see that their object is the same, and 
 that therefore they ought to be associated. 
 He whose wish is to emancipate opinion from 
 penalty will rejoice to have for his com- 
 panion the man who has, though late indeed, 
 so eloquently pleaded the Catholic Cause, 
 and who for years stood forth the irrepressible 
 Champion of the Rights of the Negro. In- 
 deed, when I consider the ardent and per- 
 severing struggle which Mr. Wilberforce so 
 long maintained against the united strength 
 of power and prejudice, and contemplate his 
 Jtoal success in that noble work, I feel it to 
 be a humiliation to descend to scan petty de-
 
 MR. W. SMITH AND MR. WILBERFORCE. 71 
 
 fects, and the mere errors of our common 
 humanity. Who that looks upon an abundant 
 harvest, ripened by the rays of a summer sun, 
 will sit down to calculate how often that sun 
 has been overclouded ? Or, to come more to 
 men and things, who would estimate Locke 
 by his prolixity, or Shakspeare by his puns ? 
 Yet such is the rage for analyzing faults ; 
 the common mind is so much more fitted to 
 seize a flaw than to comprehend an excel- 
 lence, that a writer would be thought most 
 blind and partial who would suffer even a 
 saint to pass by unreprehended. What then 
 can be alleged against Mr. Wilberforce ? 
 Want of decision, arising, some think from 
 timidity, others say from want of high mind- 
 edness, seems to be his principal foible. Often 
 will he support a position in a strain of elo- 
 quence to which the House is but little ac- 
 customed, and end (Oh lame conclusion !) 
 in persuading almost every mind but his own. 
 He has at length however broke the chain of 
 his scruples, and last Session, with a warmth 
 of language and manner quite his own, un- 
 equivocally recommended the abolition of 
 penal statutes in matters of religion. The 
 speeches indeed of Mr. Wilberforce are
 
 72 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 among the very few good things now remain- 
 ing in the British Parliament : his diction 
 is elegant, rich, and spirited : his tones (ex- 
 cuse some party-whine) are so distinct and 
 so melodious, that the most hostile ear hangs 
 on them delighted. Then his address is so 
 insinuating that, if he talked nonsense, you 
 would feel yourself obliged to hear him. I 
 recollect that last Session, when the House 
 had been tired night after night with discuss- 
 ing the endless questions relating to Indian 
 policy, when the commerce and finances and 
 resources of our Oriental Empire had exhaust- 
 ed the lungs of all the speakers, and the pa- 
 tience of all the auditors at that period Mr. 
 Wilberforce, with a just confidence in his 
 powers, ventured to broach the hacknied 
 subject of Hindoo conversion. He spoke 
 three hours, but nobody seemed fatigued : 
 all indeed were pleased, some with the in- 
 genious artifices of his manner, but most with 
 the glowing language of his heart. Much as 
 I differed from him in opinion, it was impossi- 
 ble not to be delighted with his eloquence : 
 and though I wish most heartily that the 
 Hindoos might be left to their own Trinity, 
 yet I felt disposed to agree with him, that 
 2
 
 MR. W. SMITH AND MR. WILBERFORCE. 73 
 
 some good must arise to the human mind 
 by being engaged in a controversy which will 
 exercise most of its faculties. Mr. Wilber- 
 force is now verging towards age, and speaks 
 but seldom : he, however, never speaks with- 
 out exciting a wish that he would say more : 
 he maintains, like Mr. Grattan, though not 
 with quite the same consistency, a consider- 
 able respectability of character by disdaining 
 to mix in the daily paltry squabbles of party : 
 he is no hunter after place, though he is a 
 little too much haunted with a passion for 
 which he may quote the authority of St. Paul, 
 of pleasing all men and of being all to all. 
 I was sorry when, no longer able to retain 
 the dignity of representing the greatest 
 County in the Kingdom, he condescended to 
 sit as Member for a petty Borough. But some- 
 thing must be forgiven to an old man whose 
 habits are formed. Parliament has been to 
 him the scene of all his active exertions, of 
 his pleasures and his glory. We can pardon 
 the old dramatist who goes every night to take 
 his unviolated seat in the pit : we sympathize 
 with the old soldier who would hobble a whole 
 day's inarch to see a review : and shall less 
 indulgence be given to the man who shows a
 
 7* PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 rather extravagant fondness to cling to the 
 place ennobled by the memory of great men, 
 now no more, and endeared by the recollec- 
 tions of his own triumphs. I confess I always 
 look with equal respect and pleasure on this 
 eloquent veteran, lingering among his bustling 
 but far inferior posterity ; and well has he a 
 right to linger on the spot where he achieved 
 one of the greenest laurels that ever bright- 
 ened in the wreath of fame : a laurel better 
 than that of the hero, as it is not stained 
 with blood or tears : better even than that 
 of the statesman who improves the civiliza- 
 tion of his country, inasmuch as to create 
 is more glorious than to improve. And the 
 man whose labours abolished the Slave-trade, 
 at one blow struck away the barbarism of a 
 hundred nations, and elevated myriads of 
 human beings, degraded to the brute, into 
 all the dignified capacities of civilized man. 
 To have done this is the most noble, as it is 
 the most useful work which any individual 
 could accomplish: and in the contempla- 
 tion of this great achievement Mr. Wilber- 
 force and his friends may find full consolation 
 for all the minor weaknesses and failings of 
 his character.
 
 SIR W. GARROW AND SIR S. ROMILLY. 
 
 JLT is a common remark among those who are 
 much acquainted with the House of Com- 
 mons, that the Lawyers are the worst speakers 
 in that assembly. This is not to be understood 
 as if the gentlemen of a profession whose busi- 
 ness is to talk had less to say than a merchant 
 or a country gentleman ; the fault is that they 
 talk too much, and that their technical habits 
 are so intermixed with all their opinions, that 
 they can scarcely discuss a question of peace 
 or war without reference to a Term-Report, 
 or without wishing to raise a point of mere 
 verbal construction. Accustomed in their 
 courts to consider every matter of equal im- 
 portance, they adopt the same earnest tone 
 and stiff solemnity of manner, whether they 
 are disputing about violated morality or in- 
 sulted liberty, or about a petty affray where a 
 hat, value one shilling, has been torn in the 
 scuffle. I do not blame them for this : it is 
 the duty and dignity of the law to entertain
 
 76 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 with respect and attention all those who ap- 
 peal to it, and to deem nothing unimportant 
 which affects the rights of a free man : it is, 
 therefore, the duty of the legal advocate to 
 urge every client's claim with all his power, 
 well knowing that to every man his own par- 
 ticular case is of the highest and nearest con- 
 cern. Yet it is obvious that the habits of 
 thinking and speaking induced by such a sys- 
 tem can never be endured out of their parti- 
 cular place : that, especially in a National 
 Council, the same interest can never be at- 
 tached to a turnpike-bill, which is a paltry 
 job between two parishes, and a ministerial 
 measure, which may affect the happiness of half 
 the world. But, perhaps, the most unpleas- 
 ing trait about a Lawyer in Parliament is the 
 manner of his address. He is sure to fall into 
 one of his two faults : if he is what is called a 
 Nisi-Prius Lawyer, and has been in the conti- 
 nual habit of talking over juries, he will in that 
 case show a vulgar consequence of demeanour, 
 an ungentlemanly air, as of one who is dis- 
 pensing information, a ridiculous anxiety to 
 explain and illustrate what his auditors un- 
 derstand as well as himself, and lastly, an over- 
 acted passion, which, however it may now
 
 SIR W. G ARROW. AND SIR S. ROMILLY. 77 
 
 and then impose upon an undiscerning jury, 
 is at once ludicrous and insulting when played 
 before a body of well-educated and experi- 
 enced men. If he is a Term Lawyer, or one 
 chiefly occupied in arguing points of law be- 
 fore the Bench, then indeed he will not be 
 so offensive, but he will be utterly uninterest- 
 ing ; he will be dry and logical, never ad- 
 vancing even a common-place without an au- 
 thority, raising up objections which could 
 occur to nobody but himself, merely to put 
 them down again, and subdividing a minute 
 point of debate into endless fragments, which 
 none but the microscopic eye of a practised 
 barrister can see. The House sleep he goes 
 on : they wake at his twentieth head, and 
 are forced to cough him into silence. Is it 
 then impossible for a lawyer to rise above the 
 trammels of his profession ? Does his profes- 
 sion necessarily preclude all knowledge and 
 all manner but those which seem more pecu- 
 liarly to belong to it ? The science of the law, 
 to be rightly so called, comprehends, not 
 merely the acquaintance with j udicial decisions, 
 with statutes and the routine of the Courts, 
 but a knowledge of the times and circum- 
 stances under which the laws were made, of
 
 78 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS, 
 
 the reasoning on which they were founded, 
 and of the benefits which they have produced. 
 I know very well that it is not the business 
 of a judge or an advocate to disturb an esta- 
 blished rule, but it is the duty of both to un- 
 derstand all its relations, and if necessary, to 
 procure, or at least to recommend with all 
 their authority, the abrogation of such a law* 
 The Lawyer also should be thoroughly con- 
 versant with men ; he should be able to de- 
 tect equally the partialities of a complainant 
 and the sophistries of the accused. I do not 
 allude to the nauseous fallacies which low 
 minds and scoundrel habits have recourse to 
 for puzzling a cause : such knowledge is al^ 
 most beneath a gentleman : but he should 
 be able, from an enlarged view of human mo- 
 tives, to discover and explain all those minute 
 feelings which exasperate an injury to the 
 mind of the sufferer, which diminish and ex- 
 cuse it to the mind of the inflicton As the 
 variety of subjects which will from time to time 
 occupy his attention is almost boundless, so 
 ought also his knowledge to be : as he will have 
 to address men of various dispositions and va- 
 rious intellects, he should have at his command 
 all the tones of eloquence, and be equally
 
 Sift W. GAKROW AXD SIR S. ROMILLY. *79 
 
 able to enforce and insinuate conviction^ to 
 direct the understanding of the reflecting, and 
 to mould the passions of the sensitive. Such 
 is what a perfect Lawyer ot?ght to be Alas ! 
 it is almost an ideal picture. This great va- 
 riety of attainments is too much for the limited 
 capacities of man j the pleader finds his mind 
 filled, to crowding, with his precedents alone, 
 while the advocate, who determines to be elo- 
 quent, fears to look even at a page of black- 
 letter, lest " he should petrify a genius to a 
 dunce." There are, however, some more 
 capacious intellects, which have been able to 
 reach a distinguished eminence in all the qua- 
 lities which constitute a great Lawyer; though 
 it must be confessed that no one man has 
 reached the very summit in all. Rome had 
 its Scaevola and Cicero: we have had out- 
 Coke and Bacon : but then, in these instances, 
 the lawyers were but second-rate orators, 
 and the philosophic orators were not first-rate 
 lawyers. 
 
 These observations may perhaps tend to 
 show that the defects of Lawyers are not to 
 be ascribed to the science itself, but to the in- 
 dividuals, whose powers are too finite to at- 
 tain the grand height of their noble profes-
 
 80 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 sion. I cannot better illustrate these remarks, 
 than by the examples of two gentlemen, who 
 have each acquired a high reputation; but 
 who, at the same time, are so characteris- 
 tically different, that it could scarcely be ima- 
 gined that they have all their lives prosecuted 
 studies of similar tendency. 
 
 Sir Wm. Garrow is an ingenious man, more 
 skilled in human nature than legal lore ; he 
 has a penetration amounting almost to in- 
 tuition into the motives of vulgar depravity, 
 and can trace a low trick through all the 
 mazes of a pettifogger's cunning : but his 
 view of mankind, though accurate as far as 
 its extent, is at the same time very confined. 
 Who ever heard him utter a liberal and phi- 
 losophical sentiment, or, in fact, any thing 
 which might lead one to suppose that he had 
 any notion that mankind consists of any other 
 classes of creatures besides rogues and fools, 
 always excepting the venerable persons who 
 happen to be Judges or Great Officers for the 
 time being ? His idea of men is about as correct 
 as if a person should take his opinion of Lon- 
 donfrom the lanes of Wapping,or deny the pic- 
 turesque beauties of England, because he had 
 been nearly choked'with fogs in the fens of Lin-
 
 SIH W. GARROW AND SIR S. ROMILLY. 81 
 
 colnshire. I should like to know, as a mere 
 satisfaction of curiosity, whether any process 
 of the most sensible reasoning, or any series 
 of the best authenticated facts, could convince 
 Sir William that a Jew could be respectable, 
 or a scholar not an idiot. But this narrow- 
 mindedness is the defect of his education ; the 
 ability with which he has improved his limited 
 vision is all his own. His erudition or know- 
 ledge of things is still more scanty and that 
 snatched, not taken seized rather from con- 
 versation than collected from study : yet what 
 he knows he knows so perfectly, and can ex- 
 press so clearly, that one can see at a glance 
 that he has only wanted the opportunity of 
 instruction, to be enabled to take rank among 
 the enlightened thinkers and powerful rea- 
 soners. His apprehension is exceedingly 
 ready, his power of managing his thoughts 
 great and unencumbered, and his judgment 
 has all the correctness of common sense. Such 
 he appears at the bar of the King's Bench, 
 and such, when divested of his pompous ca- 
 nopy of be-powdered horse-hair,* and fur- 
 
 * For the information of the ignorant, I must discover 
 that lawyers' wigs are made of horse-hair. 
 
 G
 
 82 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 nished with a plain brown wig, he takes his 
 place in the House of Commons, He is not, 
 however, equally successful there as in his 
 own Court. Whenever he speaks, his unas- 
 suming opening and unequalled fluency be- 
 tray the House into an admiring kindness : 
 they begin to cheer : this hear, hear, is his 
 ruin. Warmed by the applause, he in an in- 
 stant loses all consciousness of the scene be- 
 fore him throws aside his cloak of humility 
 ' assumes the braggart tone with which he 
 addresses a Jury grows more shallow and 
 more dogmatic in the same proportion every 
 moment and " to suit the action to the 
 word," accompanies his tempestuous speeches 
 with almost threatening gesticulations. At 
 length he sits down, having offended or an- 
 noyed all his auditors, and, what is rather cu- 
 rious, having completely disgusted himself. 
 For presumptuous as is this gentleman, yet 
 his presumption is more than equalled by his 
 exceeding bashfulness : his rank, his astonish- 
 ing success, his talents, well known both to 
 himself and the world, have all conspired to 
 magnify the former failing : the latter arises 
 partly from a restricted intercourse with so- 
 ciety, but chiefly from his own keen sagacity.
 
 SIR W* GARROW AND SIR S. ROMItLY. S3 
 
 For let a silly observation or an error of igno- 
 rance escape him, any thing which may be 
 converted into an instrument of derision 
 against him, and the same intensity of sight 
 which enables him to apprehend the defects 
 of others, makes him see his own with double 
 precision : and being deficient in dignity 
 of mind, he is ready to sink at an expc^ 
 sure which to another man would be the ve- 
 riest trifle. Sir William is now, rather unex. 
 pectedly I believe even to himself, advanced 
 to the honours of his profession, and may 
 reasonably look for still higher eminence: 
 should that happen, he is one of those to 
 whom it will be a benefit instead of a disservice, 
 to forget, as far as possible, his former self. 
 
 Sir Samuel Romilly, on the other hand, is 
 one to whom no rank could give additional 
 lustre, and from whose character to take away 
 a sentiment or an action would be to detach 
 a jewel from a crown : such is the general 
 consistency and harmony of its parts. As this 
 introduction seems to portend a very enco- 
 miastic description, I will, before I proceed, 
 show that I am perfectly aware of the failing 
 usually imputed to this respectable lawyer. 
 He is said to be easily irritated, and it must 
 
 G2
 
 8* PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 be confessed that the tone in which he opens 
 his enlightened plans to the House frequently 
 indicates wounded feelings ; or seems to im- 
 ply that he shall consider any opposition as 
 something worse than mere difference of opi- 
 nion. I have little doubt that a more conci- 
 liating manner would have been more effectual 
 for his purposes: for great bodies of men, 
 like individuals, must be flattered into good- 
 ness : anger and reproach should be extended 
 only to old offenders, who are past all cure. 
 I am sorry, therefore, to see a defect in Sir 
 Samuel which may be some impediment to 
 his objects ; but I think it may be easily ex- 
 plained, and even justified. A benevolent 
 man, who is on the watch to be useful, whe- 
 ther he retires to solitary reflection, or walks 
 abroad among his fellow-creatures, can hard- 
 ly pass an hour in which some circumstance 
 shall not present itself to disturb and agonize 
 his feelings. If he is not, what many kind- 
 hearted men are, constitutionally careless ; if 
 on the contrary, he is of a contemplative cast, 
 he finds it impossible to disengage the painful 
 idea from his mind : it haunts his dreams and 
 even his pleasures : distresses upon distresses 
 accumulate before his recollection or his ima-
 
 SIR W. GAIIROW AND SIR S. ROMILLY. 35 
 
 gination, till he is irritated into a state of tor- 
 ture only equalled by those sufferings of others 
 from which it results. This at first may seem 
 a strange dispensation, that the kind should 
 suffer for their kindness : but who shall pre- 
 sume to arraign the wisdom of Nature ! May 
 not this sensation of uneasiness be the best se- 
 curity for the exercise of active benevolence ? 
 It is not in man to endure pain without an ef- 
 fort to relieve it, and every attempt which 
 the good man makes to remove his own anx- 
 iety will be an additional instrument towards 
 effecting the happiness of others. Such was 
 the result of the glorious restlessness of 
 Howard: such will be the consequence of 
 the noble perseverance of Sir Samuel Romiily. 
 Let this serve in excuse for a failing which 
 he has in common with many good men ; but 
 who, even if it were inexcusable, could be 
 base enough to put it in competition with his 
 numerous excellencies ? Take him merely as 
 a speaker, he is not only superior to his 
 brother lawyers, but, with two or three ex- 
 ceptions, to any debater in the House. Though 
 confessedly one of the most learned of his 
 profession, he is the only one who never ma- 
 nifests any of its pedantry : he descants on le-
 
 86 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 gal subjects with the wisdom of a philosopher* 
 as well as the knowledge of an historian ; and 
 though he refers to authority, and indeed is 
 fond of building upon the authority of the en- 
 lightened, yet he discharges the duty of a le- 
 gislator, which is to examine, and not tacitly 
 to acquiesce in the precedents of former ages. 
 Coming from a mind at once accurate, com- 
 prehensive, and enlarged, his sentiments have 
 about them all the marks of wisdom, to which 
 one would think no opposition could ever be 
 offered, unless it is that they are not quite 
 suited to the character of the times. I could 
 dwell with pleasure on his political honesty, 
 to which he has, perhaps, sacrificed the ob- 
 jects of an honourable ambition : but who 
 doep not know it, and appreciate it as fully as 
 myself? Who does not look on Sir Samuel 
 Romilly as the sure refuge, either for the re- 
 dress of a private injury, or the exposure of a 
 public crime ? 
 
 I should almost feel as if I were insulting 
 this gentleman if I were to offer any consola- 
 tion for the possible loss of a rank, which is 
 so amply compensated by the increase of pure 
 reputation. I should wish indeed to see the 
 first best man of his profession, occupying, at
 
 SIR W. GARROW AND SIR S. ROMILLY. 87 
 
 some time, the first rank in it ; and giving 
 dignity to some new title, which might here- 
 after be quoted as the heraldic name for fine 
 sense and integrity. But this is merely a mat- 
 ter of taste. Sir S. Romilly has already reached 
 the summit : no honours could add weight to 
 his opinions in the general mind ; no station 
 could make his virtues more conspicuous. As 
 a ministerial Peer, he might, no doubt, be 
 better able to carry his schemes by the au- 
 thority of votes ; but as a plain Member of 
 the Commons he is perhaps working with 
 more valuable advantage, by impressing the 
 excellence of his proposals on the understand- 
 ings of the voters : and, to a mind like his, it 
 must appear nobler to effect his purpose by 
 the influence of reasoning, than by the force 
 of power.
 
 88 
 
 MR. CANNING. 
 
 J.T would be an amusing speculation to in- 
 vestigate the relation between men's merits 
 and their pretensions, to resolve into its mean 
 elements every gaudy figment of imposture, 
 and to devise a sort of mental standard, or 
 scheme of moral parallax, by which even the 
 false parts of a character should enable us to 
 discover the true. Such an inquiry would 
 soon show that there has existed scarcely one 
 well-known person, to whom has been assign- 
 ed his true place in the scale of reputation. 
 Many a great General would, by such a pro- 
 cess, soon sink into a mere drill-serjeant 
 many a great painter into a plodding mecha- 
 nic, without imagination or intellect and 
 many a great orator into a shallow and noisy 
 declaimer. To pursue the examination with 
 effect, it would be necessary to discover the 
 causes of these delusions, and by what acci- 
 dental or inherent qualities of our nature it 
 comes to pass, that the mind, like the eye, 
 aeems doomed to misapprehend the real
 
 MR. CANNING. 89 
 
 magnitude of almost every object presented 
 to it. I do not affect to be able to explain 
 all the reasons for this common error, but two 
 or three occur with tolerable readiness. Who- 
 ever considers with what haste the opinions 
 of most people are formed, and how prone 
 we are to acquiesce in all our conceptions, 
 together with that carelessness about accuracy 
 which is induced by the general habits of 
 society, will not be much surprised that a pre- 
 tender of tolerable skill should be able to ar- 
 rest regard in the first instance, and after- 
 wards to keep it, among persons not over 
 anxious about the truth of his claims. If too 
 he should have the good fortune to awaken 
 the attention of some patron eminent in 
 talents and station, for which purpose a very 
 little ingenuity is sufficient, in that case the 
 deception becomes an axiom, the air-blown 
 bubble a very diamond. For who shall dis- 
 pute the discernment of the illustrious A. or 
 of the never-enough-to-be-celebrated B. ; and 
 when even a philosopher has said that he 
 would rather err with Plato than think right 
 with others, what common man shall presume 
 to depreciate the protege of men famous for 
 their knowledge and wisdom. Added to this,
 
 9O PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 there is an abstract pleasure in being cheated : 
 falsehood is so prepared and prompt with all 
 the details of her fabrication, arranges every 
 thing with such a satifactory nicety, accounts 
 for every tiling with such a persuasive plausi- 
 bility, and throws over all such an air of 
 smiling and tranquillizing ease, that no won- 
 der she acquires with the unthinking and in- 
 dolent, who are nine-tenths of mankind, an 
 immense superiority over truth with its un- 
 adorned dryness and its uninviting mysteries, 
 which to be understood must be traced 
 through the mazes of the human heart and 
 the still more complex intricacies of contend- 
 ing systems of opinion. But the firmest 
 friends to deceit and prejudice are to be found 
 among that large class of mankind, the half- 
 educated and partially experienced. These 
 are they who consider any attempt to instruct 
 them as a trespass on their natural rights, who 
 resent the eradication of a mistake as they 
 would the violation of their property, and are 
 as much startled at an improvement, as was 
 Homer's King of Hell, lest the light of 
 Heaven should burst in upon his loathsome 
 darkness. These are the instruments for an 
 impostor and pretender to wield : a little flat-
 
 MR. CANNING. 91 
 
 tery to some of their prejudices, a little adap- 
 tation to some of their caprices, a little in- 
 dulgence to some of their passions, shall win 
 their hearts and hoodwink their understand- 
 ings, and Stephano shall be a God to Caliban. 
 It has been said that the wise direct the 
 thoughts of mankind. Alas ! the wise only 
 govern the wise : the rest choose to rush on 
 without a guide, to struggle and jostle in the 
 dark ; and give them but a little music that 
 they may break their shins to a tune, lay but 
 a little flattering unction to their errors, and 
 they will pay for their blindness and their ca- 
 lamities, and turn with abhorrence from all 
 the proffered advantages of an enlightened 
 thinking. The Jews killed their Reformer ; 
 the Athenians killed theirs ; and such must 
 ever be the fate of the wise and good, who wish 
 to diffuse wisdom without the help of wealth 
 and honours, of artillery and the sword. . I 
 have been insensibly hurried along to a greater 
 extent than is necessary for my present pur- 
 pose : the main object of these preliminary 
 reflections being to show why the pretending 
 part of mankind succeed so much beyond 
 their deserts, and why that success is generally 
 unmolested and undisputed.
 
 92 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 Among the foremost of those whose pre- 
 tensions exceed their merits, and whose pre- 
 tensions have been allowed, may be placed 
 Mr. Canning a Gentleman whom Fortune, 
 in a joke, has pushed above his natural eleva- 
 tion, to be pointed at as the quintessence of 
 wit and statesmanship. In his youth, at a 
 time when Whigs were a very different sort of 
 people from those who now bear that name, 
 when their fire was carrying annoyance in- 
 to every quarter of the Ministry, and their 
 humour was casting ridicule over all its disas- 
 ters, at such a time, the aid of a young man 
 of talents, with some fun at his command, 
 was hailed as a most useful acquisition by a 
 Minister, who, though he rarely condescended 
 himself to use any but great guns, was not 
 displeased to see small-arms in the hands of his 
 auxiliaries. Then it was, that by the strength 
 of a few ludicrous and well-timed parodies, 
 not one-third of which by the way were his 
 own, Mr. Canning caught the notice and con- 
 sequent patronage of Mr. Pitt. Coming into 
 Parliament under such auspices, he could not 
 but make his way : he delivers a speech more 
 shallow and more frothy than a college-decla- 
 mation ; but what can be done ? One side of
 
 MR. CANNING. 93 
 
 the House is bound to protect the young man 
 on whom the Premier smiles, and the other 
 side is not disposed to much severity, partly 
 because the maiden orator is a kind of eleve 
 of its own, and chiefly because the House is 
 at no time inclined to damp the ardour of a 
 young Gentleman of tolerable promise who 
 attempts to rise in the world. Encouraged 
 on one hand, and not opposed on the other, 
 with his path smoothed and disencumbered of 
 all those difficulties which might exercise his 
 understanding or enlarge his experience, and 
 raised by a train of lucky circumstances into 
 high situation, he soon forgets the cause of 
 his elevation, becomes proud and dogmatical, 
 and fancies himself a great Statesman ; when 
 his sole qualifications are a memory well 
 stored with the school-boy's common-places, 
 a solemn utterance like that of the prologue- 
 speaker to a tragedy, and an unbending pomp 
 of attitude and manner strongly resembling 
 the burly dignity of a country pedagogue. In- 
 deed, the great characteristic of this orator 
 is his mock importance ; he seems always to 
 walk on stilts. Whatever be the subject, 
 whether he is presenting a petition or deliver- 
 ing a laboured harangue, he always speaks in
 
 94 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 the same measured tone and set manner. He 
 dares not be familiar ; aware perhaps of the 
 slender title by which he holds his reputation, 
 he will not descend into the open and com- 
 mon area, but keeps himself from too near 
 attack behind the formal entrenchment of a 
 constant gravity. It may seem some con- 
 tradiction to this to state that Mr. Canning af- 
 fects to be a joker ; but his jokes are all of 
 the dry and scholastic sort, sarcasms which 
 repel not pleasantries which attract. Never 
 playful like Mr. Fox, nor good-humoured like 
 Mr. Sheridan, he struts through a comic an- 
 tithesis with the air of a philosopher, and de- 
 posits an Epigram with equal grandeur as if 
 he were delivered of an Epic Poem. The 
 House indeed laugh, because it is polite to 
 laugh when a Gentleman affects to joke ; but 
 it is never a laugh of kindly sympathy with 
 the joker ; on the contrary, it merely ex- 
 presses that the audience are not so dull but 
 that they are able to apprehend a witticism. 
 It is evidently the perpetual care of Mr. Can- 
 ning to make himself appear wiser and pro- 
 founder than he is ; and yet to any one who 
 thinks it worth his while to fathom him, there 
 is no man whose depth is more easily dis- 
 6
 
 MR. CANNING. 95 
 
 cernible. His great excellence is the school- 
 taught taste by which he shuns all vulgari- 
 ties in opinion and diction, and is enabled 
 sometimes to throw a classical air over a com- 
 mon subject : his great defect is that he does 
 not think. All he says partakes of the mus- 
 tiness of memory ; it is uttered with the tone 
 of one who talks by book, and has none of the 
 glowing freshness and cheering brightness of 
 thoughts newly combined, or newly created by 
 the genius of the speaker. His mind has none 
 of those qualities which go to the composi- 
 tion of a great intellect : it has no grasp, 
 little penetration, and no foresight. It has 
 been said of some eminent persons, that they 
 never were boys : it may be said of the per- 
 son in question, that he will never be a man. 
 He can never disengage himself from his 
 puerile trammels, nor look at a subject with 
 the eye of common sense and common expe- 
 rience. It has indeed frequently fallen to his 
 lot to advocate the cause of wisdom ; but 
 even then his thoughts have been but in a 
 low proportion to the dignity of his subject : 
 he has been content to excite applause by 
 pretty arrangement of phrases, instead of im- 
 pressing a respectful conviction by the en-
 
 96 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 largement and accuracy of his views. I al- 
 lude to his florid harangues on the Spanish 
 war, on the Catholic claims, and on some late 
 occasions. A few plain, straightforward sen- 
 tences uttered with the calm reasonableness 
 of Lord Castlereagh, and the simple, manly 
 energy of Mr. Whitbread, have and deserve 
 more weight than whole folio volumes of such 
 speeches. In fact, the House listens to Mr. 
 Canning not as a statesman, but as one who 
 may amuse them by his well-selected centos 
 and apt quotations : for it is pleasant now 
 and then to be thrown back on one's school 
 associations. Let not the reader imagine that 
 I wish to undervalue classical learning : so 
 far am I from such a notion, that I consider 
 the Greeks, with one or two exceptions, as 
 the greatest and best masters in every kind of 
 wisdom, whether of speculative research or 
 of every day application. I have no doubt 
 that of two men, equal in other respects, the 
 best scholar would be in exact proportion the 
 wisest statesman ; that the study of Thucy- 
 dides and Demosthenes, together with a care- 
 ful inspection of passing events, would make 
 a better politician than a knowledge of all the 
 artful depravities and dirty trickeries display- 
 
 1
 
 MR. CANNING. 9? 
 
 ed in Machiavel and the French scribblers of 
 memoirs. I do not, therefore, object to Mr. 
 Canning because he quotes Virgil or Tacitus 
 (he does not seem to know much Greek) but 
 because he merely quotes, and displays none 
 of the reflection of the poet or the sagacity 
 of the historian. 
 
 Mr. Canning seems to consider himself in 
 his way as without a rival ; but there are 
 some young men in the House who may be 
 expected to reach, and even overtake him. 
 Mr. Grant, jun. with most of his defects, has 
 a great deal more fancy and more learning ; 
 Mr. Peel and Mr. Robinson have his smart- 
 ness and classical recollection, without the 
 same injudicious assumption of importance. 
 Upon the whole, it always appeared to me 
 that Mr. Canning was strangely out of his 
 place in the House of Commons : he should 
 have adhered to that seminary from whence 
 he came. The style of his thinking, the charac- 
 ter of his knowledge, and his consequential 
 manner, not to mention his skill in Latin 
 verse, which, though inferior to Keates, or 
 Goodall's. is at least far beyond the Mma 
 Edhienses, would altogether have made him 
 an excellent first Master of Eton. I have 
 
 ii
 
 98 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 made no comment on his political conduct, 
 partly because I have no wish to say severe 
 things ; partly because it is pretty well known 
 and appreciated 5 and chiefly, because I believe 
 no person cares one tittle about it. If, how- 
 ever, any ingenious Gentleman, who may be 
 composing an extempore epigram on States- 
 men, is at a loss for an allusion or two to give 
 it point, I would recommend to him to pay 
 some attention to the public character of one 
 who at least puzzles, if he does not astonish, 
 the minds of common and inexperienced ob- 
 servers.
 
 99 
 
 MR. B. BATHURST AND MR. RYDER. 
 
 JVlY attempt to reduce Mr. Canning to his 
 proper level, alarmed and irritated, as I ex- 
 pected, the whole host of pretenders : seeing 
 the goodly but unsubstantial bulk which 
 stood between them and their annihilation 
 falling to pieces at the touch of truth, it was 
 time for them to tremble and shriek for their 
 own puny and unsheltered nakedness. For 
 if the shadow shall vanish, what will become 
 of the shadows of that shadow ? Mr. Canning 
 is, indeed, superior by an immeasurable dis- 
 tance to those juvenile aspirants who affect 
 to imitate him : " nine bad poets made a 
 Tate;" and the composition of such a 
 speaker as Mr. Canning would, I allow, re- 
 quire at least a hundred of those young men 
 about town, who, by the force of melting 
 roundelays, positively written by themselves, 
 or of extemporaneous speeches delivered for 
 ihe twentieth time, succeed hi astonishing 
 dowager Countesses and half-pay Generals. I 
 H 2
 
 100 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 will allow too, that their anger at seeing an as- 
 sault made upon the magnificent reputation 
 of their hero may be perfectly sincere. To 
 minds scantily informed the erudition of Mr. 
 Canning may appear immense ; and his im- 
 posing tone, which seems to intimate that 
 at least " he thinks he is thinking/' may 
 operate like a miracle on understandings 
 which know not how to assume even the man- 
 ner of thought. How shall I appease their 
 indignant spirits ? In times of old, it was usual 
 when a great man was slain, for the friend of 
 the deceased to rush out with all his bravery, 
 and immolate some dozen common men as a 
 propitiatory sacrifice to his august manes. I 
 have no great inclination to deal destruction 
 about me ; I am not sufficiently chivalrous ; 
 but, perhaps, the critical dissection of Messrs. 
 , Bathurst and Ryder may console the grief of 
 Mr. Canning's friends, at seeing the full- 
 blown bubble burst and evaporated. It is 
 curious to observe how seldom pity is rightly 
 applied. A dull, honest fellow, who trots 
 quietly along in his proper path, may be as- 
 sailed with every weapon which impudent 
 wit can vibrate : and yet, nobody cries out 
 " shame $" every body, indeed, seems to en- 
 
 H , *
 
 MR. B. BATHURST AND MR. RYDER. 101 
 
 joy the joke, and cannot afford one half-sigh 
 of pity for the man, who can neither defend 
 himself, nor procure any other to defend him. 
 On the other hand, make an impartial at- 
 tempt to unmask a pompous pretender, and 
 an outcry is immediately raised, as if the 
 State were in danger. What is the reason of 
 all this ? It is because no man fancies himself 
 dull, and therefore never makes common 
 cause with the dull when insulted : again, 
 every man almost is aiming at situation or 
 character far above his real qualities, and 
 therefore feels it to be a personal attack when 
 any successful aspirant is exposed in his true 
 form. 
 
 I shall not cater for the ill-natured taste of 
 such persons by a severity shown to others 
 which would be better applied to them : dull- 
 ness is not in my eyes so contemptible as im- 
 pudence. Meanwhile, though to advise these 
 beings would be to sing to the deaf, yet it is 
 to be wished that some expedient could be 
 found to rid society of these impostorlings, 
 who throng all the avenues to notice to the 
 exclusion of their superiors, and whose bust- 
 ling noise drowns the gentle appeals of unob- 
 trusive excellence ! What a pity that our Con-
 
 102 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 stitution has not any where lodged a power 
 which might condemn them to at least ten 
 years of books and Pythagorean silence. But 
 enough of them. Mr. B. Bathurst seems to 
 be one of those who in private life are called 
 very sensible persons, because they have 
 never ventured on an ingenious paradox, or 
 deviated into an humourous absurdity. He 
 is one who, firmly believing in that profound 
 axiom that whatever is, is, consequently 
 considers every new idea as a non-entity, and 
 to whom, therefore, any scheme of improve- 
 ment must appear considerably more baseless 
 than a vision. Like certain dramatis persons, 
 so well ridiculed in Sheridan's Critic, he tells 
 his audience all that they knew before ; just 
 to show, according to the old satirist's notion,* 
 that he knows as much as they. There is not 
 much harm in all this, especially as at first 
 sight one discovers no parade in his manner : 
 he prattles away in a conversational subdued 
 tone, and seems to attach no more impor- 
 tance to his speech than it really deserves. 
 Observe him, however, more closely, and his 
 familiar gossiping air will be found to result 
 
 * Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter. 
 
 PERS. Sat.
 
 MR. B. BATHURST AND MR. RYDER. ] 03 
 
 from an immense self-opinion, which consi- 
 ders all it says as settled and matter of course, 
 and therefore holds it useless to adopt a style 
 to impress or persuade. I know nothing of 
 the domestic connexions of this Gentleman, 
 but as the critics say, I would pledge myself 
 (quovis pignore contendam) that he is much 
 accustomed to the society of antique aunts 
 and maiden sisters : there is a temperate me- 
 thod of dictation about him as of a man used 
 to direct the judgments of a coterie, whose 
 sex and non-resistance prevent all possibility 
 of ungentlemanly roughness. This habit, 
 which may do very well in its proper sphere, 
 is singularly ludicrous in such an Assembly 
 as the House of Commons. It would be pre- 
 sumption in any one Member of that Assem- 
 bly to undertake to decide with a judicial 
 air any matter in dispute : it will be difficult 
 to find a name for such conduct in a man of 
 Mr. Bathurst's talents, particularly as, although 
 he adopts the air of an arbitrator, he is less at- 
 tended to than any one individual in the 
 House. His self-love must be very great 
 which can blind him to such a circumstance ; 
 nor do I know how to solve such difficulty. 
 Perhaps, as Solomon, who by the way ought 
 1
 
 104 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 to be some authority on such a subject, 
 defines a wise man to be one who can render 
 a reason, this Gentleman founds his claim to 
 the character of wisdom on his peculiar pro- 
 pensity to give reasons even for the plainest 
 and most self-evident truths. With great de- 
 ference I think that Solomon alluded to a very 
 different kind of reasoning to this : at any 
 rate I am sure that if he had ever heard Mr. 
 B. Bathurst he would never have promulgated 
 his proposition in such general terms. The 
 object of a reason, according to the most ap- 
 proved logic, is to make a thing plainer : Mr, 
 Bathurst, like many famous logicians, con- 
 trives to make it the means of obscurity : he 
 ratiocinates about the simplest matter till one 
 is compelled to believe that he has not a per- 
 fect understanding even of an axiom. I have 
 ventured to smile at these peculiarities of Mr. 
 Bathurst ; yet he is a Gentleman for whom, 
 on several accounts, I feel much kindness and 
 respect. He seems very goodnatured, and 
 is, I believe, a sincerely honest man as far as 
 his views can carry him. In confirmation of 
 this opinion I need only say that he belongs 
 to the school of Addington, the most upright 
 and conscientious band of men that ever go-
 
 MR. B. BATHURST AND MR. RYDER. 1O5 
 
 verned a nation. Would to God that their 
 knowledge had been more extensive, their 
 thinking more enlarged : for, contrary to the 
 practice of many politicians who shut their eyes 
 to the light that bursts upon them, I have no 
 doubt that these men would have been good in 
 precise proportion to their knowledge. Wis- 
 dom and goodness are indeed one, and with 
 the honest-minded knowledge and goodness 
 are one also. 
 
 If Mr. Bathurst may be called a prattler, 
 Mr. Ryder must I think be denominated a 
 proser. With a similar reach of understand- 
 ing, he is so unlike in manner, that he de- 
 livers the merest common-place with the air 
 of a discovery,* and enforces it with as much 
 energy of manner and diction, as if he really 
 thought no being but himself could easily 
 comprehend its truth. This is the natural 
 error of a slow mind : conscious of the la- 
 borious research which it has expended on 
 
 * It is refreshing to turn aside from the pomp of little 
 men to the simplicity of one really great ; Sir I. Newton 
 prefaces one of his chapters, containing the most wonder- 
 ful discoveries, with these few words : " Sed nunc pauca 
 de lunee orbita loquemur." I will now say a few words 
 about the path of the moon. Princip. lib. 1.
 
 1O6 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 the commonest problem, and knowing the 
 general indolence of mankind, it thinks that 
 the solution can only be known to itself, 
 because it believes no one else has taken the 
 same extraordinary pains to procure it. It is, 
 however, a venial error and one scarcely 
 worth notice, especially as he has now ceased 
 to undertake the management of a principal 
 department of State. When Mr. Perceval 
 died, Mr. Ryder died too as a public charac- 
 ter : the friendship of the Premier threw a 
 consequence round him, which his own 
 talents could never have acquired : that 
 friendship being extinguished, the prop and 
 buttress of Mr. Ryder's elevation fell to the 
 ground, nor can he hope to rise again unless 
 he should attract the regards of another 
 friend equally warm. I do not wish to un- 
 dervalue this Gentleman, who is a sensible 
 and highly respectable man : but he has been 
 hurt by being raised above his proper level. 
 He was an excellent Judge- Advocate, and if 
 he had so continued, would never have in- 
 curred a pelting storm of ridicule on his 
 statesmanship* from the stores of Mr. Sheri- 
 
 * Mr. Sheridan's Speech on the Nightly Watch Bill.
 
 MR. B. BATHURST AND MR. RYDER. 107 
 
 dan. Young men who have the means of 
 advancement, are not very fond of being ad- 
 vised to stand still -, otherwise I would pro- 
 pose the example of this Gentleman for the 
 consideration of Mr. Manners Sutton, who 
 is at present much and deservedly respected 
 in the House, but whose fame would not I 
 think keep exact pace with his elevation.
 
 108 
 
 MR. GRATTAN. 
 
 JL HERE is generally in the eloquence of a 
 nation, as well as in its poetry, some striking 
 and distinct character which separates it from 
 all others, and constitutes as marked a differ- 
 ence as that which exists between Chinese 
 ugliness and Grecian beauty. There are in- 
 deed some universal topics which all mankind 
 recognize with equal readiness ; there are 
 sentiments and tones which find their way 
 equally to the heart of the civilized and the 
 barbarous of the phlegmatic and the sensi- 
 tive : yet, whether it is that the man of one 
 clime is differently organized from the man of 
 another, or whether of similar forms of so- 
 ciety, no two can be exactly alike : certain 
 it is, that the favourite mode of thinking 
 and speaking among one people may excite 
 no interest in another ; that what awakens 
 the enthusiasm of one country may by 
 another be regarded with coldness or even 
 with derision. There will, however, amid 
 
 6
 
 MR. GRATTAN. 109 
 
 all these various national modes, be some 
 which every nation shall approve, as there 
 will be others from which, with the particular 
 exceptions of the countries adopting them, 
 the universal taste will be abhorrent. It 
 excites our respect for the populace, or 
 if you will, the mob of Greece, when 
 we read the profound reasoning and elaborate 
 composition with which their demagogues 
 held it necessary to address them : no flimsy 
 verbiage, no noisy sophistry, no ruffian 
 imagery pollute their popular harangues. All 
 the energies of the human mind are em- 
 ployed to influence a people who must indeed 
 be considered as the moral wonder of the 
 world, who evinced the most refined relish, 
 the most consummate taste in poetry, in 
 philosophy, in the arts and sciences, and 
 never degenerated into vulgarity, except 
 in their humour: an exception which will 
 the less astonish, when it is remembered 
 that a fondness for the lowest fun is not only 
 not incompatible, but even usual with the 
 most enlarged and improved intellects. The 
 Romans were a fine, steady, high-minded 
 people, and if any of their popular orators
 
 HO PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 bad reached us, I have no doubt that their 
 speeches would contain the least possible 
 leaven of nonsense and false taste. The 
 authentic declamations however of their 
 Gracchi and their Bruti, and of all their race 
 of tribunes and favourites have perished : nor 
 must we form a judgment of the nation's taste 
 from those accomplished imitations of the 
 Grecian sophists with which Cicero astonished 
 the Greek- educated minds of a polished and 
 patrician auditory. We have no relics of 
 their purely popular assemblies : yet if the 
 fabricated speeches of such powerful and ob- 
 servant writers as Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, 
 carry any authority, we can plainly see from 
 them that a Roman demagogue, whether ad- 
 dressing a mob of artisans or of soldiers, never 
 condescended to those low and unreasoning 
 hurly-buriies of sentiment and diction which 
 entrance an English or an Irish mob. Even 
 in France, a nation which though incapable 
 of poetry, has produced abundant specimens 
 of eloquence, even in the worst times of 
 revolutionary France, their leaders, though 
 familiar with' all the savageries of the lowest 
 brutality, never forgot to observe the dignity
 
 MR. GRATTAN. Ill 
 
 of the understanding. Marat indeed was a 
 vulgar ruffian in speech and act ; but where 
 will you find more accomplished and tasteful 
 speakers than Brissot, Mirabeau, and Verg- 
 niaud : even Robespiere rarely lost view of 
 the diction of a gentleman, nay of a philoso- 
 pher. And the present Ruler of France * (of 
 whom I must be allowed to say that the pre- 
 dominance of his hateful qualities above his 
 good, together with the stupendous talent 
 with which he conducts his destructive pur- 
 poses, renders him one of the most baleful 
 prodigies that ever puzzled and terrified the 
 world), even this selfish and savage soldier, 
 from the first moment of his career to his last 
 address to his Senate, lias never insulted with 
 senseless vulgarities the fine taste of an 
 enlightened nation, but has ever adopted 
 with admirable skill the language of candid 
 philosophy, and may be considered as the 
 most consummate ape of the magnanimous 
 and the wise that ever imposed on credulous 
 inferiority. In England too, in its happier 
 days, before City and Election Orators 
 thought of imitating Demosthenes, or aspired 
 
 * This was written before the exile of Buonaparte.
 
 112 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 to Wield democracies with the bombast of 
 Billingsgate at the time when Sidney and 
 Hampden, instead of the empty assistance of 
 dull and foolish diatribes, studied as well as 
 fought with unremitted ardour for their darl- 
 ing constitution at that time, almost every 
 demagogue was a scholar and a man of think- 
 ing, and knew what was due to a reflecting 
 people. If Bradshaw or Ireton, or Ludlow 
 or Vane, had talked like some modern orators, 
 the people would never for a day have en- 
 dured the degradation of their able and skilful 
 Monarch j but Charles was ' subdued by the 
 manners as well as by the intellect of his 
 Judge ; and perhaps there never was an occa- 
 sion where a man pressed so pertinaciously, 
 and conscious too (as he must have been) of the 
 forcible truth of the remarks of his opponent, 
 yet could act with such possessed and gentle- 
 manly calmness as that with which, on that 
 unfortunate occasion, Bradshaw treated 
 Charles. 
 
 Of Ireland it is difficult to speak with any 
 accuracy: the natural character of that 
 people has been so exaggerated and defaced 
 by centuries of ill-treatment, that its features 
 can scarcely be seen, except through the dis-
 
 MR. GRATTAN. 113 
 
 torting mediums of anger and dejection. 
 Enough however remains for us to distinguish 
 that they are full of talent and spirit : that 
 if their levity indisposes them for think- 
 ing, the intensity of their feelings supplies 
 the place of thought : they feel till they think, 
 while their neighbour nation thinks till it feels. 
 Too sensitive to be dull, too careless to be 
 tasteful, their eloquence at once interests 
 and offends : it implies that they have found 
 civilization too great a curse for them to be 
 heedful of the forms of society, and in their 
 glowing appeals to natural justice they dis- 
 dain to borrow the technical paraphernalia of 
 custom and of taste. It is this feeling which, 
 in the unnatural condition of Ireland, makes 
 its revenge more savage than a madman's ; 
 it is this which sometimes makes its oratory 
 more vulgar than a barbarian's. I will not 
 however act so unfairly as to take my speci- 
 mens of its oratorical powers from its O'Con- 
 nels j I will rather adduce its best men its 
 Burkes, and Sheridans, and Grattans. The 
 first is like a cataract of mud, a stagnan* 
 ditch vexed into a torrent: the latter are 
 great and powerful streams, rushing along 
 with equal force and majesty, and whose over- 
 
 i
 
 114 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 flowings are enough to fill a hundred petty 
 rivulets. 
 
 I would not have it supposed, because I 
 have joined the name of Grattan to those of 
 Burke and Sheridan, that I consider him as of 
 equal rank. Burke is at an immense distance 
 above both : but between the two last, though 
 Mr. Sheridan is beyond question the superior 
 man, I think I see some similarity, rather 
 however in kind than in manner. Mr. Sheri- 
 dan's aim was always", if he could, to expose the 
 propositions of his adversary by a series of 
 ludicrous contrasts : the mind of Mr. Grattan 
 leads him to the same play of opposition and 
 antithesis, though his disposition seems to 
 feel anger where the other would only laugh. 
 The understanding in these cases is evidently 
 alike, though the habits of society have en- 
 gendered a different taste. Again, there is 
 some likeness in their style ; there is about 
 them at the beginning a conversational care- 
 lessness amounting almost to laziness, a sort 
 of lounging indifference, which more than 
 half conceals their strong feeling. On a 
 sudden, some thought, some word, sets fire 
 to the train of their impressions : they fling 
 away their sloth as Ulysses flung away the
 
 MR. GRATTAN. 115 
 
 beggar's weeds, and walk abroad in all the 
 majesty of excited intellect and irresistible 
 passion. Who shall oppose it? Reason is 
 content to admire, and forgets to examine : 
 but fortunately a tempest must be temporary. 
 Indeed the paroxysms of Mr. Grattan are 
 much shorter than those of Mr. Sheridan : 
 and the former sinks at once from his celestial 
 elevation down to mere earth. Not so with 
 Mr. Sheridan : he, when once roused, never 
 subsides into an uninteresting mediocrity : 
 when he ceases to be energetic, he becomes 
 elegant. When he is no longer the angel of 
 the storm, he becomes the benignant genius 
 whose presence cheers even the waste, and 
 at whose every step upsprings a bed of living 
 verdure. I must confess however that I have 
 not known Mr. Grattan in his best days: 
 looking at him now, a veteran not much 
 short of seventy, and observing that attic 
 fire which still warms his heart, I will not 
 presume to say that he does not deserve the 
 high reputation which he enjoys. I am 
 content to bow with reverence to the con- 
 sistent advocate of his country's rights, who 
 for a long life has stood forward the powerful 
 and almost successful champion of her cause 
 I 2
 
 116 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 against an unparalleled weight of influence 
 and prejudice, and who disdains to further his 
 purposes by any paltry intermixture with the 
 vulgar views of the Whig party, who some- 
 how or other have of late years thought it 
 right to advocate the Catholic cause. Some 
 have said that Mr. Grattan sunk in character 
 by his transplantation into the British Parlia- 
 ment. I cannot think so : there is no man 
 heard with more fond respect; and deservedly, 
 for there is no man who gives more pleasure. 
 Indeed I know not a more gratifying sight 
 than when Mr. Grattan rises : his petit person 
 and fumbling voice at first awake no feeling 
 but surprise that this man should be a com- 
 manding orator : in a moment you become 
 interested by his gentlemanly manner and 
 warm though very subdued tone : a striking 
 thought or glowing expression drops out as if 
 by accident, and assures us that we shall not 
 be disappointed. He then rises to the dignity 
 of eloquence, and every expectation is an- 
 swered. Such a man therefore must not be 
 quoted as an instance of over valued merit ; 
 for he has not, like Flood, sunk at once into 
 an object of ridicule ; or, like a recent candi- 
 date, fallen into the dead sea of mediocrity,
 
 MR. GRATTAN. 117 
 
 after being up cried as a wonder. The last 
 case however was not a failure, but an instance 
 of an over-rated man reduced to his proper 
 level. It was a folly which deserved to be 
 cheated, that could hope for much enlight- 
 ened eloquence from the man * who thinks 
 Rogers the first poet, and Madame de Stael 
 the first philosopher, of the age. 
 
 * The Gentleman who lately failed so egregiously in 
 Parliament is said to be the author of the articles in the 
 Edinburgh Review, relating to Rogers and Madame de 
 Stael.
 
 MR. W. POLE AND MR. CROKER. 
 
 J.T may not be unamusing to contemplate 
 the portraits of two gentlemen, who may be 
 considered as the most self-important persons 
 in the House of Commons ; a pre-eminence 
 which, though not very desirable, must yet be 
 termed remarkable, when it is remembered how 
 full that assembly is of those slaves of conceit 
 and self-love, viz. of young men who, yet 
 tingling with school discipline, have by the 
 help of family-boroughs been lifted into legis- 
 lators ; and of old men who, having without 
 any extraordinary talent or virtue amassed 
 princely fortunes and the highest rank, are 
 allowed with impunity to detail by the hour 
 the maxims of their oracular experience. It 
 is curious to observe the different shapes which 
 self-importance assumes, according to the dif- 
 ferent qualities on which it operates. In a 
 constitutionally modest man, as for instance 
 in Mr. H; Addington, it shows itself in a stiff 
 an4 fretful humility, like the stately and irri?
 
 MR. W. POLE AND MR. CHOKER. 119 
 
 table chastity of a virgin of three-score : in a 
 forward clever youth, as in Mr. Peel, it is a 
 lively pertness, careless of giving offence, be- 
 cause it thinks the wit of its sarcasm an am- 
 ple compensation for the bitterness of its sa- 
 tire ; and because the perpetual flattery and 
 loud laugh of weak friends make it fancy it- 
 self " a chartered libertine." But the plea- 
 santest exhibition is when a veteran profes- 
 sor of State- Arcana perhaps such an one as 
 Mr. Rose rises 'now and then, bustling with 
 all the pride of knowledge, and, by the aid of 
 sagacious nods and mysteriously familiar tones, 
 seems big with the secrets of a hundred Cabi- 
 nets, and, though he tells little, looks as if he 
 had much to tell ; while he silences the voice 
 of youthful reasoning, by triumphant allu- 
 sions to those glorious days when the legisla- 
 tive Nestor was in his prime, and the theore- 
 tic youngster was yet unborn. All these 
 traits are so natural to particular ages and ha- 
 bits, and if not quite harmless, are in general 
 so free from maliciousness, that one is less 
 disposed to be angry than to laugh at them ; 
 but there is another kind of conceit, betray- 
 ing itself by a hard-faced and protrusive im- 
 pudence, by a contemptuous and arrogant
 
 ISO PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 over-bearing : to this let no mercy be shown ; 
 it is so far from being a natural feature, that 
 it requires whole years of the worst society 
 and the worst education to engraft it with the 
 least success, and then none but the worst 
 natures will receive and propagate the corrupt 
 addition. If this quality were as dangerous 
 as it is vicious, it should be driven from so- 
 ciety with execrations ; but like many of the 
 most offensive vices, it carries about it its 
 own antidote. It is an impostor which cheats 
 only itself: it seduces its observer neither into 
 pleasure nor admiration ; on the contrary, all 
 are able to discover and appreciate its object, 
 while some hate, and most despise it. Yet it 
 succeeds, in general, as far as it aspires ; it 
 wears its way, not wins it, and owes its great- 
 ness, not to the kindness of friendship, but to 
 its own invincible importunity. It moves 
 along, through the hisses of disgust and the 
 mutterings of hatred, with perfect content, 
 because it is conscious that such is the element 
 most appropriate to its nature ; it takes its 
 wished-for seat of rank with a shrug of con- 
 tempt at those who would not pay the same 
 price for the same dignity. It is very seldom 
 however that impudence is ambitious ; it is
 
 ME. W. POLE AND MR. CHOKER. 121 
 
 in general too sordid to aim after honorary 
 distinctions, and confines itself to the search 
 after gain ; hence it is less found in the poli- 
 tical sphere (except among the underlings of 
 state) than in the walks of common and daily 
 life. There its most complete picture is to be 
 seen, when a determined fortune-hunter has 
 started a wealthy girl ; in vain she flies, in 
 vain she despises, in vain she hates j he looks 
 upon all the struggles of resentment with the 
 same calculating pleasure as a poacher views 
 the strength-exhausting efforts of the captive 
 bird, which tires itself into his possession. 
 The poor girl, with all her loathing fresh 
 about her, is, from the sex's characteristic in- 
 ability to resist perseverance, compelled to 
 yield, which it may be supposed she does 
 with a sort of feeling like that with which a 
 person flings himself into the sea, to avoid 
 the approaches of a tiger, who will take no re- 
 pulse. But I have been pursuing my remarks 
 till I have forgot the purpose with which I 
 began, which was merely to give a brief sketch 
 of the Parliamentary peculiarities of the two 
 gentlemen whose names are at the head of 
 this article. 
 To begin with Mr. W. Pole ; he is, as I have
 
 122 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 hinted, exceedingly self-important, though as 
 in most cases of the sort, it would be almost 
 impossible to discover on what grounds he 
 fancies himself so momentous a personage. 
 He has, indeed, for one brother, a statesman 
 of considerable acquirements, and no mean 
 understanding. He has, for another brother, 
 a man whose simplicity of character excites 
 general respect, and whose substantial services 
 to the good cause entitle him to the gratitude 
 of his country and mankind. Certainly Mr. 
 W. Pole may justly congratulate himself on 
 such a relationship ; still I do not see how this 
 circumstance is to explain his dignified self- 
 opinion, when he can show neither the talents 
 of one relative, nor the services of the other. 
 His tone and manner make him nearly the 
 most unpleasant speaker in the House. He 
 is always angry, and his voice being sharp and 
 shrill, and always raised to its highest pitch, 
 grates on the ear a discord nearly as horrible 
 as the tuning of five fiddles. One is at no time 
 much disposed to sympathise with anger, even 
 if just ; least of all can we take any interest 
 in a resentment which becomes louder in pro- 
 portion to its want of cause, and lashes itself 
 into a rage for no probable reason, unless it 
 4
 
 MR. W. POLE AKD MR. CROKER. 123 
 
 has been medically recommended as a whole- 
 some exercise of the physical powers. It is 
 sometimes amusing to witness the intellectual 
 spars between the two Ex-Chancellors of Ire- 
 land, Mr. Pole, and Sir J. Newport. The 
 Baronet, though highly respectable for his in- 
 dependence, integrity, and general amenity 
 of manners, is, however, more testy than be- 
 seems a wise Statesman, especially when any 
 reference is made to his administration : and 
 anger, as has been already observed, seems 
 the element essential to the vitality of the 
 other Legislator, who also piques himself in 
 no small degree on the wisdom of his govern- 
 ment. With such feelings it is not matter of 
 surprise that the disputes of these opponents 
 should sometimes be pushed even to exaspe- 
 ration ; while each of them, with his own pe- 
 culiar eagerness, is insisting on his own in- 
 fallibility, and the other's absurdity. The 
 spectacle is the more entertaining, because 
 the matter in debate is generally some local 
 Irish law, which, however important, is yet 
 almost always regarded by the House with 
 the utmost indifference. Mr. W. Pole has, of 
 course, received the education of a gentle- 
 man, and has been familiar with the best so-
 
 124 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 ciety ; yet I know not how it is, but there is 
 more offensive obtrusiveness in his manner, 
 and more meanness in his language, than are 
 usually found in that class of life which is 
 called genteel, unless indeed where the emi- 
 nent rank or talent of the individual has pre- 
 cluded the necessity of compliance with ac- 
 customed forms. After all, this gentleman 
 is of so little consideration in the state, that 
 it may seem a waste of severity to descant on 
 his character : I confess I feel so much ten- 
 derness for him for the sake of his family, that 
 I could wish him to exercise the leisure which 
 want of office affords, partly in cultivating 
 his taste after the example of his elder bro- 
 ther, and partly in lowering the tone of his 
 impatience, by studious reflection on the quiet 
 unaffectedness with which his soldier brother 
 performs illustrious actions. 
 
 The high tone of Mr. Croker may perhaps 
 be explained with less difficulty : the writer 
 of doggerel verses on the Dublin actors, and 
 the puerile imitator * of the easiest of all mo- 
 dels, Walter Scott, may reasonably feel some 
 
 * " The Battle of Talavera " is usually ascribed to Mr. 
 Croker.
 
 MR. W. POLE AND MR. CROKER. 125 
 
 surprise at finding himself at so important a 
 post as the Secretaryship to the Admiralty : 
 having too little discrimination, or too much 
 self-love to discover the real cause, he is led 
 to conclude that he may possess great quali- 
 ties, though unknown to himself, and that 
 he should assume a consequence of manner 
 equal to that latent dignity of character which 
 is some day to be revealed. It must have 
 contributed to spoil this gentleman, to see a 
 man of Mr. Southey's eminence passing by 
 all the rank and talent of the nation, to dedi- 
 cate a rather favourite work to him : nor does 
 one wonder that his gratitude should have 
 made him the patron of the dedicating poet. 
 The day, however, has been, and with a man 
 of Mr. Southey's mutable thinking, the day 
 may yet return, when a blush shall dart across 
 the Laureat, to feel that, under such circum- 
 stances, he owes his honours to the patronage 
 of such a person. It is usual with those who 
 dislike this young Secretary and he should 
 know, what perhaps he is too careless to con- 
 sider, that his manner is of all others the most 
 calculated to make enemies it is usual with 
 them to object to the lowness of his origin. 
 Such an objection, in a country like this* is
 
 126 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 despicable and unnatural : it is the pride of 
 our constitution that it opens the paths of 
 honour for all who have skill to tread them ; 
 and a good Englishman should hail with joy 
 every fresh instance of plebeian elevation. I 
 rejoice, therefore, with Mr. Croker, that his 
 origin has been no obstruction to his promo- 
 tion ; and indeed I feel some kindness for his 
 father, if he is, as I have heard, the translator 
 of the Satires of Ariosto. The translation 
 is indifferent, and indeed it would be no 
 slight task to render those elegant sketches 
 of a Court's vices and a Poet's simplicity, 
 with the Horatian point and delicacy of the 
 Italian : but it is some praise to have been fond 
 of such a work ; and I would rather be the son 
 of an indifferent versifier, than of a lazy, un- 
 lettered grandee. No my quarrel with Mr. 
 Croker is not on account of his pedigree, but 
 for the arrogance of his manner, unbecoming 
 in any man, but least of all suited to a man of 
 ihis small pretensions. I object to that defy- 
 ing tone which seems to wish to provoke, 
 to that sore manner which implies a con- 
 sdiousness that what he says ought to offend, 
 and therefore anticipates that anger as a 
 shield, which it knows it merits to have di-
 
 MR. W. POLE AND MR. CHOKER. 127 
 
 rected against itself as a weapon of offence. 
 Luckily for Mr. Croker, few of the persons 
 whom he attacks with such vehemence seem 
 to hold it worth while to repel him : but a 
 gentleman so exceedingly sensitive as the Ad- 
 miralty-Secretary should be cautious never 
 to utter a sarcasm unless he feels secure that, 
 if answered, he shall have a repartee which 
 will blow his adversary to pieces. Mr. Pon- 
 sonby, on one occasion, silenced him with a 
 furious rebuff j and on another, Sir Francis 
 Burdett, with his usual gentlemanly coolness, 
 combined a few words whose united force 
 seemed to sting to the very quick. Not how- 
 ever to leave this gentleman in despair if he 
 will cease to speak till he has conquered his 
 high and irritable tone, and continue to dis- 
 charge his office with his present exemplary 
 diligence, he may justly look forward to as 
 much praise as usually falls to the lot of se- 
 cond-rate officers of state. Meantime, let 
 him continue to patronise poets ; and may the 
 next poet whom he befriends be able to re- 
 ceive the honour without any injury to the 
 consistency of his character.
 
 128 
 
 LORD MILTON AND LORD MORPETH. 
 
 XT is not my purpose to descant on so com- 
 mon a topic as the usefulness of a large and 
 powerful body of Nobility to a Constitution 
 framed like the English, still less will I act 
 so invidiously as to inquire by what title of 
 desert they hold their several ranks and 
 domains. Taking it for granted that in these 
 respects all is as it should be, feeling at least 
 that all is as it must be, I will turn aside from 
 this dry and unprofitable task to the more 
 amusing speculation of considering the gene- 
 ral character of our English Nobles. And 
 here I must express my pride as an English- 
 man, that in no country arrived at the height 
 of civilization has existed an aristocracy less 
 degraded by its vices, more beneficial by its 
 virtues. I speak not here of the wretched 
 creatures, whose poverty or whose low taste 
 induce them to lick the dust of palaces : ab- 
 ject and imbecile, they have themselves ab- 
 jured the rank to which they are conscious
 
 LORD MILTON AND LORD MORPETH. 129 
 
 they ought not to belong, and humanity re- 
 jects them as destitute of that principle, with- 
 out which life is a burthen and a shame 
 an active and constant self-respect. The 
 great mass of the English Nobility are a very 
 different race, and bear about them more of 
 the genuine English character than is to be 
 found in any other class except the peasantry. 
 The middle classes, including the merchants, 
 the professions, and those cadets of rank who 
 must make their way in the world, have all 
 become so modified by reading, by thinking 
 (I am loth to call it philosophy) and by inter- 
 course with foreigners in various ways, that 
 though they possess almost all the talent, and 
 a great part of the virtue to be found, yet 
 I think they have lost much of that peculiar 
 manner and style by which their countrymen 
 were distinguishable two centuries, or even 
 one century ago. Whether that style and 
 manner were good or bad, might be subject 
 of deep contemplation with the philosopher : 
 in his less wise and dignified moments, he 
 might perhaps think that the mind of an 
 Englishman is a soil too stubborn for meta- 
 physics ; that his heart has become contracted 
 instead of expanded by the system of univer- 
 
 K
 
 ISO PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 sal philanthropy ; that what has been gained 
 in scientific prattle, has been lost in simplicity 
 of understanding. He may even shake his 
 head when he learns that our leading man of 
 science is a little master who affects fashion, 
 and that the oracle of the day who influences 
 the education of half the people is a female, 
 who has tamed the generous feelings of her sex 
 and of nature into the admiration of a cold, 
 calculating scheme, graduated by utility alone, 
 * and who by a patch-work fabric made up of one 
 bit of Rousseau, another bit of Voltaire, a third 
 of Darwin, proposes to enlighten and improve 
 the future generation of men, by making 
 them coxcombs and pedants. If, after all, 
 the philosopher should admire this, for phi- 
 losophers must sometimes admire what they 
 do not in their hearts approve, yet the mere 
 antiquarian lover of his country is not liable 
 to the same obligation. He perhaps will cast 
 his eye over past ages, and say " We have 
 had men of science and profound thinkers 
 before to-day, yet Newton was no dangler 
 after little Misses, nor Locke a spruce scented 
 beau. We have had men of feeling : there 
 were the two Sydneys, who have both written 
 large books, yet they never recommend us
 
 LORD MILTON, AND LORD MORPETII. 131 
 
 to love those ugly barbarians, the Chinese, 
 with the same affection that is inspired by 
 our own well-educated and well-looking rela- 
 tions. There have been female writers too, 
 Mrs. Hutchinson, and Lady Russel, and Lady 
 Fanshaw, but they were wise without ' vain 
 philosophy/ and did not inculcate virtue by 
 reference to the rule of three." Such might 
 be the opposite opinions of different men : 
 let the reader determine which of the two 
 is right. I merely advance an opinion, 
 that much of the characteristic manner here 
 alluded to call it spirit or pride, or good 
 sense or obstinacy, no longer distinguishes 
 the great efficient body of the English people. 
 Some of its features, somewhat disfigured, are 
 to be found in the lower orders, who are in- 
 solently brave and sensible amid all the ob- 
 stacles of prejudice. In the highest classes 
 the features assume a more dignified mien : 
 sullenness becomes independence, irritability 
 is here spirit, and prejudice is wisdom looking 
 through the spectacles of experience. Such 
 features, it must be confessed, are rather in- 
 teresting, as showing the genuineness of the 
 breed, than amiable from their intrinsic grace:
 
 1S2 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 and a nobility so marked may be thought to 
 have but few claims to respect. Let not the 
 reader be too hasty : it is better that a power- 
 ful aristocracy should be useful than pleasing : 
 it is better that they should have the awkward 
 reserve and sturdy honesty of farmers and 
 mechanics, provided that they encourage 
 agriculture and manufactures, than that they 
 should manifest all the graces of Lovelace, 
 and be known only at a concert or a mask- 
 ed ball. The manners indeed of our highest 
 Nobility are in general very clumsy and un- 
 polished : they are so educated as to meet with 
 little acquaintance on the footing of an easy 
 equality, and know scarcely any thing of the 
 world till they are produced by their fine 
 wives : they have not the intelligent con- 
 fidence which is the result of the collision of 
 able minds in a learned profession, nor have 
 they substituted for it the graceful self-pos- 
 session inspired by the habits and dangers of 
 military life. They possess however what is 
 better a simplicity and straitforwardness of 
 thinking, an abhorrence of meanness, an en- 
 thusiastic generosity, a fearlessness of danger, 
 and a strong uncalculating admiration and
 
 LORD MILTON AND LORD MORPETH. 133 
 
 love of their country, which compensate all 
 their faults, and make them the just boast of 
 all who know how to appreciate them. 
 
 Among the most respectable of our noble 
 houses is the family of Lord Fitzwilliam, 
 whose son, Lord Milton, now claims our 
 notice. To those who are in the habit of 
 hearing this young nobleman there can be 
 but one opinion of his character : every one 
 at once recognizes the warm feeling, the un- 
 sophisticated thinking, the earnest manner of 
 an honest man : every body would be ready to 
 exclaim of him : " That man, I am sure, never 
 did a cruel or a sordid thing : there is no 
 trickery, no vice about him : conscious of right 
 and fearless of consequences, he denounces 
 wrong with the voice and gesture of a Censor : 
 he puts no check to his language, because he 
 holds that discretion worthless which would 
 suppress the feelings of an unaffected indig- 
 nation." Such praise all would willingly give 
 to this Nobleman ; and those who give so 
 much would then be sorry that they could 
 afford no more. Their impartiality, however, 
 must compel them to confess, that with the 
 excellencies his Lordship has many of the 
 faults of the Aristocratical character. His
 
 134 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS, 
 
 education has been scanty, his mind has no 
 thinking : it is stored with many noble com- 
 mon-places, but he applies them without dis-: 
 crimination : he is exceedingly vain, and 
 what perhaps more than any thing else tends, 
 to make a man thoroughly ridiculous, he has 
 himself no apprehension of ridicule. Hence, 
 he is ever pompous and exaggerating, almpst 
 with the air of mock-heroic j while his sombre 
 look and unbending manner remind one 
 more of the austerity of age than of the 
 energy of eight-and-twenty. He is said to 
 imitate Mr. Pitt : the copy is about as similar 
 to the original as Ireland is to Shakspeare, or 
 Dr. Trapp to Virgil. Such are his Lordship's 
 defects, whiph I have mentioned with the 
 same unreserve as that with which I have 
 panegyrized his virtues. Upon the whole, 
 his integrity and high honour, if properly 
 directed, may render him an useful bulwark 
 against state-corruption, and will ensure to 
 him a continuance of that fond respect which 
 is the attendant of his venerable Father. 
 
 Lord Morpeth, with equal claims to our re- 
 gard on the score of virtue, is very superior in 
 point of talent. His diffidence, however, is so 
 great as almost to obscure his qualities 5 but an
 
 LOUD MILTON AND LORD MORPETH. 135 
 
 attentive observer will see through the mist a 
 strong and well cultured understanding, a 
 thorough knowledge of the subject which he 
 undertakes to handle, a tasteful and judici- 
 ous proportion between the manner and the 
 matter, a liberality of thinking and a manly 
 feeling. Here are qualities sufficient to 
 make an orator of no trivial size : yet such 
 is the overpowering modesty, or even bash- 
 fulness, of his Lordship, that those words 
 and sentiments drop unimpressive from his 
 tongue, which, from a more confident tone, 
 would awe the House into respect, or rouse 
 them to admiration. His Lordship is one of 
 the Whig-phalanx, and may be considered 
 as the least haughty and repulsive of that 
 very disagreeable body of men. He has 
 none of the offensive symptoms of his party 
 no rumbling dogmatism like Mr. Ponsonby, 
 no majestic common-place like his friend 
 Lord Milton, no pert sagacities like Mr. 
 Tierney, no startling * invective like Lord 
 Grey. It is a pity that so amiable and right- 
 minded a Nobleman should be known only as 
 a coadjutor with a party: it is for men like 
 him to break the trammels and win a reputa- 
 tion for themselves, instead of being content
 
 1S6 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 with the praise of constancy and fidelity. A 
 zealous, independent man may effect more 
 good, if only by his speeches, in one year, 
 than the combined efforts of a selfish, tricking, 
 small-minded party could achieve in fifty 
 years.
 
 137 
 
 MR. CREEVEY AND MR. BRAND. 
 
 I HAVE selected these Gentlemen as two 
 of the most independent in the House of 
 Commons. Each of them, no doubt, is ready to 
 lend his utmost assistance to the Whigs in fur- 
 therance of any useful and important measure ; 
 but they are not the sworn advocates, the 
 obsequious badgemen, of the party. Like 
 Mr. Whitbread, if they think it their duty to 
 make a proposition, they do not wait for the 
 sanctioning nod of the Opposition-thunderer, 
 nor do they seem to care very much whether 
 their plan shall exactly correspond with the 
 interested views of Messrs. A. B. C. and D., 
 who, under existing circumstances, are of 
 opinion, that the expedient should be mixed 
 up a little with the right. Should they hold 
 it necessary to oppose any of the schemes of 
 the party, they instantly avow their dissent 
 both by their speeches and their votes, with- 
 out any of the reluctant delay of persons 
 who suffer a duty to be made a question. It 
 is possible that I may be mistaken in ascrib-
 
 J38 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 ing these high qualities to these gentlemen : 
 I cannot help it ; I do not profess intuition : 
 but it is their fault and their punishment, if 
 they are not what they seem. For myself, I 
 have not the least doubt of their sincerity, 
 and will take occasion here to express my ut- 
 most scorn and abhorrence of that vulgar 
 shallowness which would insinuate, that all 
 public men are equally devoid of principle. 
 Methinks I hear some ignorant whipster, 
 half-terrified, yet entirely pert, interpose an 
 objection. " Pray, Sir, do not you think that 
 all public men are equally interested?" Yes, 
 poor skeleton of half-formed experience ! 1 
 agree generally with your suggestion : but 
 cannot you discern any difference between a 
 noble and a sordid motive ? Is there no dis- 
 tinction between the man who, with a gener- 
 ous thirst for honourable advancement, or for 
 that honest popularity which ever follow sub- 
 stantial merit, devotes his nights and days to 
 the laborious service of the common-weal, 
 and the wretch who is ready to alter his 
 opinions at his patron's signal, and who will 
 barter away his manliness and his conscience 
 for the sake of a pregnant sinecure, or even for 
 the less solid honour of " sitting in the King's
 
 MR. CREEVEY AXD MR. BRAND. 139 
 
 Gate." To say that a man has an interest in 
 what he does, is merely to say that an effect 
 must have a cause. There never were and 
 there never can be men who study stoicism 
 so to the letter as to call, in a naked 
 sense, Virtue its own reward. In a liberal 
 construction the sentence no doubt is true : 
 for certain advantages, such as esteem, friend- 
 ship, tranquillity, are so inseparably connected 
 with virtue as to form part of its very es- 
 sence ; and a man who, though a king, seems 
 to have been well acquainted with human 
 nature, and who for the practical wisdom of 
 his maxims better deserves the title of phi- 
 losopher than half the doating commentators 
 of Aristotle, has gone further, and said in the 
 dashing style of the East, " that length of 
 days is in her right hand, and in her left hand 
 riches and honour." That servant unques- 
 tionably is most to be admired who will fol- 
 low this glorious mistress with the smallest 
 expectancies, and who will be content witlr 
 her least compensations ; and it is in this 
 sense only that any good man can be said to 
 be disinterested. To descend a little to the 
 application, I have always felt the greatest re- 
 -ncct for the conduct of Mr. Creevey and
 
 140 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 Mr. Brand, because it seemed as exempt from 
 mere selfishness as human conduct can well 
 be. Their occasional dissent from their party 
 shows none of the pique of those disappoint- 
 ed seceders, whose " hopes long deferred 
 have made their hearts sick." Their ample 
 fortunes place them above all the paltry con- 
 siderations of gain ; and they evidently have 
 no ambition to shine as the leaders of a new 
 sect, for their talents are not at all of the showy 
 and imposing kind, and their pretensions 
 seem exactly limited by their abilities. No 
 motive then remains, except the laudable de- 
 sire of pleasing their constituents, and of 
 acquiring a just reputation among the intel- 
 ligent and the upright. 
 
 With principles precisely similar, it is im- 
 possible for any two men to be more unlike 
 in their manner of enforcing their opinions. 
 Mr. Creevey is a complete picture of a blunt 
 Englishman : careless and even slovenly in 
 iiis address, shrewd and jocose in his ex- 
 pression, persevering and not to be repelled in 
 his attacks : he puts one in mind of those 
 sturdy puritans and country gentlemen of old 
 time, who could shake even the arbitrary 
 buckram of our Elizabeth and Charles : or, to
 
 JVJR. CREEVEY AND MR. BRAND. 141 
 
 come lower, lie is like that downright Ship, 
 pen, who was such a torturing thorn in the 
 flesh of Sir Robert Walpole. Mr. Creevey 
 seems born to wrinkle the smooth smirks and 
 ruffle the soft tempers of Administration, 
 which is ever complacent and beaming the 
 soul of polite tranquillity. When all about is 
 Halcyon weather, and the Ministers are trip- 
 ping along delicately, thinking that the bitter- 
 ness of party-rage is past, on a sudden ap- 
 pears Mr. Creevey, like a dark cloud in June, 
 and pours down upon them a pitiless pelting 
 that overspreads all their faces with gloom, 
 and drives them scampering for shelter to 
 their benches and their offices. It is very 
 amusing to see his method of punishing a 
 forward self-love : the Minister proclaims 
 some very plausible measure to which he pro- 
 fesses he cannot anticipate the smallest ob- 
 jection : the House seems willing to be led, 
 and the delighted Mover is going to congra- 
 tulate them on an unanimity which does them 
 so much honour. At this apparently auspici- 
 ous moment, a quiet, conversational, half- 
 serious, half-bantering voice is heard at the 
 distance of the back benches : the proprietor 
 gf this ironical tone begs leave to say a very
 
 142 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 few words : he is heard, and appears to be a 
 man of a strangely-constructed memory, for 
 he recollects every fault, and every blunder, 
 and every failure of the Right Honourable 
 Mover, and though evidently a very good- 
 humoured pleasant fellow, he is so exceeding- 
 ly unpolite as to doubt the propriety of im- 
 plicit confidence in a Minister convicted of 
 so many errors. What can the great man 
 do ? Of course he despises the insinuation 
 against his infallibility, but the speech has 
 made some impression, and therefore some 
 answer must be given. He rises, therefore, 
 conceals his anger with a face of affected sur- 
 prise, heaves two or three shrugs of regret, 
 and expresses unfeigned astonishment at such 
 an unreasonable opposition : he then casts 
 round a look of mild appeal, and sits down. 
 He of course carries his point, but the charm 
 of unanimity is broken ; and the House 
 which before felt perhaps unmixed respect, 
 now cannot suppress a laugh at the awkward 
 situation into which he has been thrust. It 
 is but justice to Mr. Creevey to say, that his 
 object in all this is something very superior to 
 amusement ; he always seems to carry in 
 mind his favourite principles and measures,
 
 MR. CREEVEY AND MR. BRAND. 143 
 
 and will omit no opportunity of enforcing 
 them, even though he may run the trifling 
 hazard of being called uncourteous or unac- 
 commodating. 
 
 Mr. Brand is the very opposite of this : he 
 is all gentleness and courtesy. He is a Gen- 
 tleman, with all the mildness and some of the 
 reserve of the old school, and has the look of 
 a man of the best fashion. I speak not of 
 the beaux who waltz so divinely, though, for 
 aught I know, Mr. Brand may waltz as well 
 as any of them : I mean that his appearance 
 expresses a consciousness of rank without 
 insolence a consciousness of pleasing, be- 
 cause he knows he possesses the means of 
 pleasing, and lastly, that benevolence which 
 politeness can so well affect, but which seems 
 to be a real ingredient of Mr. Brand's dis- 
 position and character. With all this, he is 
 so unaffectedly modest and unassuming 
 while, at the same time, he evidently has all 
 that well-founded self-respect which would 
 repel an insult that it is not easy to conceive 
 a more prepossessing speaker, or one by whom 
 the disengaged would more readily suffer them- 
 selves to be convinced. He possesses a very 
 good understanding, which has been disci-
 
 144 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 plined by a legal education : he discovers -a 
 good deal of the logical closeness of argu- 
 ment, and some of the learning of his pro- 
 fession. Fortunately, he is above the ne- 
 cessity of chaining himself down to a tech- 
 nical study to the exclusion of more useful 
 duties; and, still more fortunately for his 
 character, he shows as much industry and at- 
 tention and perseverance to his objects us 
 the merest adventurer in law or politics. 
 Though a young man, who may therefore be 
 reasonably supposed to have many more in- 
 teresting pursuits, he is constantly on the 
 spot, and is ever ready to open the door of 
 Parliament to all who apply to him for advice 
 or assistance. There is no man, next to Mr. 
 Whitbread, in whose hands the Petitions of 
 the poor or the injured can be deposited with 
 more advantage. He will exert all his abili- 
 ties to advocate their claims or their prayers, 
 and none is likely to be heard with more sue- 
 cess ; for the House here, as always, pay the 
 utmost deference to unimpeachable honesty 
 and unaffected benevolence. Let this slight at- 
 tempt to delineate a highly honourable charac- 
 ter pass as a tribute of respect to one who, 
 in his degree, does not yield in consideration
 
 MR. CREEVEY AND MR. BRAND. 
 
 to any Member of either House, and who, 
 though not gifted with eminent or command- 
 ing talents, possesses a power and usefulness 
 which one should in vain look for among the 
 expectants of Opposition or the minions of 
 Administration.
 
 146 
 
 THE CITY MEMBERS. 
 
 M.T would be curious and entertaining, if any 
 one had leisure for such an investigation, to 
 take an historical survey of the fluctuations 
 of civic importance : to see at one period 
 the London counsels influencing the Parlia- 
 ment and the Nation ; at another, to observe 
 the good citizens entirely forgotten, or if re- 
 membered, remembered only for laughter. 
 The causes of this it would be long to de- 
 scribe ; but I believe it will generally be 
 found that the consequence of the City has 
 arisen in proportion to the turbulence of the 
 times, and that when the nation has been 
 perfectly tranquil, the voice of the Guildhall- 
 conclave has been usually disregarded. The 
 personal character of the City Representa- 
 tives, or of the City Orators, does not appear 
 to have increased or diminished its weight in 
 the political scale : whether its remonstrances 
 have been attended to or neglected, the rea- 
 son of such observance or contempt must be
 
 THE CITY MEMBERS. 
 
 looked for, not in the eloquence or tameness 
 of the diction, the good sense or emptiness 
 of the arguments, but in the time, the cir- 
 cumstances, the probable results, of the ad- 
 dress.. For instance, a Minister finds he has a 
 pretty firm hold of popular opinion : Opposi- 
 tion is content merely to look sullen or sneer : 
 the friends of Government relax their im- 
 portunities to be paid for voting according to 
 their consciences. What has the Great Man 
 now to fear ? His enemies know not how to 
 attack him : his adherents dare not tease him. 
 With what utter scorn then must he read the 
 declamatiuncles of the Common Council, 
 even though they should be backed in the 
 House by the intelligence of a Barnard, the 
 sagacity of a Wilkes, the energy of a Beck- 
 ford. Even the unwieldy and gawdy majesty 
 of the civic coach, which is sometimes such a 
 portentous sight at the palace gate, will have 
 no power to alarm him : it will strut to and 
 from St. James's only regarded by the Jittle 
 ragged boys, who skip about it in recollec- 
 tion of the story of Whittington, and in the 
 hope of being future Lord Mayors. He will 
 hold his head on high, and " speak with a 
 stiff neck :" autf if a Representative of the 
 1 2
 
 148 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 great City shall chance to cross his view, he 
 shall stare with a look of faded memory, and 
 bow with an air of unsmiling condescension. 
 Now let some sudden accident derange his 
 schemes, and the best laid schemes will go 
 awry, the Whigs I beg pardon the Op- 
 position (but really one cannot well form an 
 idea of the Whigs except as Oppositionists, 
 for they are so litigious, that like John Lil- 
 burn, rather than be quiet, John will quarrel 
 with Lilburn, and Lilburn with John) the 
 Opposition then begin to look wise and pro- 
 phetic, and to give notices of troublesome mo- 
 tions. The Minister is now anxious for the 
 support of the most insignificant : you may 
 meet him or some of his aids-de-camp in 
 almost every street : one hour you shall see 
 him parading Pall-mall with a Peer who has 
 but one borough ; the next, you shall catch 
 him beaming the soul of good humour on the 
 Exchange. In the House you never saw so 
 mild a creature : look ! how he shakes that 
 young briefless lawyer by his hand 1 with what 
 a smile he greets that superannuated General! 
 with what an obeisance of delighted respect 
 he receives the invitation of that City Knight 
 to his turtle-dinner ! Now is the time for a
 
 THE CITY MEMBERS. H9 
 
 City Member, or a City Address, to shake his 
 soul with terror. And why ? Not because he 
 expedts any extraordinary vigour of intellect, 
 or unanswerable file of reasonings (these are 
 obstacles which from his successful practice 
 in the House he has been led to despise), but 
 because the remote towns and counties will 
 take their tone from London, and the cry will 
 be up against him throughout the nation. 
 People who live at a distance from the metro- 
 polis, and fancy that its wisdom is propor- 
 tional to its opulence and magnitude, are 
 proud to listen to its voice as to an oracle : 
 they are not aware that the unanimous votes 
 of Common Halls and Palace-yard Meetings 
 do not speak the sense of one in ten of the 
 inhabitants of the two great cities : they 
 over-rate the abilities of the London Orators, 
 and undervalue their own just pretensions, 
 And yet, should any Country Gentleman, 
 who has been seduced to hear the harangues 
 at Guildhall, be inclined to give his real 
 opinion, I have no doubt that he would say 
 that they are far inferior to those which are 
 delivered by Mr. A. and Sir John B. at the 
 County Meetings. To take an instance Mr. 
 Waithman is a plain, sensible man, with some
 
 ]50 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 information and more energy ; but no impar- 
 tial judge would, I think, hesitate to place at 
 least ten degrees above him such persons as 
 Mr. Roscoe of Liverpool, or Mr. Elton of 
 Bristol. It is not my purpose, however, to 
 criticise the Common Council : I wish merely 
 to give a brief delineation of the chosen four 
 who have been deputed to guard the City's 
 interests, and convey its wise decisions to the 
 House of Commons, 
 
 The first and perhaps the most considera- 
 ble is Mr. Alderman Combe : a gentleman 
 of whom I am as unwilling as I am unable to 
 say any thing derogatory : his consistency of 
 conduct has ensured him the favour of his 
 fellow-citizens, and the respect of all worthy 
 meu. Yet I must be allowed to regret that 
 a man whose principles are so estimable can- 
 not enforce them by any power of words, or 
 of utterance. His delivery is so rapid, in- 
 distinct, and without a pause, that though I 
 have heard him fifty times I would not swear 
 to the authenticity of a single sentence. His 
 speaking is like the writing of an uneducated 
 girl it has no punctuation, no stop, not even 
 a comma. It puts you out of. breath to 
 listen 5 and yet it seems to cost him no
 
 THE CITY MEMBERS. 151 
 
 effort. His face is all tranquillity, while his 
 lips are precipitating, overthrowing, and de- 
 stroying every word that passes them. It can- 
 not be supposed that I conceive this trifling 
 defect to be any serious drawback from the 
 respectability of his character; it merely 
 mars all effects which he might produce as a 
 speaker. What a very different person is Sir 
 James Shaw ! Any one may see that he is a 
 citizen and Alderman. How slowly and ma- 
 jestically the words march from his mouth : 
 how impressive and solemn his enunciation ! 
 Not a particle escapes without an emphasis, 
 and conjunctions and adverbs assume the 
 dignity of moral axioms. How I should pity 
 the Minister, if the matter of the Baronet 
 were equal to his manner : for nothing short 
 of the wisdom of Lord Bacon could be ade- 
 quately and appropriately delivered in a style 
 of utterance which, with mysterious portent, 
 pauses between every word. The philosopher, 
 whose words were sentences, might require 
 such resting-places for the understanding ; 
 but he whose sentences are but words must 
 not be allowed to consume so much of our 
 time. Ha ! my good-humoured pleasant Sir, 
 is that you? My ever-cheerful Sir William
 
 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 Curtis, I am glad to see you ! If I say one 
 word against you, may I never partake of 
 your hospitality! What, though the world, 
 my good friend, is fond of retailing your 
 blunders and gives you no credit for even 
 common understanding; the world is ever 
 mistaking : and I will undertake to tell it 
 that no man in the City possesses more shrewd- 
 ness and common sense, nor takes a juster 
 view of common political squabbles. I will 
 say that I know no man who, without affect- 
 ing honesty and independence, is more sub- 
 stantially honest and independent. It is true 
 that in all the greater questions which require 
 extensive information and ampler views, you 
 are no better than all the rest of the country, 
 gentlemen and citizens, who think it safer to 
 support the government than to sanction a 
 speculation which they cannot understand. 
 Nay you frown you are ungrateful : I have 
 really said of you as much as you deserve, 
 and shall expect to hear you acknowledge it 
 when your are in better humour after dinner. 
 Of Mr. Alderman Atkins I know very lit- 
 tie, and shall not therefore pretend to say 
 much. He seems a sensible man, and is very 
 well informed on mercantile questions : he 
 4
 
 THE CITY MEMBERS. 153 
 
 expresses his thoughts with sufficient fluency, 
 and in a tone tolerably free from affectation or 
 importance. He was a member some time 
 before he represented the City, and from his 
 experience and judgment is an excellent 
 Chairman in private Committees. He ge- 
 nerally votes with the Ministry, but I am not 
 aware, at least at present, that this circum- 
 stance at all diminishes his respectability. 
 
 Upon the whole, the City Members seem 
 nearly as good as they have ever been : there 
 is not indeed among them any man with the 
 extensive knowledge and sound vigorous un- 
 derstanding of Sir John Barnard. But such 
 a man is not to be found every day: Mr. 
 Baring comes the nearest to that eminent 
 merchant, but unfortunately his hesitating 
 delivery destroys more than half his power. 
 The City, however, may congratulate itself, 
 that if its representatives want commanding 
 talents, yet they are not factious like Pilking- 
 ton, nor mulish like Crosby, nor impudent 
 like Beckford, nor profligate like Wilkes.
 
 154 
 
 A MAN, fond of revolving his country's his- 
 tory, will see in it no feature to which he will 
 more often and more proudly recur, than the 
 wisdom and integrity of its most distinguished 
 citizens. Its extended territory and accumu- 
 lated riches may dazzle his imagination ; its 
 invincible heroes, and their " well-foughten 
 fields," may stir his heart like the sound of a 
 trumpet ; but the impression in each case 
 will soon fade away, while the image of silent 
 and useful virtue shall take a hold of the 
 mind, which can only be loosened when the 
 understanding itself shall be perverted or des- 
 troyed. Something may perhaps depend on 
 the age of the observer : boys and girls will 
 never be able to look on any thing with the 
 admiration which is excited in them by the 
 gorgeous array and romantic bravery of a 
 preux chevalier ; the Black Prince or St. Bay- 
 ard, in their eyes, will surpass a dozen Sir 
 Thomas Mores or De L'Hopitals. But let
 
 SIR WILLIAM SCOTT. 155 
 
 these same boys and girls grow into men and 
 women, and the case is soon altered : the bo- 
 dily virtues sink to their proper degree on the 
 scale, and the intellectual virtues assert their 
 due eminence. The reader will easily antici- 
 pate me as to the reason of this : when we 
 are young and weak, nothing appears so im- 
 posing as the exertion of great bodily power 
 nothing so over-bears the mind which is 
 conscious of inability to resist its efforts : we 
 grow older and stronger, and courage and 
 self-confidence increase with our strength: we 
 feel that we could almost do the feats which 
 we admire, and our admiration begins to die 
 away. For it is a curious property of self-love, 
 that though it will doat on any particular qua- 
 lity belonging to the favourite object, it can 
 hardly extend a glance of regard to the same 
 virtue, if possessed by another. Increase of 
 years, however, will not diminish our vene- 
 ration for the qualities of mind j and wis- 
 dom and virtue in their highest degree are so 
 rare, that our conscious inferiority is never 
 lessened : the habits of common life seem at 
 such a distance from the attainment of them, 
 that we seem to see either that they are not 
 a-kin to the native properties of the soul, or
 
 156 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 that they are too much beyond our reach to 
 be regarded with other feelings than those of 
 veneration. But placed as they are out of the 
 sphere of common men, even common men 
 love to contemplate them for their beauty and 
 flieir usefulness, the poor peasant, who knows 
 not whether the sun is bigger than it appears, 
 nor whence it comes nor whither it goes, yet 
 hails its presence with awe-struck gratitude, 
 and blesses every ray that fertilizes his fields. 
 Enlightened men feel still greater pleasure : 
 they comprehend at once the motive and the 
 end, and are profoundly moved with that sim- 
 plicity and moral grandeur by which some 
 few chosen minds seem to approach (I speak 
 I hope not irreverently) even the divine in- 
 telligence, as exemplified in its creation. For 
 what closer analogy can be found than be- 
 tween the majestic march of the solar system, 
 day after day performing its silent duty and 
 shedding abroad its unknown but beneficial 
 influences, and the quiet progress of the good 
 wise man, whose daily task and scheme it is 
 to benefit mankind, and whose services extend 
 to thousands who are even ignorant of his ex- 
 istence. Here it is that we see the loveliness, 
 as well as the greatness of intellectual virtue,
 
 SIR WILLIAM SCOTT. 157 
 
 compared with military excellence. The 
 former requires no caparisoned horses, no 
 deafening drums, nor stunning artillery to 
 announce its victories : such parade would 
 only debase its simple dignity, as who would 
 not pity Apollo thrust into the Lord Mayor's 
 coach. But better still : it is not forced to 
 proclaim its energy by devastation, and to 
 improve half mankind by destroying the other 
 half: it disdains the ruffian impatience which 
 kills while it pretends to cure ; it finds the re- 
 medy for moral evils in awakening the capa- 
 bilities of man, and not in the bungling sa- 
 vage method of prostrating and debasing him 
 into a slave. Before the soldier walks Fear, 
 and behind him Misery and Oppression : the 
 good man's march is preceded by Hope, and 
 followed by the Rights of Man and the do- 
 mestic Virtues^ Now let any man choose 
 which he will follow, the conqueror or the 
 sage ? and let him that hesitates be doomed 
 to join the banners of tyranny and destruction. 
 What is here said can only be applied in its 
 full extent to a very few persons : but allow- 
 ing proper limitations, it may generally be 
 observed that the lowest exertion of intellect 
 is more respectable than the most careful com-
 
 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 binations of brute force, which seems to re- 
 quire only two or three of the simplest ideas. 
 The writer of the worst epigram that ever fell 
 pointless from a pen, is superior, in my esti- 
 mation, to the cleverest pugilist ; even a tole- 
 rable sonnet demands, I think, more under- 
 standing than to be the adroitest parade-offi- 
 cer that ever brandished a cane, General 
 Mack himself not excepted : but the author 
 of a good poem, or of a treatise calculated to 
 enlighten mankind, is preferable to the whole 
 collection of heroes from the remotest times 
 to the present day, beginning at Sesostris 
 and ending with Buonaparte. It is time for 
 intellect to assert its rights, and not to suffer 
 the noisy sons of violence, who in turn kill 
 and are killed by each other, to monopolize 
 that fame which belongs by justice only to 
 the wise and the virtuous. 
 
 Among the men of cultivated understand- 
 ing who have directed their powers to the 
 public service, it would not be easy to find 
 one who has brought more natural and ac- 
 quired energies into action than Sir William 
 Scott. I must here, however, premise that, 
 as he but seldom appears in Parliament, what 
 is said of him applies rather to his judicial than
 
 SIR WILLIAM SCOTT. 159 
 
 parliamentary character, though with this ex- 
 planation it may with equal justice be de- 
 clared of both. His understanding is acute 
 and inquisitive, and full of that excellent 
 quality, good sense, by which the mind is 
 enabled to detect imposition, and to stand 
 firm against the violence of enthusiastic de- 
 clamation : it is also ambitious and comprehen- 
 sive, never content with picking its way through 
 small details, but seizes at once the whole 
 subject matter with all its possible appendages, 
 conscious that it can manage it all with the 
 easiest mastery, arranging every compart- 
 ment, and dove-tailing every joint. Besides 
 this, his mind is stored with the best ancient 
 and modern learning, philosophical, polite, 
 and technical j and the whole is corrected 
 and adorned with the finest taste. So gifted 
 and so improved, he is a person to whom it 
 would be difficult to find a parallel, even on 
 the bench of English judicature, though that 
 bench has been frequently adorned with the 
 most learned and accomplished men. Lord 
 Coke is so mere an unique, that it would be 
 ridiculous to compare him with any living 
 thing, unless indeed he would come to earth 
 and furnish me with one of his own ludi-
 
 16O PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 crous and inimitable similes. The mind of 
 the great and good Sir Matthew Hale was 
 disfigured with bigotry, and perhaps with 
 ostentation, though certainly not to the ex- 
 tent which that contemptible creature North 
 would insinuate in his life of Lord Guilford, 
 Lord Somers was an honest man, of various 
 and extensive learning, and with a very ele- 
 gant taste : but he showed, occasionally, an 
 infirmity of mind that corresponds but too ac- 
 curately with that unhappy depravation of his 
 intellect that visited his latter years. One 
 cannot help smiling at an expression in one of 
 his letters to King William, who had written 
 to him for an explanation of some parts of his 
 conduct, which the Parliament were about to 
 criminate. The affrighted Nobleman mistook 
 the derangement of fear for some other cause, 
 and, writing from Tunbridge, tells the King, 
 that the waters of the place have so discom- 
 posed his thoughts that he finds himself unable 
 to furnish the required communication. Next 
 to these, and in some respects greater than 
 these, was Lord Mansfield, a man who at one 
 time was the idol of all parties, and who even 
 to the last, and in the midst of political ani- 
 mosities, retained the admiration of his ene-
 
 SIR WILLIAM SCOTT. 161 
 
 mies. He possessed a more extended fame 
 than usually falls to the lot of a lawyer : yet I 
 think that, judging solely from the books of 
 Reports, no man could fairly say that any one 
 of them could fairly be put on an equality 
 with some of those masterly interpretations of 
 the law of nations, which are reported to 
 have come from the lips of Sir William Scott. 
 There is one judgment, and on a different 
 subject, which strikes me as the finest com- 
 bination of well-digested learning and elegant 
 taste that can be found in the range of our li- 
 terature. It is the decision in the case of 
 Dalrymple and Dalrymple, where he has 
 thought proper to discuss the whole doctrine 
 of Scotch marriages, as well as to reason on 
 the particular facts of the transaction laid be- 
 fore him. The quantity of reading there dis- 
 played is, perhaps, no more than should be 
 expected from every Judge ; but who else 
 could have distributed it with a skill which en- 
 forces conviction, and alone amounts almost 
 to eloquence ? Who else could have supplied 
 the deep thinking and discriminate view of 
 human character ? Who else could have 
 handled the nicer parts of the subject with a 
 delicacy from which the purest mind would 
 M
 
 162 PARLIAMENTARY FORTOAITS. 
 
 j c i .T"C7;8 74 F-. 1 ^ rrr EIJ 
 
 not shrink ? To speak a little of his Parlia- 
 mentary conduct : he is a decided enemy to 
 the claims of the Catholics, and this no doubt, 
 with many, detracts much from the enlarge- 
 
 v *r f V , - 
 
 ment of his understanding. The Catholic 
 Question, though not to be treated as some 
 affect to treat it, as the easiest and the most a 
 matter of course of any thing in the world, 
 certainly does seem one on which it is diffi- 
 cult for enlightened men long to doubt. I 
 wish too well to that cause to go out of my 
 way to explain and justify a conduct which is 
 so positively hostile : but it is only justice to 
 Sir W. Scott to observe that his perseverance 
 is not that of a vulgar bigot. He takes higher 
 ground, and seems to think that the predo- 
 minant party in a state should not suffer an- 
 other to rise to sufficient strength to be able 
 to conflict with it for the superiority. The 
 reasoning may perhaps be correct, but the 
 fear, on which in this case it is founded, seems 
 entirely visionary, and arises probably from 
 early habits and prejudices. Perhaps as he 
 owes his elevation to the present system 
 (though indeed such a man must have risen 
 under any system), he may view innovation 
 with distaste, and cling to the existing order
 
 SH WItLlAM SCOTT. 
 
 irom mere gratitude. I art* aware that this 
 concession will open a thousand 
 against me. " What ! (I hear thetit 
 is your enlightened man degraded by the com- 
 monest prejudices of the commonest rhert t" 
 This question admits a very extended answef , 
 but I shall content myself with a very short 
 one : " Yes, gentlemen, it may be so : and 
 now make the most of the concession : deduct 
 from his intellect all that even your anger 
 shall think ought to be deducted on this 
 score ; and when you have so done, I will de- 
 fy you to produce, nor do I say this in spleen, 
 for I am your friend, but I defy you to pro- 
 duce in the ranks of your champions one who, 
 even after these deductions are made, posses- 
 ses so comprehensive and so enlightened & 
 mind/* 
 
 I have hinted that there is some timidity in 
 his character, and in this, as in some other 
 points, he resembles his able brother, Lord 
 Eldon. It was a pitiable weakness, and should 
 operate as a warning, that a man of his emi- 
 nence should, by a mistake, have been fright- 
 ened into a sort of compromise of his charac- 
 ter, by giving money to prevent a disclosure : 
 he should have known that the public are ever 
 M 2
 
 164 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 willing to view the actions of their wise and 
 useful servants with candour and respect : and 
 it would not readily recollect the man who 
 has discharged the duties of a worthy citizen 
 with more dignified and constant utility than 
 Sir W. Scott. He began life as the tutor of 
 his College, and his many improvements, to- 
 gether with his superior style of instruction, 
 are still remembered there with gratitude and 
 respect. He thenbecamean active and learned 
 Advocate, and has since presided in two Courts 
 With an ability that has been equally service- 
 able to his country and to his own fame : for 
 his name is not confined to this island, but is 
 as much respected abroad as at home. He is 
 now old, but he has lived long enough for 
 glory : and whenever he passes away, he will 
 leave a memory equally venerable for talents, 
 integrity, and services done to the state ; and, 
 as far as I have ever heard, unsullied with 
 one considerable stain.
 
 165 
 
 DR. DUIGENAN AND GENERAL MONTAGU 
 MATHEW. 
 
 J. HERE are some men who, like the Mar- 
 plot of Comedy, seem fated to injure every 
 cause which they befriend : they blunder on 
 with such pertinacity and blindness, that cor- 
 rection or advice are equally useless : they 
 persist in showing their cruel kindness with 
 such a ludicrous unconsciousness of their 
 stupidity and their mischief, that the very 
 person who is smarting under the effects of 
 their etourderie is compelled to laugh. Stran- 
 gers, who hear these people profess friend- 
 ship, and see its hurtful consequences, who 
 hear their exceeding ardour for the party 
 which their efforts make completely ridicu- 
 lous, are apt generally to feel more indigna- 
 tion than merriment ; they take these blun- 
 derers for treacherous friends or cunning ad- 
 versaries. This is not a fair judgment, nor 
 founded on deliberation : those who give it 
 are little aware of the possible obtuseness of 
 the human intellect, or of the effect of preju- 
 dice on an unenlightened self-love.
 
 166 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 Thus I have heard some of these illiberal 
 judges protesting that nothing shall persuade 
 them that Dr. Duigenan is not in his heart the 
 friend of the Catholics, and that with the re- 
 fined skill of a master-advocate, he holds that 
 the best way of defending their cause is to 
 make the Protestant arguments against it a 
 standing jest. They say that he is a man of 
 considerable learning, especially on this par- 
 ticular question : that of course he must be 
 acquainted with all the strong parts of the 
 subject : yet they contend that he invariably 
 brirags forth to the battle the same feeble, 
 tatfcered forces, which have been beaten and 
 re-beaten till even the victors are weary. 
 They go farther, and try to strengthen their 
 position by an allusion to the Doctor's private 
 life, and say that be has chosen for the part- 
 ner of his thoughts, the solace of his domestic 
 hours, a lady, who is one of the unhallowed 
 family of Anti-Christ. But to this theory, 
 plausible and amusing as it is^ I must,, in jus- 
 tice to Dr. DuigenaDi, refuse my assent : for 
 to begin with the last argument, it does not 
 follow, because the Doctor: is- a very sturdy lo- 
 gician, that he is equally strong on the score 
 of the passions ; since the days, of Thomas 
 Aquinas, thfl very sternest ratiocinators (one
 
 .1 
 
 DR. DUIGENAN AND GEN. MATHEW. 167 
 
 must not call tliese people reasoners) have 
 found it much harder work to conquer the 
 fascinations of a beautiful woman, than to 
 over-master the most artful syllogism. I ana 
 sure I shall never glory in the defeat of the 
 Doctor who was beaten under such circum- 
 stances : the failing was quite human, and I 
 was never one of those who believed the 
 Doctor to be super-human, a belief which I 
 understand is losing ground quickly, even 
 among the most zealous of the beneficed 
 clergy. The Doctor may comfort himself 
 somewhat in the strain of the young rakes in 
 Terence and Aristophanes, who justified their 
 errors by reference to the character of Jupi- 
 ter : so he may say, " What ? did the angelic 
 Doctor nearly fall a victim to the devil himself 
 in the shape of a woman ? and shall I, a simple 
 Doctor of Laws, be considered unpardonable 
 because I have been vanquished by a female, 
 who, even according to the harshest interpre- 
 tation, is only a lineal descendant of the co- 
 adjutrix of the devil?"* Indeed giving him 
 
 * A reference to the Revelation, with the comments 
 of any of the old Protestant Controversialists, will explain 
 this allusion, if it need any explanation. 
 
 6
 
 168 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 .".T *' /i. . . ) >T. j.Q. 
 
 full credit for his sincerity, I feel some respect 
 for him, that he has not received any shock 
 in his opinions from the assault of so close an 
 enemy, for supposing, which I will most 
 readily, that the lady is one of the discreetest 
 of her sex, yet surely she may sometimes just 
 hint a little fragment of a dislike at his violent 
 opposition to her sect : such as, " My dearest 
 Doctor, how can you say such severe things 
 against our great grand-fathers and great 
 grand-mothers, who really never offended you 
 in any manner of way." The Doctor, how- 
 ever, is evidently impregnable, and is deter- 
 mined to abominate the Catholics of the 13th 
 and 14th centuries. And this brings one to 
 another part of the theory, where it is assumed 
 that the Doctor is a friend to the Catholics 
 because he constantly adduces such weak ar- 
 guments against them. His arguments, it 
 must be confessed, are not very strong ; and 
 his syllogisms might be unravelled by a boy. 
 He assumes that the Catholics are the vilest 
 and most perfidious wretches in the world : 
 he asserts, that it would be madness to allow 
 any equality between these worst of mankind 
 and the best of mankind the best of man- 
 kind, beyond all doubt, are the Protestants
 
 DUIGENAN AND GEN. MATHEW. 169 
 
 he concludes with a triumphant ergo, that 
 there can be no equal privileges between the 
 Catholics and Protestants. I cannot stop to 
 refute this jargon, but shall merely observe 
 that, when Dr. Duigenan speaks of Catholics, 
 he is so exceedingly cautious, as never to 
 descend nearer to the present times, than by 
 a century. Three or four centuries ago, they 
 were (he argues) the monsters of the earth : 
 lately, to be sure, they have been in many in- 
 stances no small lights and ornaments among 
 mankind ; but then this goodness is all pre- 
 tence, 'tis a mere blind to deceive the Pro- 
 testants into the concession of their claims : 
 then they will throw off the mask and revel 
 again in their iniquity. It seems hardly pos- 
 sible that the understanding of man should 
 admit such reasoning, and yet I firmly believe 
 that the Doctor conscientiously holds these 
 opinions. He does not seem to have appre- 
 hension and skill enough to build a good joke : 
 his mind is of a small compass, fitted with 
 only one species of knowledge, and disci- 
 plined in all the dull sophistry of old divines 
 and old jurists. A powerful intellect, if en- 
 tangled in such toils, must make no common 
 effort to break them ; but a small mind,
 
 170 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAIT^. 
 
 inured to twenty or thirty years of such 
 slavery, "has not the inclination, much less the 
 vigour, to snap a single thread of the net in 
 which it is a Happy prisoner. There is in the 
 whole artiot unpleasing consistency abb'ut his 
 tout ensemble: brief a"nd sturdy in his person, 
 limited and tenacious in his thinking, antique 
 in his manners and his opinions, he is at once 
 particular and uniform ; but with all his ec- 
 centricities, I never see him rise without plea- 
 sure, because I consider him as being, though 
 no doubt unconsciously, one of the b'eSt friends 
 whom the Catholics can boast. 
 
 I wish I could say the same 6f General 
 Mathew : fie shews indeed all the characteris- 
 tic fervour of his countrymen in favour of the 
 cause of the Catholics, but at the same time 
 evinces a blindness of blundering greater than 
 even foolish illiberally ever ascribed to his 
 nation. Why does he, with the experience 
 of two or three parliaments before him, per- 
 sist in thinking that the cause can be* gained 
 by violence, when he must' know that the vio- 
 lence of the 6ther party is as ten to one ? 
 Can he not see that most of the powerful 
 friends who have acceded to his side have 
 been won over by mildness and candour ? Let
 
 DR. DUICENAN AND OEK. MATHEW. l7l 
 
 him look to Mr* Grattau, a man whose soul 
 may reasonably be supposed to be engrossed 
 by a cause for. which he has fought so long, 
 and which is to connect his name with his 
 country, through the countless series of fu- 
 ture ages ? May he live to ensure his triumph ! 
 Does that Gentleman ever show any irritable 
 intemperance ? has he lost one incipient friend 
 by furions zeal? foas not the cause gained 
 fresh proselyte* every year from the influence 
 of that enlarged understanding, which- insi- 
 nuates and does not force its precepts, where 
 force would be at once nugatory and hateful? 
 General Mathew, to be sure, is a much 
 younger man, but he is much too old I should 
 think to choose to- have his mistakes palliated 
 on the score of youth. " He is a soldier and 
 not a statesman :" well then, let him thunder 
 at the head of his regiment ; but before h 
 goes, I must aek> him, whether even as a mi- 
 litary man he would attempt to take every 
 fortified place by a< coup d$ mam. If he shall 
 think himself more fitted to shine in the se- 
 nate than the field (and a very gallant Naval 
 Officer has shown how easy it is fora brave 
 but injudicious man to make such a mistake), 
 I must give him' one other- piece of advice ;
 
 172 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 and as he seems a very good-natured kind- 
 hearted man, I have some hope that he will 
 take it in good part. Like his friend Mr. 
 Christopher Hutchinson, of noisy and inde- 
 pendent memory, he seems very much dis- 
 posed to take every man for a fool or a rogue 
 who shall happen to differ from him in opi- 
 nion : if the man be a Minister, he must be 
 both. " No good can come from the Trea- 
 sury Bench/' seems with him an axiom, and 
 with the help of two or three more such as- 
 sumptions, which he takes as first principles, 
 he will in a trice build up a theoretic proposi- 
 tion, from which it shall incontrovertibly ap- 
 pear that nothing was ever so atrocious as the 
 present or any given Ministry. He must cor- 
 rect these errors of prejudice and impetuous 
 feeling, and then he will be no contemptible 
 aid to his party. When these rude excres- 
 cences are worn down, his tall strong person, 
 his powerful voice, and animated, though 
 rather violent gesture, will give no small ef- 
 fect to the out-pourings of a very honest 
 heart : for the House of Commons has still so 
 much of the good old English character left, 
 that it never fails to sympathize with the elo- 
 quent energy of unaffected passion.
 
 173 
 
 MR. ROBINSON AND MR. PEEL. 
 
 X HERE is always in the House of Com- 
 mons a large stock of young men with pro- 
 mising talents and tolerable industry, who are 
 kept up by successive Ministers, in order to 
 furnish the country with a perpetual supply 
 of Statesmen. The method of raising and 
 educating this useful class is exceedingly 
 simple. The Minister looks about among his 
 relations, friends, and adherents, for those 
 lads who have pride enough to wish to im- 
 prove their circumstances by regular exertion, 
 instead of wasting their small incomes in idle 
 
 (extravagance. Among these he selects such 
 as have some smartness and more gravity, 
 who are too conceited to be easily abashed, 
 but too prudent to neglect the means of 
 knowledge within their reach, who have just 
 so much power of language as suffices to ex- 
 plain the principles of a bill on sail-cloth or 
 tobacco, and who on extraordinary occasions 
 will compose and learn by rote an elaborate
 
 174 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 declamation, which may serve to open an im- 
 portant debate, as in war the skirmishing of 
 light troops precedes the conflict of the main 
 contending armies. The time for seizing these 
 youths and drilling them for the State's use is 
 when they have left the university about a 
 couple of years : if taken earlier, they become 
 restive and unmanageable, and seldom arrive 
 at any steady service ; for their heads are so 
 full of their academical honours, obtained for 
 writing pointless epigrams in imitation of 
 Martial and Sapphic odes in the Attic dialect, 
 that they look down- on all the rest of man- 
 kind as an eagle views the crows flying some 
 fathoms below its own elevation. A judicious- 
 Minister therefore waits till the youth is 
 sobered into a less opinion of himself, either 
 by an association with superior intellects, or 
 by a conviction forced upon his- experience, 
 that his sister, who can build anr acrostic 
 from the phrases and rhymes of Pope, is quite 
 as extraordinary a being as the collegian who 
 patches together a lyric ode from a- hundred 
 different bits stolen from the- treasures of 
 Horace. At this moment, with their minds 
 partially humiliated yet not abased, and j with 
 a newly-excited ambition springing* from
 
 MR. RBINSO^ AND MR. PEEL. 
 
 very discovery of their own boyish errors, 
 they are in the Attest possible state to submit 
 themselves to the drudgery of an Under- 
 Secretary's desJk, and to go through all the 
 tedious process which is to qualify them for 
 future places in the middle of the Treasury 
 Bench. Their business is neither very difficult 
 nor very dignified. They go to their offices 
 at a good early hour, read, write, talk, and 
 yawn till three o'clock ; then breathe the 
 air for a short time in the park, then walk, 
 down to the House with an especial care to 
 be there by four o'clock, that public business 
 may not be delayed for want of sufficiency 
 of Members, then move some of the ordinary 
 matters of the day, then (if necessary) answer 
 the objections of any Member who is of too 
 little importance for the Minister's personal 
 notice, and then (if no division is expected) 
 they may depart and visit as many dowagers, 
 and dance with as many cousins as they 
 please, remembering however with due cau- 
 tion, that they be punctually in their places 
 on the succeeding morning. These ar^e the 
 men who in due time become themselves 
 Ministers of State, and preside over the war, 
 the commerce, and the police of the country :
 
 176 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 I 
 
 from this class also are sometimes taken the 
 envoys and ambassadors, who, in addition to 
 the accomplishments before-mentioned, are 
 required to possess a competent knowledge 
 of French, a gentlemanly appearance, and 
 an invincible reserve. It is very useful that 
 this breed should be encouraged, that there 
 may be always a supply of hands capable of 
 managing the machinery of the state : as to 
 the great leading mind which should direct 
 the whole, this is not often to be found in 
 this technical school : though, to tel the 
 truth, I know not where else we may search 
 for it; Let us not however despair ; for this 
 happy country, among its many other in- 
 estimable advantages, has generally been so 
 lucky as to be blessed with a succession of 
 heaven-born ministers, who have been able 
 to do every thing by intuitive wisdom. 
 
 This general description must be under- 
 stood as applicable to the whole class, rather 
 than particularly to the two gentlemen whose 
 names are at the head of this article : the first 
 of whom, Mr. Robinson, is so exceedingly 
 above the ordinary mediocrity of his fellow- 
 apprentices in the art of government, that he 
 must be considered more as an exception than 
 1
 
 
 MR ROBINSON AND MR. PEEL. 177 
 
 a part of the system. I am not going to 
 claim for this gentleman the honours due only 
 to first-rate talents, but I am sure that there 
 are several persons who are admired in the 
 Commons as master-builders in state-science, 
 and whose voices guide whole flocks, who, 
 however, at the same time, have not half the 
 knowledge, half the good sense, or half the 
 taste of Mr. Robinson. He is the most pro- 
 mising and the least assuming of all the young 
 aspirants : he scarcely ever puts himself for- 
 ward, but whenever he speaks in confirmation 
 of the arguments or the statement of his 
 supftrior officers, it is impossible not to feel 
 some surprise that one who ought to be in the 
 principal ranks should still be confined to the 
 second. His narration and his reasoning 
 are remarkable for perspicuity and point, and 
 if, now and then, it falls to his lot to de- 
 claim on any of the more important topics 
 which occupy the attention of Parliament, 
 he never fails to interest the House by an un- 
 affected animation of style, which seeks no 
 aids from fustian or coxcomical antithesis. In- 
 deed, his distinguishing feature is a well-in- 
 structed good sense, by which, on all occa- 
 sions, he is enabled to accommodate his tone 
 
 N
 
 178 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 and diction to the importance of his subject 
 with the most pleasing nicety of proportion. 
 Unlike the rest of the young men, who always 
 assume the most dignified looks and the most 
 solemn tones, even when they bring up a report 
 of a committee, Mr. Robinson seems to have 
 no taste for mock-pomp. On a common sub- 
 ject his tone is conversational, though never 
 flippant : on a great subject, he can rise to the 
 proper height without laborious straining. 
 Lord Castlereagh showed his usual correct 
 judgment in selecting this gentleman as the 
 partner of his continental expedition; for here- 
 after, when the details of his labours shall be 
 laid before the House, he will have a most 
 able coadjutor in his young companion. His 
 Lordship has never been celebrated for the 
 distinctness of his narratives, and we may 
 reasonably suppose that his intercourse with 
 foreign diplomatists will not tend much to 
 simplify his style, either of thinking or speak- 
 ing j and here the help of Mr. Robinson will 
 be at once necessary and certain. He will 
 unravel the most intricate arrangements with 
 the utmost facility, and, by the force of a 
 diction at once clear and elegant, will impress 
 his ideas on others with the same vivid ac- 
 4
 
 MR. ROBINSON AND MR. PEEL. 179 
 
 curacy with which they appear to his own 
 mind. 
 
 Mr. Peel is by no means so agreeable or so 
 able a person. He has all the appearance of 
 a young man spoiled by excessive flattery. 
 He was enlisted too soon into the public ser- 
 vice, and had not passed those two years of 
 probation which I have ventured to think so 
 requisite for juvenile politicians. Hence he 
 has all the habits of a pert academic, who 
 thinks a smart joke (if it be his own) equiva- 
 lent to a weighty argument, and an apt quota- 
 tion a death-blow even to an undisputed fact. 
 He is unquestionably a youth of quick parts, 
 and can sharpen his sentences with a great 
 deal of that clever point, which is a common 
 and sure result of an intimate acquaintance 
 with the style of classic authors. But Mr. 
 Peel, thoughne is what is usually denominated 
 a scholar, shows very little knowledge of any 
 thing besides the style of the ancients ; for I 
 never heard from him any sentence imbued 
 either with the energetic thinking or the deep 
 feeling of those noble masters of all literature. 
 The House, which as I have often mentioned 
 is always kind and indulgent to the efforts of 
 beginners, must frequently have occasion to 
 N2
 
 ISO PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 regret its exceeding courtesy. It scarcely 
 exercised any severity when this Gentleman, 
 in the carelessness of young wit, presumed 
 to assault one of the most venerable cha- 
 racters of the age : the lenity shown on that 
 occasion (unless Mr. Peel has a strong cor- 
 rective good sense in reserve, which he has 
 not yet exhibited) may lead to even more 
 offensive specimens of an over-humoured pert- 
 ness. Let us hope better ; and that he will 
 either improve himself by a severe self-exami- 
 nation, or look out of himself for a respect- 
 able model : for such an exemplar he need go 
 no farther than Mr. Robinson.
 
 181 
 
 MR. ROSE. 
 
 JL HERE prevails among men of taste a 
 pretty strong objection against burlesques 
 and travesties of works of beauty, and yet 
 Nature herself affords some authority for this 
 species of humour. Who can see the im- 
 portant clumsiness of the goose, and not im- 
 mediately recognize a striking parody of 
 the easy majesty of the swan ? Who can 
 help observing that the rascal crow, when 
 he is insolently strutting along the corn-field, 
 means by his mock-dignity to imitate the 
 proud march of the peacock. The Scarrons 
 and the Cottons may justly appeal to this 
 natural phenomenon as an excuse for their 
 style of composition, and may even claim 
 credit for the justness of its principles. 
 There is, however, another class of burlesque- 
 imitators, who are not entitled to the same 
 consideration : they are dull, unconscious 
 humourists, who travesty all that is wise and 
 excellent, and fancy that they are merely
 
 182 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 copying to the life : dwarfish and deformed, 
 they put on the dress of the tall and graceful, 
 and expect to be equally admired : ignorant 
 and inapprehensive, they adopt the profound 
 sentences of experience and philosophy, and 
 hope to be venerated for their blundering 
 misapplications. Society is full of these 
 people : creatures who, having no basis of in- 
 dividual character, are made up of append- 
 ages, borrowed from a hundred quarters ; one 
 man, for instance, is composed of Lord A/s 
 wig, of Lord B.'s frown, of Lord C/s ut- 
 terance, of Mr. D.*s shrewd looks, and of Mr. 
 E.'s freezing gravity. Another solemn cox- 
 comb will mouth out a torrent of unintelli- 
 gible verbiage, and call it an imitation of Mr. 
 Pitt. Another pertling stammers out some 
 rude, incoherent, abrupt observations, and 
 believes that he is representing the simple 
 energy of Mr. Fox. Sometimes a forward 
 youth pours out a dull malignity, and hopes 
 to obtain that praise which is due only to the 
 graceful sarcasm of Mr. Sheridan. It would 
 be gross injustice to Mr. Rose, to confound 
 him with these persons who condescend to 
 borrow all their features from their contem- 
 poraries: he has made a more ambitious
 
 MR. ROSE. 18S 
 
 choice, and has gone into the remotest ages 
 of antiquity for the model by which he forms 
 himself. The smooth prattle, the never- 
 varying egotism, and the important air of an 
 ever-ready memory, which are such promi- 
 nent traits in the character of old Nestor, are 
 all parodied in the person of Mr. Rose, with 
 an accuracy which at once exhibits the acute- 
 ness and facility of his faculties. Like Nes- 
 tor, he is always in his place : like Nestor, 
 he is always talking; and, like Nestor, he 
 is never listened to. Like Nestor, he is very 
 religious, and appeals to Heaven for the truth 
 of most of his assertions ; though in this case, 
 besides the piety, there seems a perfect pro- 
 priety in point of taste ; for as he is perpetu- 
 ally referring to times before the present race 
 of Ministers and great men were born, he is 
 of course detailing facts and circumstances, 
 the truth of which, according to vulgar phra- 
 seology, Heaven only knows. Indeed, even 
 in instances which have happened within 
 the recollection of present politicians, he 
 sometimes manifests considerable inaccuracy, 
 a defect which will immediately and most 
 justly be ascribed to the vast heaps of ma- 
 terials which are stored up in his mind. He
 
 184 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 has passed, I believe, the greater half of a 
 long life in office, and in the minute details of 
 it : no wonder then that the multiplicity of 
 his occupations has left him no time for ar- 
 ranging his facts, and depositing them in 
 those different snug little cabinets of the 
 brain, which have been discovered by the 
 ingenuity of metaphysicians. It is to be la- 
 mented that his want of leisure to perform 
 this useful office should have been pro- 
 ductive of some inconvenience. It has put 
 him into the situation of a traveller who has 
 visited all the places of the habitable globe ; 
 yet having forgot or not having oppor- 
 tunity to keep a journal, he afterwards in 
 his narrations confounds Otaheite with the 
 Great Desert, or the capital of Turkey with 
 the capital of England. Thus it happens 
 that this Gentleman, though of the highest 
 respectability, of acknowledged industry and 
 enlarged experience, scarcely gains as much 
 attention as the showy youngster, who 
 without ever sitting at an Under-Secretary's 
 desk, ventures to prate about the details of 
 public affairs. Even the Ministers support 
 .his observations with a coldness which is 
 strangely ungrateful to so old and useful a
 
 MR. ROSE. 185 
 
 servant: in one instance* Lord Castlereagh, 
 though the pink of courtesy, absolutely con- 
 tradicted his colleague : and if one may 
 judge by appearances, Mr. Rose is not even 
 now on confidential terms with those who sit 
 on the same bench with him. It cannot be 
 matter of surprise that this faithful servant 
 should feel himself much hurt by such indif- 
 ferent treatment: indeed, many years ago, 
 he complained that Mr. Pitt did not notice 
 him half so much as his fellow-secretary Mr. 
 Steele, a person who does not seem to have 
 been a very eligible friend for a Minister ; for, 
 besides his want of industry and talent, it 
 appears that his notions of property were so 
 confused that he mistook some hundred 
 thousand pounds of the public money for his 
 own. People will naturally ask, why is he 
 treated with so little consideration ? Are his 
 manners repulsive : Not at all ; quite the 
 contrary : you never saw a milder old Gen- 
 tleman ; like his prototype Nestor, he speaks 
 words sweet as honey, except indeed on those 
 occasions which inevitably rouse an honest 
 man's anger, when he suspects any imputa- 
 
 * In a debate last year on the Catholic Question. 
 
 6
 
 186 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 tion on his conduct. I apprehend indeed 
 that, conscious of his very superior informa- 
 tion, having outlived two or three generations 
 of Ministers, he is apt to proclaim his know- 
 ledge in a tone which inferiority cannot 
 brook : besides this, having made no doubt a 
 very correct estimate of his own important 
 services, and having that just admiration of 
 the golden rule of three, which is so excusa- 
 ble in a man who has passed all his life in cal- 
 culation, he perhaps is importunate to receive 
 that proper compensation which may appear 
 immense to those who are not aware of the 
 multiplying power of common figures. I 
 must however allow that this is mere con- 
 jecture, and that I cannot support it by a 
 single fact. I appeal, however, with confi- 
 dence to philosophers, whether it be not a 
 just inference from the usual principles of our 
 nature. 
 
 The House in general do not seem to like 
 Mr. Rose much better than he is liked by his 
 colleagues but there is an evident reason for 
 it: he represses the warmth of juvenile de- 
 clamation by quoting a speech or precedent 
 of old time, or stifles in its birth the darling 
 scheme of some ardent projector, by protest-
 
 MR. ROSE. 187 
 
 ing that it is contrary to the practice of 
 twenty sessions. All this too he does with 
 that mild dictation and smiling undertoned 
 manner, which, though it bears to the 
 ignorant the mark of perfect amiability, is to 
 the quick-sighted the most insolent assump- 
 tion of superiority. 
 
 Mr. Rose, however, may console himself 
 for the neglect of Ministers and the indif- 
 ference of Parliament, with the proud con- 
 sciotisness of his superior knowledge, which 
 it is to be hoped he will publish for the good 
 of posterity. Such a book would be an ex- 
 cellent companion for Dodington's Diary, 
 with this exception, that one is the journal 
 of a contemptible courtier, and the other 
 will be the recollection of an honest Servant 
 of the public, for so Mr. Rose thinks himself, 
 and on, no doubt, the most logical grounds. 
 Mr. I^ose may also console himself, if not 
 with a peerage which he is said to wish, yet 
 with the reflection that he is one of the 
 richest commoners of the land, and that his 
 wealth has been the accumulation of the de- 
 served wages of office, increased by that very 
 rigid oeconomy which is so salutary an ex-
 
 188 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 ample in high life, and which is particularly 
 desirable in a man who is appointed to pre- 
 side over a large portion of the treasury of 
 the country. 

 
 189 
 
 MR. YORKE AND MR. STEPHEN. 
 
 JVlANY readers perhaps may ask with sur- 
 prise, why I associate two Gentlemen be- 
 tween whom there appears to be no sort of 
 political connexion, and who are by no means 
 conspicuous for similarity of opinion. It is 
 because, independently of their sentiments 
 on public matters, I imagine that I perceive 
 in them some striking coincidences, both in 
 their excellences and defects. There is about 
 each of them a sincerity of manner, which is 
 equally heedless of committing itself, or of 
 offending a third person ; a tone of decision 
 which shows that the mind is compactly 
 made up on the given subject ; and an air of 
 dogmatical defiance, which holds all contrary 
 notions as mere idle words. All this too is 
 accompanied with an exceeding warmth, 
 which frequently defeats the best purposes 
 by affording the adversaries an opportunity 
 for ridicule, or by provoking them into a 
 temper which will not be convinced. In
 
 190 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 these general traits they appear to me to re- 
 semble each other : each of them, however, 
 is distinguished by marked individual features. 
 With respect to Mr. Yorke, I believe it would 
 be np exaggeration to call him one of the 
 very best-intentioned men in the House : he 
 so evidently wishes to be right, and his feel- 
 ings are so just, that one cannot help lament- 
 ing the niggardliness of nature which has left 
 so promising a composition incomplete by 
 withholding the higher qualities of intellect. 
 Bonum virum facile diverts, magnum libenter. 
 His understanding is sound and manly, and 
 well instructed ; but it has not the grasp nor 
 the pliability requisite to comprehend the 
 whole of a subject. What he sees he sees 
 with the utmost clearness, but he sees only 
 a little way. Like the artist spoken of by 
 Horace, he can make a hand, a foot, or an 
 eye, with the utmost accuracy : but he can- 
 not compose a whole body, with all its in- 
 finite and harmonizing varieties. It may be 
 thought unfair to compare this Gentleman 
 with the highest standards of human excel- 
 lence, especially as he has never manifested 
 any inordinate pretensions. Perhaps it would 
 |t>e more just to take him as he is, and npt to
 
 MR. YORKE AND MR. STEPHEN. 191 
 
 descant on what he might be: yet when a 
 person possesses that very high claim to our 
 esteem, perfect integrity, it is difficult not to 
 wish that he had been endowed with those 
 grand intellectual attributes which make 
 virtue not only more admired but more use- 
 ful. Indeed, where there is not an unison of 
 high moral and mental excellence, we can 
 never rely on the consistency even of the 
 purest heart. Unprincipled philosophy has 
 shed torrents of blood j unenlightened be- 
 nevolence has condemned even innocence to 
 the flames. In matters of smaller moment 
 there will be, without this union, an incon. 
 gruity of conduct amounting almost to ab- 
 surdity. For instance, from what other cause 
 can it arise that Mr. Yorke, though a sincere 
 lover of the Constitution, and ready, I have 
 no doubt, to make larger sacrifices for it than 
 many a reputed patriot, has on one or two 
 occasions set his face against some of the best 
 privileges of Englishmen ! He thought he 
 was acting right, no doubt : but could he 
 have thought so, had his mind been as en- 
 larged and liberal as his heart is pure. Mr. 
 Yorke is in the main a very candid man, and, 
 pne may venture to assert, is as incapable of
 
 192 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 political as he is of private animosity : yet 
 why has he more than once branded as 
 Jacobinical and pernicious, sentiments which 
 have been avowed by the best of men ? He 
 was alarmed, and cried out, because he be- 
 lieved there was danger : but could a man of 
 comprehensive mind have been scared with- 
 out a cause ? 
 
 As to his mere manner of delivery Mr. 
 Yorke is fluent and impressive, and could 
 he contrive to subdue his irritability there is 
 no man who would be heard with greater 
 pleasure. 
 
 Mr. Stephen is superior to Mr. Yorke in 
 point of intellect, and I believe not inferior 
 in point of honesty. Many persons who 
 think it impossible that the man who votes 
 with Ministers can be honest, will be startled 
 at the high opinion which is given of this 
 Gentleman : but I cannot consent to their 
 criterion of character. I can conceive it to 
 be quite as possible that an honest man shall 
 approve every part of a system supported by 
 men whom he respects, as that he should em- 
 brace every crude notion of some indepen- 
 dent Chief, who has no system, and no con- 
 nected principles of action. It is for this
 
 MR. YORKE AND MR. STEPHEN. 193 
 
 reason, that never having heard Mr. Stephen 
 express any opinion unworthy of a good or 
 sensible man, I can without hesitation pro- 
 nounce him upright, though he now and then 
 exhibits a little foolish pedantry, and is very 
 ready to make a speech in favour of the Ad- 
 ministration. He is certainly an able man, 
 and had he been disciplined in early life to 
 the practice of Parliamentary disputation, 
 would have been one of the best debaters in 
 the House. As it is, he is too pompous and 
 too hot) two errors which are very destructive 
 to the effect even of the best speeches, and 
 which, at his age, cannot be reasonably ex- 
 pected to be cured. He seems never to for- 
 get that he is a Master in Chancery a most 
 respectable situation certainly, but hardly 
 sufficient to warrant any assumption of supe- 
 riority over men who have been Secretaries 
 of State and Chancellors. His manner is as 
 solemn as that of a Judge passing sentence, 
 and is calculated to stagger those who have 
 heard the definition that man is a laughing 
 animal. It is true, that the business of Par- 
 liament is grave and important, and that 
 mirth is excessively out of place within its 
 walls. But grace is not levity, nor ease jo- 
 
 o
 
 194 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS, 
 
 cularity : and Mr. Stephen, by observing his 
 friend Mr. Wilberforce, may learn that the 
 most awful doctrines may be uttered with a 
 winning beauty of manner which shall charm 
 as much as it impresses, and throws round 
 truth a loveliness which endears as much as 
 her dignity commands. The defect, how- 
 ever, to which I here allude, is one so trifling 
 in its moral importance, that it would not be 
 worthy of mention, unless it detracted con- 
 siderably from the weight of those estimable 
 talents which Mr. Stephen possesses, and put 
 into the inferior class one who deserves to 
 rank, if not with the first, yet at the head of 
 the second.
 
 195 uj>l 
 SIR JOHN NEWPORT AND SIR H. PARNELL. 
 
 JL HE Irish nation may be divided in two 
 classes, which are as distinctly characterized 
 as any two separate and distant nations : the 
 one is fiery, quick in apprehension, unthink- 
 ing, careless of wealth, careless of life, care- 
 less of every thing but honour, good by in- 
 stinct rather than principle, magnanimous 
 without effort and almost without object : the 
 other is cool, calculating, systematic, virtuous 
 by the rule of utility, and brave without wast- 
 ing one atom of unnecessary energy. It is 
 hardly possible that two races so essentially 
 dhTerent should have sprung from the same 
 parent stock : accordingly, we may fairly rank 
 the former among the Aborigines of the land, 
 and the latter may be supposed to be descend- 
 ed from those Puritan adventurers of Scot- 
 land, Wales, and England, who were left by 
 Cromwell to civilize the country which he had 
 conquered ; and who, after the improved plan 
 of civilizing colonists, confined most of the 
 o 2
 
 196 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 benefits of their skill and knowledge to them- 
 selves. It would be over-nice to pretend 
 that this line of discrimination is invariably 
 observable : the parties here and there may 
 have amalgamated by the effect of long inter- 
 course, by intermarriage, by insensible imi- 
 tation ; but though the new-comers do fre- 
 quently bear strong marks of resemblance 
 with the original Irish, yet it is seldom that 
 you find any one with the genuine Irish name, 
 that has adopted in the smallest degree those 
 habits of calculation and system which belong 
 to the descendants of their old invaders. How 
 far it is politic that the laws of the country 
 should be employed to preserve those distinc- 
 tions which the operation of natural causes 
 might entirely wear away, and how far the 
 removal of the Catholic disabilities might 
 alone tend towards creating an affinity be- 
 tween the discordant qualities, are questions 
 which are too important to be discussed in a 
 short preface, but which are well worthy the 
 attention of those legislators and others who 
 love Ireland, either for its sake or their own. 
 
 The two Gentlemen, whose names are at 
 the head of this article, though I should sup- 
 pose that neither of them is of the real
 
 SIR J. NEWPORT AND SIR H. PARNELL. 197 
 
 Irish breed, yet may fairly be selected as spe- 
 cimens of the different classes of character in 
 their most respectable degree. Sir John New- 
 port is a man of regular statesmanly education, 
 and has known the labour and routine of of- 
 fice, yet he is as hasty and fiery as a boy : 
 though it must be allowed that his anger is 
 roused far oftener by what* he considers the 
 invasion of right principle, than by any per- 
 sonal attack on himself. Again, he is a man 
 of unquestionable talent, and can talk with 
 as much fluent and animated propriety as 
 any man on the great maxims of justice and 
 humanity ; yet of all the distinguished men 
 in the House, perhaps he is the one most re- 
 markable for not reasoning in his speeches. 
 I do not say that his results are not as correct 
 as if they were all built on the compactest 
 syllogisms ; but it is a whimsical peculiarity 
 that he should have such an utter disdain of the 
 ratiocinating process, as never to favour us 
 with one argument, or one link in the chain 
 of demonstration. I recollect that in our 
 themes at school theboyswere never allowed to 
 assert even that Virtue was excellent, without 
 assigning some cause, and it frequently cost 
 no little rubbing of the head, and biting the
 
 198 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 nail to render a reason. Now, though I believe 
 no one looks back ,to the days of his school- 
 labour with much pleasure, yet I have so much 
 respect for this custom, that I could wish 
 Sir J. Newport would condescend to adopt it. 
 He makes a broad and sweeping assertion : 
 perfectly justifiable I allow : well, his auditors 
 who have been, at least three-fourths of them, 
 bred up in the way I have described, begin to 
 stretch their ears in expectation of a reason. 
 To satisfy this laudable orexis, what does Sir 
 John Newport ? He pours out another asser- 
 tion equally true, but twice as broad and twice 
 as sweeping as the other. If every mind were 
 as well instructed on the subject as his own, 
 this plan of discoursing would not much sig- 
 nify: but, perhaps, nine out of ten of his au- 
 ditors have never turned their attention to 
 the subject before that moment, and they 
 cannot find their way, except by the slow gra- 
 dations of reasoning. For instance, the pro- 
 positions of Euclid are true, and in a company 
 of mathematicians it would not be necessary 
 to demonstrate their truth : yet these same 
 truths to a less learned assembly would ap- 
 pear sometimes not intelligible, sometime* 
 startling, and not unfrequently false and im-
 
 SIR J. NEWPORT AND SIR H. PARNELL. 199 
 
 possible. I may have said more than is neces- 
 sary on this point : perhaps I am mistaken : 
 but it always struck me as a peculiar feature 
 in the speeches of Sir John Newport, that 
 they were full of assertion rather than argu- 
 ment : that while they were plentifully stuffed 
 with first principles (excellent matter cer- 
 tainly) they had little of reasoning and as little 
 of applicability. 
 
 Sir H. Parnell is a very different sort of 
 speaker : he is more anxious to show the pro- 
 cess of his argumentation than the result : he 
 would scorn to say that 9 divided by 3 gives 
 3, unless he worked out the sum, and proved 
 it to every body's satisfaction. His mind 
 seems slow, and takes many steps before it. 
 reaches a conclusion : it is therefore as te- 
 dious as it is satisfactory to follow him through 
 his elaborate detail. The effect of this was, that 
 some years ago, when he used to speak for two 
 hours on the Catholic Question, his audience 
 was usually exceedingly thin, and at the same 
 time very impatient. At that period it was 
 impossible not to admire his cool perseverance 
 in uttering what nobody seemed inclined to 
 hear. Things, however, are changed, and he 
 is now an important personage, and is
 
 200 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. AlK 
 
 heard with attention during any length he 
 pleases. He is ready enough to avail himself 
 of his new opportunity, nnd rather assumes 
 the appearance of a prominent statesman. 
 What he says does not convey any idea that 
 he has much depth of understanding, or 
 much extent of information. He seems as 
 unable to advance without the aid of Adam 
 Smith, as the old Oxford Tutors used to be 
 without their Aristotelian staff. I do not wish 
 to make any allusions to the Corn Laws, be- 
 cause the subject is too important to be hud- 
 dled up in the corner of an article ; but it ap- 
 pears to me that he has through the business 
 put on an air of legislative wisdom, which is 
 hardly warranted by the most extensive know- 
 ledge of arithmetic, or by the best applied 
 quotations from the Wealth of Nations. I 
 would not, however, consent to impute any 
 thing but conceit on this occasion. It would 
 be a gross and wicked calumny to ascribe any 
 interested motive to a man who has, on many 
 and important occasions, shown himself not 
 more the friend of Ireland, than the ready 
 and firm advocate of the cause of justice, hu- 
 manity, and upright principle, whoever were 
 the parties interested in the issue. The pe-
 
 SIR J. NEWPORT AIH) SIR H. PARNELL. 201 
 
 culiarities of such a man may excite a smile ; 
 should they become troublesome, they may 
 even provoke reprehension ; but no temporary 
 feeling of distaste must be allowed to shut our 
 eyes to the merits of one, whose public 
 conduct has ever been steady, temperate, up- 
 right, and as far as I can judge, unmixed 
 with any motive unworthy of a patriotic Gen- 
 tleman. 

 
 202 
 
 SIR FRANCIS BURDETT. 
 
 IT will perhaps be expected that in discuss- 
 ing the character of Sir Francis Burdett a 
 great deal will be said about Parliamentary 
 Reform. There certainly is an obvious con- 
 nexion between the two subjects, but as it 
 would be impossible to crowd into the space 
 allotted one half of the reflections which 
 occur to one on that important question of 
 Reform, 1 shall decline it altogether. It is 
 one which, of all others, requires the most 
 investigation and deliberation, and on which 
 it is mischievous to give merely the results of 
 opinions, instead of disclosing all the steps 
 by which the inference is obtained, and the 
 best possible means of applying it. To ring 
 in the ears of a nation that its Constitution is 
 miserably diseased, without at the same time 
 proposing a certain remedy, can only tend to 
 excite discontent and tumult ; nor can I bring 
 myself to think that those who undertake 
 to cure all the evils of the state by a specific 
 1
 
 SIR FRANCIS BURDETT. 203 
 
 whose virtues are untried, and at least pro- 
 blematical, are a bit more respectable than 
 the Empiric who boats of hfs universal Pana- 
 cea. I impute no improper motives to any 
 advocate for Reform, but I think that every 
 one is bound to show that his proposed medi- 
 cine must do good : it is not sufficient that it 
 may in a case of such risk. The sacred body 
 of a nation's laws and usages must not be 
 made a subject for experiments. This ob- 
 servation does not apply to those who wish 
 only to remove some of the corrupted ex- 
 crescences of the Constitution : their opera- 
 tions are perfectly safe : but it is incumbent 
 on them, too, not to affect a more important 
 tone than the occasion requires. They ought 
 not, when they are simply abolishing some 
 nominal absurdities, to assume the airs of men 
 who are working a radical cure. But I will 
 not pursue this subject, nor apply it, but shall 
 hasten to a less difficult part of my task, and 
 on which I suppose there cannot be much 
 controversy. 
 
 It is somewhat surprising, that under a 
 Government where the people have so much 
 influence as in this country, so few persons 
 have thought it worth while to apply them-
 
 204 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 selves strenuously to form their opinions and 
 guide their passions: the people is an engine 
 of such immense power, and so easy wielded, 
 that it seems to be too tempting to escape any 
 aspirant after distinction in the State. Yet 
 there is scarcely one such man to be found in 
 our history. The Members, who at the end 
 of James's reign, and at the beginning of 
 Charles's, carried on such a furious opposi- 
 tion to the Court, were certainly demagogues, 
 inasmuch as they in a great measure led the 
 public mind ; but upon the whole they must 
 be considered as men violently in earnest 
 about the objects which they were pursuing, 
 and whose favour with the people was rather 
 the necessary result of their conduct, than 
 their direct aim through the use of any popu- 
 lar arts. In a subsequent reign Shaftesbury 
 thought proper to manage the many-headed 
 monster for a short time, just by way of an- 
 noying the King : but he was too proud or 
 too careless to pay that constant attention 
 which is requisite for a constant popularity. 
 The man who perhaps has made the deepest 
 impression on the multitude was Wilkes : his 
 exertions however were merely the convul- 
 sions of a short-lived paroxysm of rage : and 
 
 2
 
 SIR FRANCIS BURDETT. 205 
 
 when his anger subsided, all anxiety about 
 interesting the people subsided with it. It 
 was not till within these few years that gentle- 
 men of consideration seem to have solely em- 
 ployed themselves in the business of acquir- 
 ing popularity, without any view to party 
 purposes, without any intention of gratifying 
 private resentments, but actuated simply, as 
 it appears, by the desire of the undowered 
 love of the many, expressed by their clap, 
 pings and their huzzas. The most conspicu- 
 ous of the persons who have proposed to 
 themselves such an object of ambition is un- 
 doubtedly Sir R Burdett : and it must be 
 allowed, that, in some respects, he has taken 
 no wrong measure of himself, in supposing 
 that his powers were fitted to his desires. In 
 the first place, the Hon. Baronet is one of 
 those whose very appearance wins a hundred 
 hearts before he opens his lips: an elegant 
 figure ; a face, of which the outline is finely 
 Roman, though the expression is rather weak 
 and indecisive ; manners, at once courteous 
 and simple, would be alone sufficient to de- 
 light the common observer ; add to these, a 
 voice of the most insinuating melody ; a de- 
 livery fluent and animated, yet always modest,
 
 206 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 and sometimes even diffident ; and they alto- 
 gether form a combination which interests and 
 attaches every heart. Let the man so qualified 
 profess himself the friend of his admirers, and 
 descant on the topics dearest to their feelings, 
 and their regard will almost rise into enthu- 
 siastic idolatry. Such is the first impression 
 made on the auditors of Sir Francis Burdett ; 
 but he is ill calculated to keep the affection 
 which he can so easily raise. Enthusiasm is 
 of an evanescent nature, and though the 
 people seldom withdraw their regard without 
 just cause, yet their love, like that of an in- 
 dividual, must be fed and supported by per- 
 petual fuel. This the subject of this article 
 is not able to supply : he has neither the 
 energy nor the talent sufficient for constant 
 exertion. He is even indolent both in his 
 body and in his intellect : he has the appear- 
 ance of a man who reads more than he thinks, 
 as well in the matter of his speeches as : in the 
 manner of uttering triem. Mixed up with 
 the polish of the gentleman there is much of 
 the bashfulness of the recluse student, and 
 even his politeness is not the easy urbanity of 
 a man of the world, but what is better, the 
 emanation of a kind heart. It may excite
 
 SIR ERANCIS BURDETT. 207 
 
 some surprise that a person, who, notwith- 
 standing his primd facie qualifications, must 
 have been conscious of these serious draw- 
 backs to success in a laborious pursuit, should 
 have chosen such a path, or not have left it 
 when he saw it crowded with obstructions. 
 To this, as to most of the inconsistencies of 
 human conduct, there is one solution : it is 
 the fantastic work of vanity, that feeling 
 which is implanted in us to check the proud 
 aspirings of human dignity by its unconscious 
 fondness for incongruity. It can throw an 
 air of burlesque on the noblest actions, and 
 by its blunders, excite a laugh even at 
 the expense of the good and the wise. Am- 
 bition is presumptuous and love is blind : but 
 vanity is 'bolder than the rash hopes of a 
 youthful soldier : is blinder than the doatings 
 of an old man's affection. This merry mis- 
 chievous influence, which possesses us all in 
 different degrees, has taken a sovereign hold 
 of Sir F. Burdett. It is this which makes 
 him think that he is secure of that popularity 
 which he has once excited, even though he 
 should remain silent on all the questions 
 where his admirers most look to him for the 
 sanction of his opinion. Like a careless 
 husband, he imagines that he may lounge
 
 208 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 and enjoy his repose, and never make another 
 effort to confirm his conquest : and thinks 
 a kind glance, or word now and then, direct- 
 ed to the being who dotes on him, amply 
 sufficient to satisfy the cravings of affection, 
 which is the more insatiable the more it is 
 sincere. The husband is frequently only 
 roused from his delusion, by finding that love 
 has sunk irretrievably into the coldest indiffer- 
 ence ; and Sir F. Burdett, whose inactivity 
 and reluctance to present himself seem daily 
 increasing, may some day be waked from his 
 trance by the surprise at hearing, that the 
 people have almost forgot his name and exist- 
 ence. I do not think that day is very distant. 
 I know he offers a kind of excuse for his re- 
 laxed exertion : he pretends to take no in- 
 terest in the debates of a degraded House of 
 Commons, and thinks it scorn to lift up his 
 voice in that polluted chamber. This is worse 
 than vanity ; it is an affectation which must 
 proceed either from a disgraceful ignorance 
 or from a violent over-rating of his own cha- 
 racter. He knows little if he does not know 
 that the speech of a favourite Member has as 
 much influence on the popular mind as the 
 largest Ministerial majority; but it is some- 
 what worse than ignorance, if, feeling this,
 
 SIR FRANCIS BURDETT. 209 
 
 he from a pretended disdain will omit to lift 
 up a voice which is not without its influence, 
 even within the walls of the House as well as 
 without it. He disdains to sit or speak in 
 the House of Commons ! Does he ^o ? Is it 
 a disgrace to be the companion of such men 
 as Brand, and Romilly, and Whitbread, none 
 of whom have ever expressed any unwilling- 
 ness to belong to the British Parliament ? If 
 such be his real opinion, he is indeed unfit to 
 sit on the same benches with those excellent 
 persons, and should be condemned for ever 
 to preside at Taverns and declaim at Hustings. 
 Let us however hope better of a man who 
 has many good and many pleasing qualities, 
 whose intentions seem honest, and who is yet 
 young enough to establish, by wise and dis- 
 creet conduct, that reputation which he has 
 justly gained by his honourable feelings in the 
 cause of humanity. Indeed as to myself, I 
 love the man so well, that the very anger 
 which may seem to tinge some of these re- 
 marks springs from the irritation of disap- 
 pointed hope, at seeing a favourite object 
 either careless about his character, or marring 
 k by inexcusable affectations.
 
 210 
 
 MR. HUSKISSON AND MR. HORNER. 
 
 IF any man, or set of men, wish to form a 
 distinct party in the House of Commons, the 
 first care, as might be expected, is to look 
 about and collect all the various sorts of 
 talents and acquirements which are necessary 
 for a complete political establishment. It 
 must be able to meet and annoy the Ministry 
 at all possible points of controversy, and, if 
 occasion should offer, to fill its place. As in 
 war one army would make but little stand 
 against another, unless it were equally 
 equipped with infantry, artillery, and cavalry, 
 so in these wordy contests there would be but 
 small chance of success for an opposition, 
 unless declaimer were arrayed against de- 
 claimer, financier against financier, and the 
 man of detail against the man of detail. De- 
 clamation must be answered by declamation, 
 because there is a large assortment of unthink- 
 ing young men and good-natured old men in 
 the House, on whom fine.-worded common-
 
 MR. HUSKISSON AND MR. HORNER. 211 
 
 places make an immense impression : and out 
 of doors, with the credulous public, a well- 
 sounding sentiment will be taken in earnest, 
 or as an equivalent of, a hundred actions. The 
 political economist must be met by a man of 
 corresponding science, because there are 
 many sturdy heads on whom rhetoric produces 
 no more effect then lightning on the impas- 
 sive ice : they must have argument and re- 
 gular deduction : they receive a splendid 
 speech with the kind of feeling by which one 
 may suppose a certain eminent astronomer was 
 influenced, when he said, that Thomson's 
 Poems proved nothing. Again, there are like- 
 wise many men of business, " forsooth great 
 arithmeticians ;" and woe to the man who 
 before them should make a slip in discussing 
 a question of detail : had he the fine sense of 
 Fox and the wit of Sheridan, he would by 
 them be immediately considered as an unpro- 
 ducible driveller : and their contempt would 
 be as strong as Pope's tailor perhaps felt for 
 Pope * when he saw that the poet could not 
 cast up the items of his bill for clothes. It 
 is pleasant to observe the manner of a detail- 
 
 i* Pope was entirely ignorant of arithmetic. 
 P 2
 
 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 minister, when some young or indiscreet op- 
 ponent has ventured beyond his depth. He 
 only half suppresses a laugh of surprise, rises 
 with an air of careless superiority, draws in 
 his breath and throws it out again in the style 
 of a man who has heard some remark tremend- 
 ously absurd, rubs his hands, and elevates his 
 eye-brows : after this silent but very intel- 
 ligible preface, he proceeds, in a tone of the 
 most complacent affability, to express his 
 astonishment at the monstrous error into 
 which the Hon. Gentleman, no doubt from 
 inadvertence, has fallen ; he then triumphantly* 
 but mildly, enters into a long numerical state- 
 ment where it might puzzle even the 
 American boy to follow him ; and lastly, gives 
 his objector the coup de g?*ace, by insolently 
 regretting that a gentleman of such eminent 
 talents has apparently paid so little attention 
 to this most important subject. From all this 
 it follows that every party must take care to be 
 complete in all their branches, before it can 
 hope to beat or succeed to its rivals in place. 
 At present in the House of Commons there 
 seem to be two parties in regular opposition, 
 to say nothing of the different companies of 
 guerillas, who fight chiefly for the pleasure of
 
 MR. HUSKISSON AND MR. HORMER. -21.3 
 
 fighting, without any fixed object. Mr. 
 Canning is at the head of one, Mr. Ponsonby 
 of the other : I say nothing here of Mr. 
 Whitbread, because I do not choose to intro- 
 duce him on so trifling an occasion : he stands 
 alone, and must hereafter be considered by 
 himself. Each of these parties is tolerably 
 furnished with the requisite means of annoy- 
 ance and defence, and can go to battle with- 
 out the fear of being utterly routed. There 
 is not room for me to give a description of 
 -each particular kind of force of these two 
 divisions : it will be sufficient now to allude 
 to the persons who command the economical 
 department of the respective corps. 
 
 Mr. Huskisson is the Canning-financier, 
 and in some respects may be said to have the 
 advantage even of the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer : for though neither his knowledge 
 nor experience are equally extensive, yet he 
 can give a better and more effective account 
 of what he knows and remembers. There is 
 such order and perspicuity in his statements 
 and his reasonings, that persons who are 
 utterly ignorant of the subject conceive that 
 they understand it while he is speaking, and 
 believe themselves convinced when they have
 
 214 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 been only pleased. The pleasure which his 
 speeches give is not indeed of the higher 
 order ; it is the sort of satisfaction which is 
 felt at seeing an intricate knot cleverly un- 
 tied, a puzzling theory perfectly developed. 
 Those who can relish a neatly-demonstrated 
 problem of Newton, or a well-argued page 
 of Hobbes, would also feel much delight, 
 though certainly inferior, at hearing the narra- 
 tions and arguments of Mr. Huskisson. He 
 is also of a liberal school, and shows as few 
 prejudices and obstinacies as can well be ex- 
 pected from a man devoted to a particular 
 science. He is the clearest-headed man in 
 the House after Mr. Tierney. 
 
 Mr. Horner is the political economist of 
 the Whig-party, though he deals rather in the 
 principles than in the detail of the subject. 
 He is a young man of very considerable 
 talent, and his education appears to have 
 been on a much larger scale than that of Mr. 
 Huskisson. He is not so clear as that Gen- 
 tleman, but he can adorn the subject with a 
 jgreater variety of illustration, and can even 
 be eloquent where eloquence seems so little 
 possible. Perhaps there is no man in -the 
 House who has equal general knowledge, to*
 
 MR. HUSKISSON AND MR. HORNER. 215 
 
 gether with equal power of expressing that 
 knowledge. If his manner were at all equal 
 to his matter, he would soon be a very con- 
 siderable person ; but his diction is delivered 
 in a style unanimated and uninteresting. His 
 appearance is rather heavy, and his tones are 
 dull and unvaried, except now and then by a 
 plaintive arrogance of voice, which at once 
 tires and offends. It is to be lamented 
 that he will not take pains to please as well 
 as instruct : for he has great advantages, 
 which might be easily improved to any ex- 
 tent. He has with all parties a very high 
 character for talent, discretion, and integrity, 
 and is very much and generally respected 
 throughout the House. Could he add to 
 these important aids the power of pleasing, 
 he might look to much higher objects than 
 he can now reasonably aspire to. A very 
 little effort would suffice : a little more brisk- 
 ness of manner, a little more good humour 
 in his tones, a little less gloom in his looks, 
 would fully answer the purpose. Respect is 
 a powerful engine to raise a man, but the 
 kindness of friends is more powerful : and 
 surely that man must be very arrogant or 
 very indolent, who, when both means are in
 
 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 his reach, will disregard one of them from 
 the presumption that he can succeed with- 
 out those efforts which have been necessary 
 even for the promotion of the best and ablest 
 men.
 
 217 
 
 THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF 
 COMMONS. 
 
 WHOEVER may be the Speaker of the 
 House of Commons, he must necessarily be- 
 come in a short time as artificial a being as a 
 College-Tutor, or a Drill-Serjeant. For the 
 purpose of preserving that decorum which 
 an assembly of enlightened men would, in 
 the heat of debate, violate quite as often as 
 the merest mob, it is requisite that some 
 check, real or nominal, should exist, which 
 may perpetually be present to the eyes of the 
 orators. A President is therefore chosen, 
 and to him is delegated, not only by his 
 equals but also by his superiors in rank and 
 talents, the full power of restraining the im- 
 petuous, and of silencing the impertinent and 
 obtrusive. It is obvious that the authority 
 of a person so chosen would be forgot or de- 
 spised during the vehemence of the passions, 
 unless he were invested with some adscititious 
 dignity and paraphernalia, which may serve 
 to conceal and merge the insignificance of 
 
 1
 
 218 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 the individual character. The flowing wig 
 and full robes have an important use : for I 
 suppose that nobody will deny, if the Speaker 
 were dressed in smart buckskin breeches with 
 well-topped boots, a buff waistcoat and blue 
 frock coat, with a rose-bud stuck in the but- 
 ton-hole, that in such cases, whatever might 
 be his personal respectability, he might roar to 
 the crack of his voice, -or rather " to the 
 crack of doom," before he would be able to 
 command order in a tempestuous debate : 
 the Members would look .towards the Chair, 
 and, seeing it filled by one whose appearance 
 so much resembled their own, they would dis- 
 dain to be silenced by such an unofficial and 
 ordinary being. Something of this sort 
 happens frequently in Committees, where, 
 though the discussion seldom rises much 
 above the tone of conversation, the unwrgged 
 Chairman finds it difficult to hold the Mem- 
 bers to those rules of politeness and mutual 
 patience which are prescribe^ by Society as 
 well as by Parliament. The Speaker, there-: 
 fore, is properly clothed with all those un- 
 usual appearances, with all that pomp and 
 circumstance of superior rank, to which man- 
 kind ever pay a voluntary and wise obedi<- 
 
 4
 
 SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 219 
 
 ence. This fictitious elevation is useful, and 
 even necessary for those purposes for which 
 it is designed, but it cannot fail to destroy 
 the simplicity and naturalness of the person 
 elevated, at least for the time. He sees him- 
 self called upon to exercise a decisive au- 
 thority over his equals or superiors : he finds 
 his opinion solemnly referred to by those 
 who, perhaps, despise his personal under- 
 standing ; he is required to arbitrate between 
 two debaters of the highest condition, and of 
 exalted intellects, who, on any private occa- 
 sion, would probably disdain to consult him, 
 but who now implicitly submit themselves to 
 his judgment. It is possible that a very 
 wise man, that is, one compounded . of all 
 the wisdom of the Seven Sages, with Solomon 
 into the bargain, it is barely possible that 
 such a being might feel himself humiliated 
 instead of ennobled by such ideal respect 
 and imaginary honours ; but the generality of 
 men will be very differently affected they 
 will become portentously grave and awfully 
 consequential ; their smile will not be like 
 that of other men it will express condescen- 
 sion without kindness, and recognition with- 
 out familiarity ; their walk will be slow as a
 
 220 PABUAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 dead march, and their voice will be preter- 
 humanly precise like the sound of an oracle. 
 Though such a situation would, I think, pro- 
 duce this efiect on any given person who 
 should accept it, yet the process would be 
 slower with some men than with others. For 
 instance, a gay soldier or a fox-hunting 
 Baronet would take a longer time to be for- 
 malized than would be necessary for a sober 
 lawyer. It is, therefore, usual to choose 
 the Speakers from the lawyers, partly, no 
 doubt, on account of their technical learn- 
 ing, but chiefly because their peculiar habits 
 have furnished them with those characteris- 
 tic manners which seem so essential to the 
 Chair. 
 
 The present Speaker is quite as respect- 
 able as any of his predecessors. He has the 
 peculiarities which belong, I think, rather to 
 his place than to his person : he is always 
 fully impressed with the importance of his 
 situation, which is denoted by every look and 
 gesture : whether he is expressing the thanks 
 or the censure of the House, he adopts that 
 tone of solemn superiority which is calculated 
 to give double weight both to the praise and 
 the reprimand. Perhaps this manner would
 
 SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OP COMMONS. 221 
 
 not stand the test of criticism; but neither 
 the man who is flattered, nor he who is repre- 
 hended, have much disposition to laugh : self- 
 love and fear are never fitted to make minute 
 examination. The best parts of the Speaker's 
 character are his ready and accurate know- 
 ledge, by which he is, on the spot, enabled 
 to decide on any difficult point ; his persever- 
 ing firmness in supporting the privileges, and 
 as far as in him lies the reputation of the 
 House of Commons ; and lastly, his impar- 
 tiality in the conduct of any dispute which 
 may arise among the Members. His under- 
 standing is not of the superior order, but it 
 is well fitted for his situation : if his range 
 is not extensive, he sees his way very clearly. 
 His mind is well cultivated according to the 
 usual meaning of that term : that is, it is im- 
 bued with the best parts of classic literature. 
 As, however, either his intellect or his taste 
 is not equal to his learning, his literary recol- 
 lections frequently rather injure than adorn 
 his orations. An image or an illustration 
 taken from Greece or Rome may have a 
 pretty look in a compliment to a successful 
 General, provided the said General should 
 happen to understand it; but it would be
 
 222 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 terribly misplaced in a grave exposition of 
 the business and conduct of the House of 
 Commons. In the first instance it would be 
 a pleasing elegance, in the second a tinsel 
 puerility. Why ? Certainly not because the 
 writings of moderns are of a more manly cast 
 than the eternal fabrics of those ancient wits ; 
 that man must be a tasteless ignorant who 
 could broach such a supposition ; but be- 
 cause to adopt indiscriminately images or 
 forms of speech which belong to other cus- 
 toms and manners, betrays that want of judg- 
 ment remarkable in children, who would use 
 what they admire without regard to its ef- 
 ficacy or applicability. I do not mean to say 
 that the Speaker has not, on several occasions, 
 displayed in argument a very manly, judicious 
 understanding ; but he evidently has a strong 
 bias towards the florid. It is a taste some- 
 what new in an English Speaker, and rather 
 seems to belong to a neighbouring nation. 
 Perhaps Mr. Abbot will be the less tenacious 
 of his ornamental style, when he recollects 
 that.it was the great affectation of the re- 
 volutionary orators, and particularly of 
 Lucien Buonaparte, when he was President of 
 the Council of Five Hundred. The showy
 
 SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 22S 
 
 harangues which that Gentleman then made 
 would disgrace a school-boy ; and, by the 
 way, unless his taste in poetry is far superior 
 to his oratorical taste, he will be a very me- 
 diocre bard indeed, something between a 
 Fitzgerald and a Rosa Matilda, very dull, 
 and very frisky. But whatever may be said 
 of the Speaker's taste in style, no one can 
 impeach the manliness of his character, as far 
 as regards the vigilant energy with which he 
 transacts the business of his office, and the 
 firm integrity with which, on several occa- 
 sions, he has supported his own dignity and 
 that of the House. The burst of honest in- 
 dignation, and the dignified argument, which 
 he displayed on the question of the sale of 
 seats in Parliament, ought never to be forgot- 
 ten. It were well if every Member would 
 keep that speech as a manual, and peruse it 
 at least once a month. If the Speaker had 
 ten thousand ridiculous peculiarities, such 
 conduct would be sufficient to redeem him 
 into esteem ? much more should it have that 
 effect when all that can be alleged against 
 him, beside that his taste smacks too much of 
 the College, is, that for a little man he is rather
 
 224- PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 too pompous: in other words, to use an 
 illustration in his own way, and which he 
 will understand that, with the size of 
 Tydeus, he assumes the portly carriage of 
 Agamemnon.
 
 2*5 
 
 MR. WHITBREAD. 
 
 ANY person who casts a careful eye over 
 the House of Commons will find that the dif- 
 ferent portions into which society is divided 
 are tolerably well represented in that Assem- 
 bly. The landed interest, the mercantile in- 
 terest, the privileged orders and the profes- 
 sions, have all their adequate proportion of 
 advocates to assert their claims : what seems 
 to be wanting is a class of persons who, with- 
 out reference to any partial interests, should 
 speak the sentiments and uphold the rights of 
 the nation at large. The history of Parlia- 
 ment will supply but few names to whom 
 this description would be applicable : Mr. 
 Fox, with all his liberal thinking and bene- 
 volent feeling, was too much attached to 
 party- views : and Mr. Windham, who has 
 been absurdly proclaimed as a complete spe- 
 cimen of the English character, was per- 
 haps the most unnatural compound of 
 heterogeneous qualities to which the name 
 Q
 
 226 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 0f Englishman was ever affixed. His bril- 
 liant talents, his manly courage, his cheerful 
 good-nature, will very readily be allowed to 
 be perfectly English : but what shall be said 
 of the oblique sophistries of his understand- 
 ing, of his want of feeling, and above all of 
 that blind misapprehension which induced him 
 to believe that the people of England were a 
 swinish multitude, incapable of reflection, 
 and in whom not even the common and 
 brutal virtue of bravery could be cherished 
 without cock-fights and bull-baits and Jew- 
 boxers. It would be easy to enumerate 
 many more inconsistencies of his character, 
 such as his mixture of the fine gentleman and 
 the coarse joker, of the refined theorist and 
 blundering observer : but enough has pro- 
 bably been said to show that such a man 
 could not be called the Representative of the 
 English People. 
 
 It is to Mr. Whitbread alone that this title 
 seems entirely due. He is an epitome of the 
 national character. It is he who represents 
 the straight-forward good sense, the warmth 
 of heart, sometimes indiscreet, but always 
 generous, the simple manners, sometimes 
 abrupt, but always kind, the sturdy honesty,
 
 MR. WHITBREAD. 227 
 
 sometimes rough, but alway consistent, the 
 shrewd penetration, ever active, but ever can- 
 did, the boldness of spirit, sometimes violent 
 but always steady; -which altogether have 
 ever been considered as the infallible marks 
 of a genuine Englishman. His exterior is as 
 English as his mind : his steady eye, his coun- 
 tenance deeply marked with thoughtfulness, 
 but fluctuating with feeling, his sober gait, 
 his unaffected gestures, even the decided vi- 
 gorous cast of his person, give assurance of 
 a man who belongs to a country where the 
 naked soul may yet walk abroad and feel no 
 shame, where as yet the artificial mummeries 
 of a corrupt civilization are not necessary for 
 the support of a public reputation ; where 
 as yet there is none of the imbecility of dena- 
 turalized states. The very plainness of his 
 dress shows that he is one of that people 
 among whom the consciousness of internal 
 rectitude is esteemed as the surest property 
 and the noblest ornament. I have frequently 
 smiled at an observation of persons whom I 
 have taken with me to hear Mr. Whitbread : 
 they have allowed the energy and acuteness 
 of his understanding, the honest boldness of 
 his sentiments, and the tone of feeling which 
 Q2
 
 228 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 gives an interest to all that he says ; but they 
 think him unpolished, deficient in the graces. 
 Alas! how much they mistake the objects 
 and views of that distinguished Commoner. 
 He does not take his daily seat in the House 
 of Commons, in order to make graceful obei- 
 sances and pronounce pretty periods : he 
 leaves such small trifling to the Castlereaghs 
 and the Cannings : he comes there to do the 
 business of the nation, to take care that the 
 common-weal receives no injury, to watch 
 over and protect the Constitution against the 
 intemperance of zeal and the insidiousness of 
 ambition, to animate and assist the labours of 
 the honest, to crush the efforts of the fraudu- 
 lent and selfish, to vindicate the oppressed, 
 to speak Truth. To object to a man occu- 
 pied in such exalted pursuits, that his 
 manner is not exquisitely polished, is as 
 silly as it would be to complain that Michael 
 Angelo has not the prettiness of Watteau, 
 that Milton wants the softness of Sedley, 
 that Newton is not so entertaining as Gold- 
 smith. I admire, and very sincerely, the 
 courtesy and urbanity of Lord Castlereagh : 
 they are the becoming decorations of his si- 
 tuation : he is backed by the powerful in-
 
 MR. WHITBREAD. 229 
 
 fluence of Administration, and has leisure to be 
 gentle without any detriment. Not so the man 
 who has to fight frequently, almost unassisted, 
 against the compact energies of Government. 
 A soft answer or a candid smile may turn 
 away wrath, but cannot conquer positive 
 force ; and to attempt to overthrow a minis- 
 terial measure, by the help of elegant sen- 
 tences and comely action, would be about as 
 wise as to storm a triple battery with a fan of 
 painted feathers. The manner, therefore, of 
 Mr. Whitbread seems perfectly consonant to 
 his objects : he aims at awakening the atten- 
 tion of the indolent, at rousing the fears of 
 the guilty ; and for this purpose it is essential 
 that he should appear in earnest ; o-a conclur 
 sion to which few persons would come, if they 
 saw him more attentive about the form than 
 the matter of his speeches. I confess I like 
 to witness his sharp, sometimes boisterous at- 
 tacks on the complacent strength of Adminis- 
 tration : he attacks those who are able to de- 
 fend themselves, and he attacks them in the 
 way best suited to his purpose. I like his 
 manner also, because it forms an agreeable 
 contrast to that contemptible namby-pamby 
 gentleness, which is now becoming so fashion-
 
 23O PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 able in the House of Commons. If ever I am 
 inclined to think it overbearing, it is when he 
 makes an assault on the inoffensive simplicity 
 of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have 
 seen that gentleman as much startled by Mr. 
 Whitbread as a girl by a discharge of artillery : he 
 at length rises and looks about him with a face 
 of the most helpless dismay, and is compelled 
 to grasp tightly with both hands the table of 
 the House of Commons, before he can muster 
 courage to articulate one syllable in answer. 
 Here, then, Mr. Whitbread might perhaps 
 relax a little of the severity of his manner 
 from a consideration of the unresisting nature 
 of his opponent, who is at the same time one 
 of the best-intentioned men of the House. 
 But enough and more has been said on this 
 supposed defect of Mr. Whitbread : and in- 
 deed I should not have thought it necessary 
 to allude to it, were it not almost the only 
 fault which, as far as I have heard, even his 
 enemies can object to him. 
 
 Those who wish to form a correct estimate of 
 his character must not look to two or three par- 
 ticular speeches, but to the whole tenour of his 
 public life. They will then see a consistency of 
 action which is to be found in few other public
 
 MR. WHITBREAD. 251 
 
 men : they will see a man always the strenuous 
 and watchful opponent of administration, not 
 from any paltry ambition of place, but on the 
 greatest constitutional ground of operating 
 as a check to the natural tyranny of high 
 power : they will see a patriot, who, while 
 his heart glows at the proud triumphs of 
 his own countrymen, can find leisure to 
 think of the welfare of other nations besides 
 his own : they will see an advocate, ever ac- 
 cessible and ever ready to support the cause 
 of the injured, whether it be an oppressed 
 alien, or over-punished convict, or an insulted 
 Princess : they will see that union of talent 
 and perseverance, of justice and courage, of 
 eloquence and sound sense, which makes the 
 cause of Truth as irresistible as it is respect- 
 able. People who think only of ministerial 
 majorities will call this an exaggerated state- 
 ment, and say that too much importance is 
 attached to the labours of this distinguished 
 Member. They have not thoroughly consi- 
 dered the subject. Mr. Whitbread cannot in- 
 deed command a majority of votes, but he can, 
 and I will venture to say does, on most import- 
 ant occasions, command a majority of opinions. 
 3
 
 233 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 Above all, he commands and guides the sense 
 of the nation : a force ten times more pow- 
 erful than the House of Commons, because 
 it always, directly or indirectly, influences the 
 conduct of that assembly. To this the proud- 
 est minister is forced to bow : with reference 
 to this he fabricates every measure : a piece 
 of meditated tyranny is clipped away from this 
 law ; a patch of desirable fraud is torn off from 
 that arrangement ; and corruption itself is 
 quietly purged of the most acrid particles of 
 its poison. Such is the power of a great moral 
 check when directed by an able and honest 
 man. Nay, such is the attention of Mr. 
 Whitbread to every branch of parliamentary 
 business, such is his acuteness and such his 
 fearlessness, that I have no doubt that many 
 a dirty parish or county job has been stripped 
 of half its intended baseness, lest it should be 
 noticed and denounced by that vigilant and 
 upright Commoner. This is an elevation of 
 dignified usefulness, to which the most san- 
 guine ambition could hardly hope to aspire : 
 and to this proud height he has raised himself 
 by the sheer force of consistency. His talents 
 are great, but talents unsupported by the pub*
 
 MR. WHITBREAD. 233 
 
 lie esteem are nothing else than " leather or 
 prunella." Look at Mr. Sheridan and Mr. 
 Tierney, the first of them the most variously- 
 gifted man of the age, the second qualified 
 to be one of the most useful : but, owing to a 
 real or an apparent want of independence of 
 character, what are they ? the first a mere 
 drinker of wine, the second a maker of amu- 
 sing speeches from the back benches.* By 
 attributing so much to the influence of ho- 
 nesty, I would not be supposed to under-rate 
 the intellectual power of Mr. Whitbread : 
 there is a quickness, a dexterity, and an ener- 
 gy about his understanding, which makes him 
 one of the best and most formidable debaters 
 in the House. He detects a sophistry with 
 the ken of an eagle, and breaks in pieces a 
 falsehood with the vigour of a lion. He is 
 moreover the most eloquent speaker in the 
 House, if eloquence consist, not in orna- 
 mented sentences, but in the language which, 
 coming from the heart, never fails to touch 
 
 * Many of Mr. Ticrney's speeches are as full of good 
 sense as of joke ; yet, so it is, the House thinks them only 
 designed for entertainment.
 
 PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS. 
 
 the heart. His speeches afford a most re- 
 freshing contrast to the mild circumlocutions 
 of government harangues, and the gaudy rhe- 
 toric of theatrical declamation. Before his 
 matter has made an impression, there is a 
 warmth and earnestness about his tones which 
 rouses and interests all his auditors. They 
 listen and are charmed with the manly spirit 
 of his sentiments and the simple strength of 
 his diction : instead of the cold artifices of com- 
 position, he gives them the natural dignity of 
 impassioned thinking : for the splendid figures 
 of speech, he gives them the pure brightness 
 of the image of truth. 
 
 Some persons may regret that Mr. Whit- 
 bread is never likely to attain any of the 
 usual objects of ambition : but can any peer- 
 age or blue ribbon be equal to the dignity of 
 being hailed by the universal people as the 
 people's guardian. His eye watches for the 
 good of the nation : its eye is ever fixed upon 
 him with a proud and admiring confidence* 
 The people are never ungrateful,but cheerfully 
 give to every merit its due reward. The suc- 
 cessful warrior reaps wealth and honours : the 
 skilful negotiator may, if he please, enjoy the
 
 MR. WHITBREAD. 235 
 
 same recompense for his labours : but England 
 reserves its full tide of gratitude, affection, 
 and esteem, for that man who has through 
 twenty years of arduous conflict vindicated 
 the rights of freedom and humanity, and 
 whose successful toils justly entitle him to be 
 called her greatest and most useful citizen. 
 
 THE 
 
 C. Baldwin, Printer, 
 Tfew Briilqe-itreet, London. 
 
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 NEW PUBLICATIONS. 239 
 
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