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YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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BIOGEAPHICAL STUDIES

By the same Antlwr.

Uniform, 2nd edition, 8vo. 2 vols, price 28*.
LI^TERABY studies.
ALSO
8vo. 1 vol. price 10.S. 6rf.
ECONOMIC STUDIES.

London : LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.

BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES

BY THE LATE

WALTER BAGEHOT

M.A. AND FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

EDITED BY

EICHAED HOLT hutton

LONDON
LONGMANS, GEEEN, ANT) CO.
> ' 1881

All rights reserved

PREFACE.
The interest with which Mr. Bagehot's 'Literary-
Studies ' appear to have been received by the public,
encourages me to collect and republish his Studies in
Political Biography, most of them from the ' National
Eeview,' and two — that on Adam Smith and that on
Lord Althorp — from the ' Fortnightly Eeview,' which I
do with the permission of the proprietors, These essays
are, I think, valuable, not only as acute criticisms on
the statesmen reviewed, but also, in no small degree,
as expressing in some detail and with a good deal of
vivacity the political mind of one of the shrewdest
and most separate of the politicians of this generation.
It will be seen, I think, that the late Sir George Corne
wall Lewis comes very near to being, in Mr. Bagehot's
mind, the ideal English statesman — indeed, that Sir
George Lewis, with a little political ozone infused into
him, would have been quite that ideal. I have, of
course, altered and omitted nothing, even where the
^particular opinion expressed has not been verified but
rather discredited by the course of subsequent events —
for example, in relation to the general adhesion given
by Mr. Bagehot (p. 333) to Sir George Lewis's scornful

vi Preface.
estimate of that ' village lawyer ' Lincoln's Unionist
policy. If there ever were overhaste or a touch of
passion in either Sir George Lewis or his critic, it
was apt to be shown in their condemnation of political
measures recommended by deep popular emotions and
convictions. But the reader of these pages will find,
I think, a great deal more to surprise him in the
shrewdness of the forecasts than in their occasional
miscarriage. I have added to the longer studies some pages con
sisting of a few shorter papers of the same, kind taken
from the ' Economist ' newspaper, which may be found,
I hope, not the least interesting in this volume. E. H. H.
Englemeld Gkeen, Bee. 21, 1880.

CONTENTS.

ESSAY PAGE
I. The Character ok Sir Eobert Peel  1
II. Lord Brougham  40
III. Mr. Gladstone  . . 84
IV. William Pitt .... .... 116
V. Bolingbroke as a Statesman  157
VI. Sir George Cornewall Lewis  . 200
VII. Adam Smith as a Person  247
VIII. Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832 . . . 282

ADDENDA.
I. The Prince Consort  . 321
II. What Lord Lyndhurst really was  324
III. The Tribute at Hereford to Sir G. C. Lewis . . . 330
IV. Mr. Cobden ... . .... 334
V. Lord Palmerston . . .... 340
VI. The Earl of Clarendon .... . 345
VII. . Mr. Lowe as Chancellor of the Exchequer . . . 350
VIII. Monsieur Guizot  355
IX. Professor Cairnes  360
X. Mr. Disraeli as a Member of the House of Commons 364 '

BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES.
THE CHARACTER OF SIR ROBERT PEEL}
(1856.)
Most people have looked over old letters. They have been
struck with the change of life, with the doubt on things now
certain, the belief in things now incredible, the oblivion of what
now seems most important, the strained attention to departed
detail, which characterise the mouldering leaves. Something
like this is the feeling with which we read Sir Robert Peel's
Memoirs. Who now doubts on the Catholic Question ? It is
no longer a ' question.' A younger generation has come into
vigorous, perhaps into insolent life, who regard the doubts that
were formerly entertained as absurd, pernicious, delusive. To
revive the controversy was an error. The accusations which
are brought against a public man in his own age are rarely
those echoed in after times. Posterity sees less or sees more.
A few points stand forth in distinct rigidity ; there is no idea of
the countless accumulation, the collision of action, the web of
human feeling, with which, in the day of their life, they were
encompassed. Time changes much. The points of controversy
seem clear ; the assumed premises uncertain. The difficulty is
to. comprehend ' the difficulty.' Sir Robert Peel will have to
answer to posterity, not for having passed Cathohc emancipation
when he did, but for having opposed it before ; not for having
1 Memows, by the Eight Hon. Sir Eobert Peel, Bart., M.P., &c. Published
by the Trustees of his Papers, Lord Mahon (now Lord Stanhope) and the
Eight Hon. Edward Cardwell, M.P. Part I. ' The Eoman Catholic Question,'
1828-9. B

The Character of Sir Robert Peel.

been precipitate, but for having been slow; not for having
taken 'insufficient securities' for the Irish Protestant Churchy
but for having endeavoured to take security for an institution
too unjust to be secured by laws or lawgivers.
This memoir has, however, a deeper aim. Its end is rather
personal than national* It is designed to show, not that Sir
Robert did what was externally expedient — this was probably too
plain — but that he himself really believed what he did to be
right. The scene is laid not in Ireland, not in the county of
Clare, not amid the gross triumphs of O'Connell, or the out
rageous bogs of Tipperary, but in the Home Office, among files ;
of papers, among the most correctly-docketed memoranda, be
side the minute which shows that Justice A. should be dismissed,
that Malefactor 0. ought not to be reprieved. It is labelled.
' My Conscience,' and is designed to show that ' my conscience^
was sincere. ;"
Seriously, and apart from jesting, this is no light matter.'
Not only does the great space which Sir Robert Peel occupied ';
during many years in the history of the country entitle his I
character to the anxious attention of historical critics, but the;;
very nature of that character itself, its traits, its deficiencies,
its merits, are so congenial to the tendencies of our time and
government, that to be unjust to him is to be unjust to all
probable statesmen. We design to show concisely how this is.
A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common
opinions and uncommon abilities. The reason is obvious..';
When we speak of a free government, we mean a government
in which the sovereign power .is divided, in which a single" deci
sion is not absolute, where argument has an office. The essence
of the gouvernement des avocats, as the Emperor Nicholas?
called it, is that you must persuade so many persons. The
appeal is not to the solitary decision of a single statesman ; not
to Richelieu or Nesselrode alone in his closet; but to the
jangled mass of men, with a thousand pursuits, a thousand
interests, a thousand various habits. Public opinion, as it is

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 3
said, rules ; and public opinion is the opinion of the average
man. Fox used to say of Burke : ' Burke is a wise man ; but
he is wise too soon.' The average man will not bear this. He
is a cool, common person, with a considerate air, with figures
in his mind, with his own business to attend to, with a set of
ordinary opinions arising from and suited to ordinary life. He
can't bear novelty or originalities. He says : ' Sir, I never
heard such a thing hef ore in my life ; ' and he thinks this a
reductio ad absurdum. You may see his taste by the reading
of which he approves. Is there a more splendid monument of
talent and industry than ' The Times ' ? No wonder that the
"average man — that any one — beheves in it. As Carlyle ob
serves : ' Let the highest intellect able to write epics try to
write "such a leader for the morning newspapers, it cannot do
it ; the highest intellect will fail.' But did you ever see any-
, thing there you had never seen before ? Out of the million
articles that everybody has read, can any one person- trace a
single marked idea to a single article ? Where are the deep
-theories, and the wise axioms, and the everlasting sentiments
which the writers of the most influential publication in the
world have been the first to communicate to an ignorant
species ? Such writers are far too shrewd. The two million,
or whatever number of copies it may be, they publish, are not
purchased because the buyers wish to know new truth. The
purchaser desires an article which he can appreciate at sight ;
tfhich he can lay down and say, 'An excellent article, very
excellent ; exactly my own sentiments.' Original theories
give trouble ; besides, a grave man on the Coal Exchange does
not desire to be an apostle of novelties among the contempor-
• aneous dealers in fuel ; — he wants to be provided with remarks
he can make on the topics of the day which will not be known
not to be his ; that are not too profound ; which he can fancy
the paper only reminded him of. And just in the same way,
precisely as the most popular political paper is not that which
is abstractedly the. best or most instructive, but that which
s 2

The Character of Sir Robert Peel.

most exactly takes up the minds of men where it finds them,
catches the floating sentiment of society, puts it in such a form
as society can fancy would convince another society which did
not believe — so the most influential of constitutional states
men is the one who most felicitously expresses the creed ofthe
moment, who administers it, who embodies it in laws and insti
tutions, who gives it the highest life it is capable of, who
induces the average man to think, ' I could not have done it
any better if I had had time myself.'
It might be said, that this is only one of the results of that
tyranny of commonplace which seems to accompany civilisation.
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius ; but the real
tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbour. What
law is so cruel as the law of doing what he does ? What yoke;
is so galling as the necessity of being like him ? What espiorv-
nage of despotism comes to your door so effectually as the eye of
the man who lives at your door ? Public opinion is a permea
ting influence, and it exacts obedience to itself ; it requires us
to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to
follow other men's habits. Of course, if we do not, no formal
ban issues, no corporeal pain, no coarse penalty of a barbarous
society is inflicted on the offender ; but we are called ' eccen
tric; 'there is a gentle murmur of ' most unfortunate ideas,'
' singular young man,' 'well-intentioned, I dare say; but un
safe, sir, quite unsafe.' The prudent, of course, conform. The
place of nearly everybody depends on the opinion of everyone
There is nothing like Swift's precept to attain the repute
finsiWp man 'Ro nf tlo svrun;~« „j?i.i._  .31 -i .. .

else.of a sensible man, '£e of the opinion ofthe person with whomj
at the time, you are conversing.' This world is given to those
whom this world can trust. Our very conversation is infected.
Where is now the bold humour, the explicit statement, the
grasping dogmatism of former days ? They have departed, and=
you read in the orthodox works dreary regrets that the art of
conversation has passed away. It would be as reasonable to
expect the art of walking to pass away. People talk well

The Character of Sir Robert Peel.

enough when they know to whom they are speaking. We
might even say that the art of conversation was improved by
an application to new circumstances. ' Secrete your intellect,
use. common words, say what you are expected to say,' and you
shall be at peace. The secret of prosperity in common life is
to be commonplace on principle.
Whatever truth there may be in these splenetic observa
tions, might be expected to show itself more particularly in the
world of politics. People dread to be thought unsafe in propor
tion as they get their living by being thought to be safe. ' Literary
men,' it has been said, ' are outcasts ; ' and they are eminent in
a certain way notwithstanding. ' They can say strong things
of their age ; for no one expects they will go out and act on
them.' They are a kind of ticket-of-leave lunatics, from whom
no harm is for the moment expected ; who seem quiet, but on
whose vagaries a practical public must have its eye. For states
men it is different— they must bethought men of judgment.
The most morbidly agricultural counties were aggrieved when
Mr. Disraeli was made Chancellor ofthe Exchequer. They could
not beheve he was a man of solidity ; and they could not compre
hend taxes by the author of Coningsby,' or sums by an adherent
of the Caucasus. ' There is,' said Sir Walter Scott, ' a certain
hypocrisy of action, which, however it is despised by persons in
trinsically excellent, will nevertheless be cultivated by those who
desire the good repute of men.' Politicians, as has been said,
live in the repute of the commonalty. They may appeal to pos
terity; but of what use is posterity? Years before that tribunal
comes into life, your life will be extinct. It is like a moth going
into Chancery. Those who desire a public career, must look to
the views of the living public ; an immediate exterior influence
is essential to the exertion of their faculties. The confidence
of others is your fulcrum. You cannot, many people wish you
could, .go into parliament to represent yourself. You must
conform to the opinions of the electors ; and they, depend on
it, will not be original. In a word, as has been most wisely

The Character of Sir Robert Peel.

observed, ' under free institutions it is necessary occasionally to
defer to the opinions of other people ; and as other people are
obviously in the wrong, this is a great hindrance to the improve
ment of our political system and the progress of our species.'
Seriously, it is a calamity that this is so. Occasions arise in
which a different sort of statesman is required. A year or two
ago we had one of these. If any politician had come forward in
this country, on the topic of the war, with prepared intelligence,
distinct views, strong will, commanding mastery, it would have
brought support to anxious intellects, and comfort to a thousand
homes. None such came. Our people would have statesmen
who thought as they thought, believed as they believed, acted as
they would have acted. They had desired to see their own will
executed. There came a time when they had no clear will, no
definite opinion. They reaped as they had sown. As they had
selected an administrative tool, of course it did not turn out an
heroic leader.
If we wanted to choose an illustration of these remarks out
of all the world, it would be Sir Robert Peel. No man has
come so near our definition of a constitutional statesman — the
powers of a first-rate man and the creed of a second-rate man.
From a certain peculiarity of intellect and fortune, he was never
in advance of his time. Of almost all the great measures with
which his name is associated, he attained great eminence as an
opponent, before he attained even greater eminence as theirad-j
vocate. On the corn-laws, on the currency, on the amelioration
of the criminal code, on Catholic emancipation— the subject of
the memoir before us— he was not one ofthe earliest labourers
or quickest converts. He did not bear the burden and heat of^
the day ; other men laboured, and he entered into their labours.!
As long as these questions remained the property of first-class.
intellects, as long as they were confined to philanthropists or
speculators, as long as they were only advocated by austere, m\
tangible Whigs, Sir Robert Peel was against them. So soon as
these same measures, by the progress of time, the striving of

The Character, of Sir Robert Peel.

understanding, the conversion of receptive minds, became the
property of second-class intellects, Sir Robert Peel became
possessed of them also. He was converted at the conversion of
the average man. His creed was, as it had ever been, ordinary ;
but his extraordinary abilities never showed themselves so much.
He forthwith wrote his name on each of those questions, so
3 that it will be remembered as long as they are remembered.
Nor is it merely on these few measures that Sir Robert Peel's ¦
mind must undoubtedly have undergone a change. The lifetime
of few Englishmen has been more exactly commensurate with a
change of public opinion— a total revolution of political thought.
Hardly any fact in history is so incredible as that forty and a few
years ago England was ruled by Mr. Perceval. It seems almost
the same as being ruled by the ' Record ' newspaper. He had the
same poorness of thought, the same petty Conservatism, the same
dark and narrow superstition. His quibbling mode of oratory
seems to have been scarcely agreeable to his friends ; his im
potence in political speculation moves the wrath — destroys the
patience — of the quietest reader now. Other ministers have had
great connections, or great estates, to compensate for the con-
tractedness of their minds. Mr. Perceval was onlya poorish nisi
prius lawyer, and there is no kind of human being so disagree
able, so teasing, to the gross Tory nature. He is not entitled
to any glory for our warlike successes : on the contrary, he did
: his best to obtain failure by starving the Duke of Wellington,
and plaguing him with petty vexations. His views in religion
; inclined to that Sabbatarian superstition which is of all creeds
the most alien to the firm and genial English nature. The mere
fact of such a premier being endured shows how deeply the whole
national spirit and interest was absorbed in the contest with Na
poleon, how little we understood the sort of man who should re
gulate its conduct — 'in the crisis of Europe,' as Sydney Smith
: said, ' he safely brought the Curates' Salaries Improvement Bill
toa hearing '—and it still more shows the horror of all innovation
which the recent events of French history had impressed on our

8 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.
wealthy and comfortable classes. They were afraid of catching
revolution, as old women of catching cold. Sir Archibald
Alison to this day holds that revolution is an infectious disease,
beginning no one knows how, and going no one knows where.
There is but one rule of escape, explains the great historian,
' Stay still, don't move ; do what you have been accustomed to
do, and consult your grandmother on everything.' In 1812
the English people were all persuaded of this theory. Mr.
Perceval was the most narrow-minded and unaltering man they
could find : he therefore represented their spirit, and they put
him at the head of the state.
Such was the state of political questions. How httle of
real thoughtfulness was then applied to what we now call social
questions cannot be better illustrated than by the proceedings
on the occasion of Mr. Perceval's death. Bellingham, who.
killed him, was, whether punishable or not, as clearly insane as
a lunatic can be who offends against the laws of his country.
He had no idea of killing Mr. Perceval particularly. His only
idea was, that he had lost some property in Russia ; that the
Enghsh government would never repay him his loss in Russia ;
and he endeavoured to find some cabinet minister to shoot as
a compensation. Lord Eldon lived under the belief that he
had nearly been the victim himself, and told some story of a
borrowed hat and an assistant's greatcoat to which he ascribed
his preservation. The whole affair was a monomaniac's delusion.
Bellingham had no ground for expecting any repayment. There
was no reason for ascribing his pecuniary ruin to the govern
ment of that day, any more than to the government of this
day. Indeed, if he had been alive now, it would have been
agreed that he was a particularly estimable man. Medical
gentlemen would have been examined for days on the doctrine
of ' irresistible impulse,' ' moral insanity,' ' instinctive pistol-
discharges,' and every respectful sympathy would have been
shown to so curious an offender. Whether he was punish
able or not may be a question ; but all will now agree, that it

The Character of Sir Robert Peel.

was not a case for the punishment of death. In that day
there was no more doubt that he ought to be hanged, than there
would now be that he ought on no account to be hanged. The
serious reasons, of which the scientific theories above alluded
to are but the exaggerated resemblance, which indicate the
horrible cruelty of inflicting on those who do not know what
they dp the extreme penalty of suffering meant for those who
perpetrate the worst they can conceive, are in these years so
familiar that we can hardly conceive their being unknown. Yet
the Tory historian has to regret ' that the motion, so earnestly
insisted on by his counsel, to have the trial postponed for some
days, to obtain evidence to estabhsh his insanity, was not
acceded to ; that a judicial proceeding, requiring beyond all
others the most calm and deliberate consideration, should have
been hurried over with a precipitation which, if not illegal, was at
least unusual ; ' and a noble lord ' improved ' the moment of the
assassination by exclaiming to the peers in opposition, 'You
see, my lords, the consequence of your agitating the question
of Catholic emancipation,'' To those who now know England,
it seems scarcely possible that this could have occurred here only
forty-four years since. It was in such a world that Sir Robert
Peel commenced his career. He was Under-Secretary of State
for the Colonies at the time of Mr. Perceval's assassination.
It is not, however, to be imagined that, even if Mr. Perceval
had lived, his power would have very long endured. It passed
to milder and quieter men. It passed to such men as Lord
Liverpool and Mr. Peel. The ruling power at that time in
'England, as for many years before, as even in some measure,
though far less, now, was the class of aristocratic gentry ; by
which we do not mean to denote only the aristocracy, and
do tiot mean to exclude the aristocracy, but to indicate the
great class of hereditary landed proprietors, who are in sym
pathy with the House of Lords on cardinal points, yet breathe
a somewhat freer air, are more readily acted on by the opinion of
the community, more contradictable by the lower herd, and less

i o The Character of Sir Rabert Peel.
removed from their prejudices by a refined and regulated educa
tion. From the time of the Revolution, more or less, this has
been the ruling class in the community ; the close-borough sys
tem and the county system giving them mainly the control of
the House of Commons, and their feeling being in general, as it
were, a mean term between those of the higher nobility and
the trading public of what were then the few large towns. The
rule of the House, of Lords was rather mediate than direct. By
those various means of influence and social patronage and op
pression which are familiar to a wealthy and high-bred
aristocracy, the highest members of it, of course, did exercise
over all below them a sure and continual influence: it worked
silently and commonly on ordinary questions and in quiet
times ; yet it was liable to be overborne by a harsher and ruder
power when stormy passions arose, in the days of wars and
tumults. So far as the actual selection of visible rulers goes,
the largest amount of administrative power has rarely been in
the hands of the highest aristocracy, and in a great measure
for a peculiar reason : that aristocracy rarely will do the work,
and rarely can do the work. The enormous pressure of daily-
growing business, which besets the governors of a busy and
complicated community, is too much for the refined habits,
delicate discrimination, anxious judgment, which the course of
their life develops in the highest classes, and with which it
nourishes the indolence natural to those who have this world
to enjoy. The real strain of the necessary labour has generally
been borne by men of a somewhat lower grade, trained by an
early ambition, a native aptitude, a hardy competition, to
perform its copious tasks. Such men are partakers of two
benefits. They are rough and ready enough to accomplish the
coarse, enormous daily work; they have lived with men of
higher rank enough to know and feel what such persons think
and want. Sir Robert Walpole is the type of this class. He
was a Norfolk squire, and not a nobleman ; he was bred a gentle
man, and yet was quite coarse enough for any business : his

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. i r

career w'as what you would expect. For very many years he
administered the government much as the aristocracy wished
and desired. They were, so to speak, the directors of the
company which is called the English nation ; they met a little
and talked a little: but Sir Robert was the manager, who
knew all the -facts, came every day, saw everybody, and was '
everything. , Passing over the time of Lord Liverpool, of whom this is
not now the place to speak, some such destiny as this would, in
his first political life, have appeared likely to be that of Sir
Robert Peel. If an acute master of the betting art had been
asked the ' favourite ' statesman who was likely to rule in that
generation, he would undoubtedly have selected Sir Robert.
He was rich, decorous, laborious, and had devoted himself
regularly to the task. There was no other such man. It was
likely, at least to superficial observers, that his name would
descend to posterity as the ' Sir Robert ' of a new time ; — a
time changed, indeed, from that of Walpole, but resembling it
in its desire to be ruled by a great administrator, skilful in
all kinds of business transactions, yet associated with the
aristocracy ; by one unremarkable in his opinions, but remark
able in his powers. The fates, however, designed Peel for a.
very different destiny; and to a really close observer there
were signs in his horoscope which should have clearly revealed it.
Sir Robert's father and grandfather were two of the men who
created Lancashire. No sooner did the requisite machinery issue
from the brain of the inventor, than its capabilities were seized.
on by strong, ready, bold men of business, who erected it,
used it, devised a factory system, combined a factory popula
tion — created, in a word, that black industrial region, of whose
augmenting wealth and horrid labour tales are daily borne to
the genial and lazy south. Of course, it cannot be said that
mill-makers invented the middle classes. The history of
England perhaps shows, that it has not for centuries been with
out an unusual number of persons with comfortable and mode-

1 2 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.
rate means. But though this class has ever been found among
us, and has ever been more active than in any other similar
country, yet to a great extent it was scattered, headless, motion
less. Small rural out-of-the-way towns, country factories few
and far between, concealed and divided this great and mixed
mass of petty means and steady intelligence. The huge heaps
of manufacturing wealth were not to be concealed. They at
once placed on a level with the highest in the land — in matters
of expenditure, and in those countless social relations which
depend upon expenditure — men sprung from the body of the .
people, unmistakably speaking its language, inevitably thinking
its thoughts. It is true that the first manufacturers were not
democratic. Sir Robert Peel, the statesman's father — a type
of the class — was a firm, honest, domineering Conservative ;
but, however on such topics they may so think, however on
other topics they may try to catch the language of the class to
which they rise, the grain of the middle class will surely show
itself in those who have risen from the middle class. If -Mr.
Cobden were to go over to the enemy, if he were to offer to serve
Lord Derby vice Disraeli disconcerted, it would not be possible "
for him to speak as the hereditary landowner speaks. It is not
that the hereditary landowner knows more ; — indeed, either in.
book-learning or in matters of observation, in acquaintance with
what has been, or is going to be, or what now is, the owners of
rent are not superior to the receivers of profits ; yet their
dialect is different — the one speaks the language of years of
toil, and the other of years of indolence. A harsh laborious-
ness characterises the one, a pleasant geniality the other. The
habit of industry is ingrained in those who have risen by it ; it
modifies every word and qualifies every notion. They are the
fiavavaoi of work. Vainly, therefore, did the first manufacturers
struggle to be Conservatives, to be baronets, to be peers.
The titles they might obtain, their outward existence they
might change, themselves in a manner they might alter ; but a .
surer force was dragging them and those who resembled them

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 13
into another region, filling them with other thoughts, making
them express what people of the middle classes had always
obscurely felt, pushing forward this new industrial order by the
side, or even in front, of the old aristocratic order. The new
class have not, indeed, shown themselves republican. They have
not especially cared to influence the machinery of government.
Their peculiarity has been, that they wished to see the govern
ment administered according to the notions familiar to them in
their business life. They have no belief in mystery or magic ;
probably they have never appreciated the political influence
of the imagination ; they wish to see plain sense applied to
the most prominent part of practical life. In his later career,
the second Sir Robert Peel was the statesman who most com^
" pletely and thoroughly expressed the sentiments of this new
dynasty ; — instead of being the nominee of a nobility, he became
the representative of a transacting and trading multitude.
Both of these two classes were, however, equally possessed
by the vice or tendency we commented on at the outset. They
each of them desired to see the government carried on exactly
according to their own views. The idea on which seems to rest
our only chance of again seeing great statesmen, of placing deep
deferential trust in those who have given real proofs of com
prehensive sagacity, had scarcely dawned on either. The average
man had, so to say, varied ; he was no longer of the one order,
but of an inferior ; but he was not at all less exacting or tyranni
cal. Perhaps he was even more so ; for the indolent gentleman
is less absolute and domineering than the active man of business.
However that may be, it was the fate of Sir Robert Peel, in the
two phases of his career, to take a leading share in carrying out
the views, in administering the creed, first of one and then of
the* other.
Perhaps, in our habitual estimate of Peel we hardly enough
bear this in mind. We remember him as the guiding chief of
the most intelligent Conservative government that this country
has ever seen. We remember the great legislative, acts which

14 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.
we owe to his trained capacity, every detail of which bears the
impress of his practised hand ; we know that his name is pro
nounced with applause in the great marts of trade and seats of
industry ; that even yet it is muttered with reproach in the
obscure abodes of squires and rectors. We forget that his name
was once the power of the Protestant interest, the shibboleth by
which squires and rectors distinguished those whom they loved
from those whom they hated ; we forget that he defended the
Manchester Massacre, the Six Acts, the Imposition of Tests,
the rule of Orangemen. We remember Peel as the proper head
of a moderate, intelligent, half-commercial community; we
forget that he once was the chosen representative of a gentry
untrained to great affairs, absorbed in a great war, only just re
covering from the horror of a great revolution.
In truth, the character of Sir Robert Peel happily fitted
him both to be the chosen head of a popular community,
imperiously bent on its own ideas, and to be the head of that
community in shifting and changing times. Sir Robert was at
Harrow with Lord Byron, who has left the characteristic
reminiscence : ' I was always in scrapes, Peel never.' And
opposed as they were in their fortunes as boys and men, they
were at least equally contrasted in the habit and kind of action
of their minds. Lord Byron's mind gained everything it was
to gain by one intense, striking effort. By a blow of the
imagination he elicited a single bright spark of light on
every subject, and that was all. And this he never lost.
The intensity of the thinking seemed to burn it on the
memory, there to remain alone. But he made no second
effort ; he gained no more. He always avowed his incapability '
of continuous application: he could not, he said, learn the
grammar of any language. In later life he showed considerable
talent for action; but those who had to act with him observed
that, versatile as were his talents, and mutable as his convic
tions had always seemed to be, in reality he was the most
stubborn of men. He heard what you had to say ; assented to

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. , 15
all you had to say ; and the next morning returned to his ori
ginal opinion. No amount of ordinary argumentative resistance
was so hopeless as that facile acquiescence and instantaneous
recurrence. The truth was, that he was — and some others are
similarly constituted — unable to retain anything which he did
not at any rate seem t6 gain by the unaided single rush of his
own mind. The ideas of such minds are often not new, very
often they are hardly in the strictest sense original ; they really
were very much suggested from without, and preserved in some
obscure corner of memory, out of the way and unknown ; but it
remains their characteristic, that they seem to the mind of the
thinker to be born from its own depths, to be the product of
its latent forces. There is a kind of eruption of ideas from a
subter conscious world. The whole mental action is volcanic;
the lava flood glows in ' Childe Harold ; ' all the thoughts are
intense, flung forth vivid. The day after the eruption the
mind is calm ; it seems as if it could not again do the like ; the
product only remains, distinct, peculiar, indestructible. The
mind of Peel was the exact opposite of this. His opinions far
more resembled the daily accumulating insensible deposits of
a rich alluvial soil. The great stream of time flows on with
all things on its surface; and slowly, grain by grain, a mould
pf wise experience is unconsciously left on the still, extended
intellect. You scarcely think of such a mind as acting ; it
seems always acted upon. There is no trace of gushing, over
powering, spontaneous impulse; everything seems acquired.
The thoughts are calm. In Lord Byron, the very style —
dashing, free, incisive — shows the bold impulse from which it
came. , The stealthy accumulating words of Peel seem like
the quiet leavings of an outward tendency, which brought
these, but might as well have brought others. There is no
peculiar stamp either in the ideas. They might have been||
anyone's ideas. They belong to the general diffused stock of
observations which are to be found in the civilised world. They
are not native to the particular mind, nor ' to the manner

1 6 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.
born.' Like a science, they are credible or incredible by all
men equally. This secondary order, as we may call it, of
intellect, is evidently most useful to a statesman of the con
stitutional class, such as we have described him. He in
sensibly and inevitably takes in and imbibes, by means of it,
the ideas of those around him. If he were left in a vacuum, he
would have no ideas. The primary class of mind that strikes
out its own belief would here be utterly at fault. It would
want something which other men had ; it would discover some
thing which other men would not understand. Sir Robert
Peel was a statesman for forty years ; under our constitution; .
Lord Byron, eminent as was his insight into men, and remark
able as was his power, at least for short periods of dealing
with them, would not have been a statesman for forty days.
It is very likely that many people may not think Sir Robert
Peel's mind so interesting as Lord Byron's. They may prefer
the self-originating intellect, which invents and retains its own
ideas, to the calm receptive intellect which acquires its belief
from without. The answer hes in what has been said — a con
stitutional statesman must sympathise in the ideas of the
many. As the many change, it will be his good fortune if he
can contrive to change with them. It is to be remembered,
that statesmen do not live under hermetical seals. Like other
men, they are influenced by the opinions of other men. How
potent is this influence, those best know who have tried to
hold ideas different from the ideas of those around.
In another point of view also Sir Robert Peel's character
was exactly fitted to the position we have delineated. He was
a great administrator. Civilisation requires this. In a simple:
age work may be difficult, but it is scarce. There are fewer
people, and everybody wants fewer things. The mere tools of
civilisation seem in some sort to augment work. In early
times, when a despot wishes to govern a distant province he -
sends down a satrap on a grand horse, with other people on
little horses ; and very little is heard of the satrap again unless

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 1 7
he send back some of the little people to tell what he has been
doing. No great labour of superintendence is possible. Com
mon rumour and casual complaints are the sources of intelligence.
If it seems certain that the province is in a bad state, satrap
No. 1 is recalled, and satrap No. 2 is sent out in his stead. In
civilised countries the whole thing is different. You erect a
bureau in the province you want to govern ; you make it write
letters and copy letters ; it sends home eight reports per diem
to the head bureau in St. Petersburg. Nobody does a sum in
the province without somebody doing the same sum in the
capital, to ' check him,' and see that he does it correctly. The
consequence of this is, to throw on the heads of departments
an amount of reading and labour which can only be accom
plished by the greatest natural aptitude, the most efficient
training, the most firm and regular industry. Under a free
government it is by no means better, perhaps in some respects
it is.worse. It is true that many questions which, under the
French despotism, are referred to Paris, are settled in England
on the very spot where they are to be done, without reference
to London at all. But as a set-off, a constitutional adminis
trator has to be always consulting others, finding out what
this man or that man chooses to think ; learning which form
of error is believed by Lord B., which by Lord C. ; adding up
the errors of the alphabet, and seeing what portion of what he
thinks he ought to do, they will all of them together allow him
to do. Likewise, though the personal freedom and individual
discretion which free governments allow to their subjects
seem at first likely to diminish the work which those govern
ments have to do, it may be doubted whether it does so really
and in the end. Individual discretion strikes out so many
more pursuits, and some supervision must be maintained over
each of those pursuits. No despotic government would con
sider the police force of London enough to keep down, watch,
and . superintend such a population ; but then no despotic
government would have such a city as London to keep down.
c

1 8 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.

The freedom of growth allows the possibility of growth ; and
though liberal governments take so much less in proportion upon
them, yet the scale of operations is so much enlarged by the
continual exercise of civil liberty, that the real work is ultimately
perhaps as immense. While a despotic government is regulate!
ing ten per cent, of ten men's actions, a free government" has
to regulate one per cent, of a hundred men's actions. The
difficulty, too, increases. Anybody can understand a rough
despotic community ; — a small buying class of nobles, a small
selling clas3 of traders, a large producing class of serfs, are much
the same in all quarters of the globe ; but a free intellectual
community is a complicated network of ramified relations, in
terlacing and passing hither and thither, old and new — some
of fine city weaving, others of gross agricultural construction; ,
You are never sure what effect any force or any change may
produce on a framework so exquisite and so involved. Govern
it as you may, it will be a work of great difficulty, labour, and
responsibility ; and no man who is thus occupied ought ever to '•
go to bed without reflecting, that from the difficulty of his em
ployment he may, probably enough, have that day done more
evil than good. What view Sir Robert Peel took of -these
duties, he has himself informed us.
' Take the case of the Prime Minister. You must presume
that he reads every important despatch from every foreign court.
He cannot consult with the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, and exercise the influence which he ought to have with
respect to the conduct of foreign affairs, unless he be master of
everything of real importance passing in that department. It
is the same with respect to other departments; India, for
instance : how can the Prime Minister be able to judge of the
course of policy with regard to India, unless he be cognisant of
all the current important correspondence ? In the ease of Ire
land and the Home Department it is the same. Then the
Prime Minister has the patronage of the Crown to exercise
which you say, and justly say, is of so much importance and of

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 1 9

so much value ; he has to make inquiries into the qualifications
of the persons who are candidates ; he has to conduct the whole
of the communications with the Sovereign ; he has to write,
probably with his own hand, the letters in reply to all persons
of station who address themselves to him ; he has to receive
deputations on public business ; during the sitting of Parlia
ment he is expected to attend six or seven hours a day, while
Parliament is sitting, for four or five days in the week ; at least
he is blamed if he is absent.'
The necessary effect of all this labour is, that those subject
to it have no opinions. It requires a great deal of time to have
opinions. Belief is a slow process. That leisure which the
poets say is necessary to be good, or to be wise, is needful for
the humbler task of allowing respectable maxims to take root
respectably. The ' wise passiveness ' of Mr. Wordsworth is
necessary in very ordinary matters. If you chain a man's head
to a ledger, and keep him constantly adding up, and take a
pound off his salary whenever he stops, you can't expect him to
have a sound conviction on Cathohc emancipation or tithes, and
original ideas on the Transcaucasian provinces. Our system,
indeed, seems expressly provided to make it unlikely. The
most benumbing thing to the intellect is routine ; the most
bewildering is distraction : our system is a distracting routine.
You see this in the description just given, which is not exhaus
tive. Sir Robert Peel once requested to have a number of ques
tions carefully written down which they asked him one day in
succession in the House of Commons. They seemed a hst of
everything that could occur in the British Empire, or to the
brain of a member of parliament. A premier's whole life is a
series of such transitions. It is wonderful that our public
men have any minds left, rather than that a certain unfixity of
opinion seems growing upon them.
We may go further on this subject. A great administrator
is not a man likely to desire to have fixed opinions. His
natural bent and tendency is to immediate action. The existing
02

20 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.
and pressing circumstances of the case fill up his mind. The
letters to be answered, the documents to be filed, the memo
randa to be made, engross his attention. He is angry if you
distract him. A bold person who suggests a matter of principle,
or a difficulty of thought, or an abstract result that seems im
probable in the case ' before the board,' will be set down as a
speculator, a theorist, a troubler of practical life. To expect to
hear from such men profound views of future policy, digested-
plans of distant action, is to mistake their genius entirely. It
is like asking the broker of the Stock Exchange what will he
the price of the funds this day six months ? His whole soul is
absorbed in thinking what that price will be in ten minutes."
A momentary change of an eighth is more important to him
than a distant change of a hundred eighths. So the brain of a
great administrator is naturally occupied with the details of the
day, the passing dust, the granules of that day's life; and his
unforeseeing temperament turns away uninterested from reach
ing speculations, from vague thought, and from extensive and
far-off plans. Of course, it is not meant that a great adminis
trator has absolutely no general views; some indeed, he must
have. A man cannot conduct the detail of affairs without hav
ing some plan which regulates that detail. He cannot help
having some idea, vague or accurate, indistinct or distinct, of
the direction in which he is going, and the purpose for which
he is travelling. But the difference is, that this plan is seldom.
his own, the offspring of his own brain, the result of his own
mental contention ; it is the plan of someone else. Providence
generally bestows on the working adaptive man a quiet adoptive
nature. He receives insensibly the suggestions of others ; he
hears them with willing ears ; he accepts them with placid belief.
An acquiescent credulity is a quality of such men's nature);'
they cannot help being sure that what everyone says must be
true ; the vox populi is a part of their natural religion. It has-
been made a matter of wonder that Peel should have belonged
to the creed of Mr. Perceval and Lord Sidmouth. Perhaps, in-^

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 2 1
deed, our existing psychology will hardly explain the process by
which a decorous young man acquires the creed of his era. He
assumes its belief as he assumes its costume. He imitates the
respectable classes. He avoids an original opinion, hke an
outre coat ; a new idea, like an unknown tie. Especially he
does so on matters of real concern to him, on those on which he
knows he must act. He acquiesces in the creed of the orthodox
agents. He scarcely considers for himself; he acknowledges
the apparent authority of dignified experience. He is, he
remembers, but the junior partner in the firm ; it does not
occur to him to doubt that those were right who were occupied
in its management years before him. In this way he acquires
an experience which more independent and original minds are
apt to want. There was a great cry when the Whigs came into
office, at the time of the Reform Bill, that they were not men
of business. Of course, after a very long absence from office,
they could not possess a technical acquaintance with official
forms, a trained facility in official action. This Sir Robert Peel
acquired from his apprenticeship to Mr. Perceval. His early
connection with the narrow Conservative party has been con
sidered a disadvantage to- him ; but it may well be doubted
whether his peculiar mind was not more improved by the
administrative training than impaired by the contact with pre
judiced thoughts. He never could have been a great thinker u
he became what nature designed, a great agent.
In a third respect also Sir Robert Peel conformed to the
type of a constitutional statesman ; and that third respect also
seems naturally to lead to a want of defined principle, and to
apparent fluctuation of opinion. He was a great debater ; and
of. all" pursuits ever invented by man for separating the faculty
of argument from the capacity of belief, the art of debating is
probably the most effectual. Mr. Macaulay tells us that, in his
jopinion, this is ' the most serious pf the evils which are to
be set off against the many blessings of popular government.
The keenest and most vigorous minds of every generation,

22 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.
minds often admirably fitted for the investigation of truth, are
habitually employed in producing arguments such as no man
of sense would ever put into a treatise intended for publica
tion — arguments which are just good enough to be used once,
when aided by fluent delivery and pointed language. The habit
of discussing questions in this way necessarily reacts on the in
tellects of our ablest men, particularly of those who are intro
duced into parliament at a very early age, before their minds
have expanded to full maturity. The talent for debate is
developed in such men to a degree which, to the multitude,
seems as marvellous as the performances of an Italian impro-.
visatore. But they are fortunate indeed if they retain unim- '
paired the faculties which are required for close reasoning, or
for enlarged speculation. Indeed, we should sooner expect a
great original work on political science — such a work, for
example, as the " Wealth of Nations " — from an apothecary in a
country town, or from a minister in the Hebrides, than from a
statesman who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a
distinguished debater in the House of Commons.' But it may
well be doubted whether there is not in the same pursuit a deeper
evil, hard to eradicate, and tending to corrupt and destroy the
minds of those who are beneath its influence. Constitutional
statesmen are obliged, not only to employ arguments which '
they do not think conclusive, but likewise to defend opinion^
which they do not believe to be true. Whether we approve it*
or lament it, there is no question that our existing political
life is deeply marked by the habit of advocacy. Perhaps fifteen :
measures may annually, on an average, be brought in by a
cabinet government of fifteen persons. It is impossible to
believe that all members of that cabinet agree in all those mea
sures. No two people agree in fifteen things ; fifteen clever
men never yet agreed in anything; yet they all defend them^
argue for them, are responsible for them. It is always quite'
possible that the minister who is strenuously defending a bill in
the House of Commons may have used in the cabinet the very

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 23
arguments which the Opposition are using in the House ; he
may have been overruled without being convinced ; he may
still think the conclusions he opposes better than those which he
inculcates. It is idle to say that he ought to go out ; at least
it amounts to saying that government by means of a cabinet is
impossible. The object of a committee of that kind is to agree
on certain conclusions; if every member after the meeting
were to start off according to the individual bent and bias of
his mind, according to his own individual discretion or indis
cretion, the previous concurrence would have become childish.
Of course, the actual measure proposed by the collective voice
of several persons is very different from what any one of these
. persons would of himself wish ; it is the result of a compromise
between them. Each, perhaps, has obtained some concession ;
each has given up something. Everyone sees in the actual
proposal something of which he strongly disapproves ; every
one regrets the absence of something which he much desires.
Yet, on the whole, perhaps, he thinks the measure better than
no measure ; or at least he thinks that if he went out, it would
break up the government ; and imagines it to be of more conse
quence that the government should be maintained than that
the particular measure should be rejected. He concedes his
individual judgment. No one has laid this down with more
distinctness than Sir Robert Peel. 'Supposing a person at
a dinner-table to express his private opinion of a measure
originating with a party with whom he is united in public life,
is he, in the event of giving up that private opinion out of
deference to his party, to be exposed to a charge almost
amounting to dishonesty ? The idea is absurd. — What is the
every-day conduct of government itself ? Is there anyone in
this House so ignorant as to suppose that on all questions cabinet
ministers, who yield to the decision of their colleagues, speak
and act in parliament in strict conformity with the opinions
they have expressed in the cabinet ? If ministers are to be
.taunted on every occasion that they hold opin'ons in the

f (

24 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.
cabinet different from what they do in this House, and if
parliament is to be made the scene of these taunts, I believe I
should not be going too far in saying the House would have
time for little else. It is the uniform practice with all
governments, and I should be sorry to think the practice
carries any stain with it, for a member of the administration
who chances to entertain opinions differing from those of the
majority of his colleagues, rather than separate himself from
them, to submit to be overruled, and even though he do not
fully concur in their policy, to give his support to the measures
which, as an administration, they promulgate. I will give the
House an instance of this fact. It was very generally reported
on a late occasion, that upon the question of sending troops.
to Portugal a strong difference of opinion took place in the
cabinet. Now would it, I ask, be either just or fair to call on
those who, in the discussion of the cabinet, had spoken in
favour of sending out troops to aid the cause of Donna Maria,
to come down, and in parliament advocate that measure in
opposition to the decision of their colleagues ? No one would
think of doing so.' It may not carry a stain ; but it is a pain
ful idea. It is evident, too, that this necessarily leads to great
apparent changes of opinion— to the professed behef of a
statesman at one moment being utterly different from what it
seems to be at another moment. When a government is
founded, questions A, B,- C, D, E, F, are the great questions of
the day— the matters which are obvious, pressing— which the
public mind comprehends. X, Y, Z, are in the background,
little thought of, obscure. According to the received morality,
no statesman would hesitate to sacrifice the last to the first.
He might have a very strong personal opinion on X, but he
would surrender it to a colleague as the price of his co-operation
on A or B. A few years afterwards times change. Question A
is carried, B settles itself, E and F are forgotten, X becomes
the most important topic of the day. The statesman who con-

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 25
ceded X before, now feels that he no longer can concede it ;
there is no equivalent. He has never in reality changed his
.opinion, yet he has to argue in favour of the very measures
which he endeavoured before to argue against. Everybody
thinks he has changed, and without going into details, the
secrecy of which is esteemed essential to confidential co-opera
tion, it is impossible that he can evince his consistency. It is
impossible to doubt that this is a very serious evil, and it is
plainly one consequent on, or much exaggerated by, a popular
and argumentative government. It is very possible for a con
scientious man, under a bureaucratic government, to co-operate
with the rest of a council in the elaboration and execution of
measures, many of which he thinks inexpedient. Nobody asks
him his opinion ; he has not to argue, or defend, or persuade.
But a free government boasts that it is carried on in the face
of day. Its principle is discussion ; its habit is debate. The
consequence is, that those who conduct it have to defend
measures they disapprove, to object to measures they approve,
to appear to have an accurate opinion on points on which they
really have no opinion. The calling of a constitutional states
man is very much that of a political advocate ; he receives a new
brief with the changing circumstances of each successive day.
It is easy to conceive a cold, sardonic intellect, moved with con
tempt at such a life, casting aside the half-and-half pretences
with which others partly deceive themselves, stating anything,
preserving an intellectual preference for truth, but regarding any
effort at its special advocacy as the weak aim of foolish men,
striving for what they cannot attain. Lord Lyndhurst has shown
us that it is possible to lead the life of Lord Lyndhurst. One
• can conceive, too, a cold and somewhat narrow intellect, capable
of forming, in any untroubled scene, an accurate plain conviction,
.but without much power of. entering into the varying views of
others ; little skilled in diversified argument ; understanding its
own opinion, and not understanding the opinions of others ; — one
can imagine such a mind pained, and cracked, and shattered,

26 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.

by endeavouring to lead a life of ostentatious argument in
favour of others' opinions, of half-concealment of its chill, unal-
tering essence. It will be for posterity to make due allowance
for the variance between the character and the position of Lord
John Russell.
Sir Robert Peel was exactly fit for this life. The word
which exactly fits his oratory is — specious. He hardly ever said
anything which struck you in a moment to be true ; he never
uttered a sentence which for a moment anybody could deny to
be plausible. Once, when they were opposed on a railway bill, the
keen irascibility of Lord Derby stimulated him to observe ' that
no one knew like the right honourable baronet how to dress up
a case for that House.' The art of statement, the power of
detail, the watching for the weak points of an opponent, an
average style adapting itself equally to what the speaker '
believed and what he disbelieved, a business air, a didactic
precision for what it was convenient to make clear, an unctuous
disguise of flowing periods, and ' a deep sense of responsibility '
for what it was convenient to conceal, an enormous facility,
made Sir Robert Peel a nearly unequalled master of the art of
political advocacy. For his times he was perhaps quite un
equalled. He might have failed in times of deep, outpouring
patriotic excitement ; he had not nature enough to express it.
He might have failed in an age when there was nothing to do,
and when elegant personality and the finesse of artistic expres
sion were of all things most required. But for an age of
important business, when there were an unusual number of
great topics to be discussed, but none great enough to hurry
men away from their business habits, or awaken the most
ardent passion or the highest imagination, there is nothing like
the oratory of Peel — able but not aspiring, firm but not
exalted, never great but ever adequate to great affairs. It is
curious to know that he was trained to the trade.
' Soon after Peel was born, his father, the first baronet ¦
finding himself rising daily in wealth and consequence, and

The Character of Sir Robert Peel

believing that money in those peculiar days could always
command a seat in Parliament, determined to bring up his son
expressly for the House of Commons. When that son was
quite a child, Sir Robert would frequently set him on the table,
and say, " Now, Robin, make a speech, and I will give you this
cherry." What few words the little fellow produced were
applauded ; and applause stimulating exertion, produced such
effects that, before Robin was ten years old, he could really
address the company with some degree of eloquence. As he
grew up, his father constantly took him every Sunday into his
private room, and made him repeat, as well as he could, the
sermon which had been preached. Little progress in effecting
this was made, and little was expected at first; but by steady
perseverance the habit of attention grew powerful, and the
sermon was repeated almost verbatim. When at a very dis
tant day the senator, remembering accurately the speech of an
opponent, answered his arguments in correct succession, it was
little known that the power of so doing was originally acquired
in Drayton Church.'
A mischievous observer might say, that something else had
remained to Sir Robert Peel from these sermons. His tone is
a trifle sermonic. He failed where perhaps alone Lord John
Russell has succeeded — in the oratory of conviction.
If we bear in mind the whole of these circumstances ; if we
picture in our minds a nature at once active and facile, easily
- acquiring its opinions from without, not easily devising them
.from within, a large placid adaptive intellect, devoid of irrit
able intense originality, prone to forget the ideas of yesterday,
inclined to accept the ideas of to-day — if we imagine a man
so formed cast early into absorbing, exhausting industry of de
tail* with work enough to fill up a life, with action of itself
enough to render speculation almost impossible— placed too in
a position unsuited to abstract thought, of which the conven
tions and rules require that a man should feign other men's-
thoughts, should impugn his own opinions— we shall begin to

28 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.
imagine a conscientious man destitute of convictions on the
occupations of his life — to comprehend the character of Sir
Robert Peel.
That Sir Robert was a very conscientious man is quite cer
tain. It is even probable that he had a morbid sense of admin
istrative responsibility. We do not say that he was so weighed
down as Lord Liverpool, who is alleged never to have opened his
letters without a pang of foreboding that something had mis
carried somewhere ; but every testimony agrees that Sir Robert
had an anxious sense of duty in detail. Lord Wellesley, some
where in this volume, on an occasion when it would have been
at least equally natural to speak of administrative capacity
and efficient co-operation, mentions only ' the real impressions
which your kindness and high character have fixed in my
mind.' The circumstances of his end naturally produced a
crowd of tributes to his memory, and hardly any of them omit
his deep sense of the obligations of action. The characteristic,
too, is written conspicuously on every line of these memoirs.
Disappointing and external as in some respects they seem, they
all the more evidently bear witness to this trait. They read
like the conscientious letters of an ordinary practical man ; the
great statesman has little other notion than that it is his duty
to transact his business well. As a conspicuous merit, the Duke
of Wellington, oddly enough according to some people's notions
at the time, selected Peel's veracity. ' In the whole course of
my communication with him I have never known an instance
in which he did not show the strictest preference for truth. I
never had, in the whole course of my life, the slightest reason
for suspecting that he stated anything which he did not firmly
believe to be the fact. I could not sit down without stating
what I believe, after a long acquaintance, to have been his most
striking characteristic' Simple people in the country were a
little astonished to hear so strong a eulogy on a man for not
telling lies. They were under the impression that people in
general did not. But tho.se who have considered the tempting

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 29
nature of a statesman's pursuits, the secrets of office, the inevit
able complication of his personal relations, will not be surprised
that many statesmen should be without veracity, or that one
should be eulogised for possessing it. It is to be remarked,
however, in mitigation of so awful an excellence, that Sir Robert
was seldom 'in scrapes,' and that it is on those occasions that
the virtue of veracity is apt to be most severely tested. The
same remark is applicable to the well-praised truthfulness of the
Duke himself.
In conjunction with the great soldier, Sir Robert Peel is
entitled to the fame of a great act of administrative conscience.
He purified the Tory party. There is httle doubt that, during
the long and secure reign which the Tories enjoyed about the
beginning of the century, there was much of the corruption
naturally incident to a strong party with many adherents to
provide for, uncontrolled by an effective Opposition, unwatched
by a great nation. Of course, too, any government remaining
over from the last century would inevitably have adhering to it
various remanet corruptions of that curious epoch. There flou
rished those mighty sinecures and reversions, a few of which
still remain to be the wonder and envy of an unenjoying ge
neration. The House of Commons was not difficult then to
manage. There is a legend that a distinguished Treasury offi
cial of the last century, a very capable man, used to say of any
case which was hopelessly and inevitably bad : ' Ah, we must
apply our majority to this question ; ' and no argument is so
effectual as the mechanical, calculable suffrage of a strong, un
reasoning party. There were doubtless many excellent men in
the Tory party, even in its least excellent days ; but the two
men to whom the party, as such, owes most of purification
w#re the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. From the
time when they became responsible for the management of a
Conservative government, there was no doubt, in office or iD
the nation, that the public money and patronage were adminis
tered by men whom no consideration would induce to use

The Character of Sir Robert Peel.

either for their personal benefit ; and who would, as far as theis
whole power lay, discourage and . prevent the corrupt use oi
either by others. The process by which they succeeded in
conveying this impression is illustrated by a chapter in the
Dean of York's ' Memoir of Peel,' in which that well-known
dignitary recounts the temptations which he applied to the
political purity of his relative : —
While Peel was Secretary for Ireland, I asked him to give a very
trifling situation, nominally in his gift, to a worthy person for whom
I felt an interest. He wrote me word that he was really anxious to
oblige me in this matter, but that a nobleman of much parliamentary-
interest, who supported the government, insisted upon his right to
dispose of all patronage in his own neighbourhood. So anxious was
Peel to show his good will towards me, that he prevailed upon the
Lord-Lieutenant to ask as a favour from the aforesaid nobleman that
the situation might be given to my nominee ; but the marquis replied
that the situation was of no value, yet, to prevent a dangerous prece
dent, he must refuse the application.
In times long after, when Sir Robert Peel became prime minister,
I asked him often in the course of many years for situations for my
sons, which situations were vacant and in his immediate oiffc. I sub-'
join three letters which I received from him on these subjects ; they
were written after long intervals and at different periods, but they all
speak the same language : — Whitehall, December 20 (no date of year). •
My dear Dean ov York— I thank you for your consideration
of what you deem the unrequited sacrifice which I make in the public
service. But I beg to say that my chief consolation and reward is the
.consciousness that my exertions are disinterested— that I have con
sidered official patronage as a public trust, to be applied to the reward
and encouragement of public service, or to the less praiseworthy but
stall necessary, purpose of promoting the general interests of the go
vernment. That patronage is so wholly inadequate to meet the fair-
claims of a public nature, that are daily presented for my consideration
and that constitute the chief torment of office, that I can only over'
come the difficulties connected with the distribution by the utmost :
forbearance as to deriving any personal -advantage from it. If I h-d '*
absolute control over the appointment to which you refer I h W
apply it to the satisfaction of one or other of the engagement °t

The Character of Sir Robert Peel.

which I entered when I formed the government, and which (from the
a,bsolute want of means) remain unfulfilled. But I have informed the
numerous parties who have applied to me on the subject of that ap
pointment, that I feel it to be my duty, on account of the present con
dition of the board and the functions they have to perform, to select
for it some experienced man of business connected with the naval pro
fession, or some man distinguished in that profession.
Believe me, my dear Dean, affectionately yours,
Robert Peel.
I applied again for another place of less importance : the answer
was much the same as before : — Whitehall, April 5, 1843.
Mt dear Dean of York, — I must dispose of the appointment to
which you refer upon the same principle on which I have uniformly
disposed of every appointment of a similar nature.
I do not consider patronage of this kind (and, indeed, I may truly
say it of all patronage) as the means of gratifying private wishes of any
one. Those who have made locally great sacrifices and great exertions
for the maintenance of the political cause which they espouse, have
always been considered fairly entitled to be consulted in respect to the
disposal of local patronage, and would justly complain if, in order to
promote thednterests of a relative of my own, I were to disregard their
recommendations. It would subject me to great personal embarrass
ment, and be a complete departure from the rule to which I have
always adhered.
All patronage of all descriptions, so far from being of the least
advantage personally to a minister, involves him in nothing but embar
rassment. Ever affectionately yours,
Robert Peel.
I publish one more letter of the same kind, because all these letters
exhibit the character of the writer, and contain matters of some pubhc
interest. The distributor of stamps died in the very place where my
son was resident, and where he and I had exerted considerable interest
in. assisting the government members. I thought that now, perhaps,
an exception might be made to the general rule, and I confidently
recommended my eldest son for the vacancy. The following was the
answer : — Whitehall, May 1.
Mt dear Dean,— Whatever arrangements may be made with
. respect to, the office of distributor of stamps, lately held by Mr.  ,

32

The Character of Sir Robert Peel.

I do not feel myself justified in appropriating to myself any share of
the local patronage of a county with which I have not the remotest
connection by property, or any other local tie.
There are three members for the county of  who support the
government ; and, in addition to the applications which I shall no
doubt have from them, I have already received recommendations
from the Duke of .  and Earl  , each having certainly better
claims than I have personally for local appointments in the county
- of  .
I feel it quite impossible to make so complete a departure from the
principles on which I have invariably acted, and which I feel to be
nothing more than consistent with common justice, as to take — shire
offices for my own private puiposes. Very faithfully yours,
Robert Peel. :.
- These letters show the noble principle on which Sir Robert's public
life was founded. I am quite sure that he had a great regard for my
sons. He invited them to his shooting-quarters, was pleased to find
them amusement, and made them many handsome presents ; but he
steadily refused to enrich them out of the public purse merely because
they were his nephews. Many prime ministers have not been so
scrupulous.
And clearly one divine wishes Sir Robert Peel had not been so.
The changes of opinion which Sir Robert Peel underwent
are often cited as indications of a want of conscientiousness.
They really are, subject, of course, to the preceding remarks,
proofs of his conscientiousness. We do not mean in the ob
vious sense of their being opposed to his visible interest, and
having on two great occasions destroyed the most serviceable
party organisation ever ruled by a statesman in a political age ; .;¦:
but in a more refined sense, the timeliness of his transitions
may, without overstraining, be thought a mark of their bona
fides. He could not have changed with such felicitous ex-.
actness, if he had been guided by selfish calculation. The ,
problems were too great and too wide. There have, of course
been a few men — Talleyrand and Theramenes are instances— %
who have seemed to hit, as if by a political sense, the fitting

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 33
moment to leave the side which was about to fall, and to join
the side which was about to rise. But these- will commonly
be found to be men of a very different character from that of
Peel, Minds are divided into open and close. Some men
are so sensitive to extrinsic impressions, pass so easily from
one man to another, catch so well the tone of each man's
thought, use so well the opportunities of society for the pur
poses of affairs, that they are, as it were, by habit and practice,
metrical instruments of pubhc opinion. Sir Robert was by
character, both natural and acquired, the very reverse. He was
a reserved, occupied man of business. In the arts of society
in the easy transition from person to person, from tone to
tone, he was but httle skilled. If he had been left to pick up
his rules of conduct by mere social perception and observation,
his life would have been a life of miscalculations ; instead
of admiring the timeliness of his conversions, we should
wonder at the perversity of his transitions. The case is not
new. In ancient times, at a remarkable moment, in the
persons of two selfish men of genius, the open mind was
contrasted with the close. By a marvellous combination of
successive manoeuvres, Juhus Csesar rose from ruin to empire ;
the spoiled child of society — sensitive to each breath of
opinion — ever living, at least among the externals of enjoy
ment — always retaining, by a genial kindliness of manner,
friends from each of the classes which he variously used. By
what the vulgar might be pardoned for thinking a divine
infatuation, Pompeius lost the best of political positions,
threw away every recurring chance, and died a wandering
exile. As a reserved, ungenial man, he never was able to
estimate the feehng of the time. ' I have only to stamp
with* my foot when the occasion requires, to raise legions
frpm the soil of Italy ! ' were the words of one who could not,
in his utmost need, raise a force to strike one blow for Italy
itself. The fate of Pompeius would have been that of Peel,
if he too had played the game of selfish calculation. His

34 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.
changes, as it has been explained, are to -be otherwise ac
counted for. He was always anxious to do right. An occu
pied man of business, he was converted when other men of
business in the nation were converted.
It is not, however, to be denied that a calm and bland
nature like that of Peel is peculiarly prone to self-illusion.
Many fancy that it is passionate, imaginative men who most
deceive themselves ; and of course they are more tempted — a
more vivid fancy and a more powerful impulse hurry them
away. But they know their own weakness. ' Do you believe
in ghosts, Mr. Coleridge ? ' asked some lady. " No, ma'am, I
have seen too many,' was the answer. A quiet, calm nature;
when it is tempted by its own wishes, is hardly conscious that
it is tempted. These wishes are so gentle, quiet, as it would
say, so ' reasonable,' that it does not conceive it possible to be
hurried away into error by them. Nor is there any hurry.
They operate quietly, gently, and constantly. Such a man will
very much believe what he wishes. Many an imaginative out
cast, whom no man would trust with sixpence, really forms his
opinions on points which interest him by a much more
intellectual process— at least has more purely intellectual
opinions beaten and tortured into bim— than the eminent and 7
respected man of business, in whom every one confides, who is
considered a model of dry judgment, of clear and passionless
equanimity. Doubtless Sir Robert Peel went on believing in
the corn-laws, when no one in the distrusted classes even:
fancied that they were credible.
It has been bitterly observed of Sir Robert Peel, that he;
was 'a Radical at heart;' and, perhaps with a similar thought
m his mind, Mr. Cobden said once, at a League meeting, ' I doJ
not altogether like to give up Peel. You see he is a Lanca-i
shire man.' And it cannot be questioned that, strongly opposed
as Sir Robert Peel was to the Reform Bill, he was really much
more suited to the reformed than to the unreformed House of
Commons. The stvle of debating in the latter was described

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 35

by one who had much opportunity for observation, Sir James
Mackintosh, as ' continuous, animated, after-dinner discussion.'
¦ The House was composed mainly of men trained in two great
schools, on a pecuhar mode of education, with no great real
knowledge of the classics, but with many lines of Virgil and
Horace fingering in fading memories, contrasting oddly with
the sums and business with which they were necessarily
brought side by side. These gentlemen wanted not to be
instructed, but to be amused ; and hence arose what, from the
circumstance of their, calling, may be called the class of con
versationalist statesmen. Mr. Canning was the type of these.
He was a man of elegant gifts, of easy fluency, capable of
embelhshing anything, with a nice wit, gliding swiftly over
the most delicate topics ; passing from topic to topic hke the
raconteur of the dinner-table, touching easily on them all,
-letting them all go as easily ; confusing you as to whether he
knows nothing, or knows everything. The peculiar irritation
which Mr. Canning excited through hfe was, at least in part,
owing to the natural wrath with which you hear the changing
talk of the practised talker running away about all the
universe ; never saying anything which indicates real know
ledge, never saying anything which at the very moment can
be shown to be a blunder; ever on the surface, and ever
ingratiating itself with the superficial. When Mr. Canning
was alive, sound men of all political persuasions — the Duke of
Wellington, Lord Grey — ever disliked him. You may hear old
Liberals to this day declaring he was the greatest charlatan
who ever hved, angry to imagine that his very ghost exists ;
and when you read his speeches yourself, you are at once con-
1 scious of a certain dexterous insincerity which seems to lurk
in the very felicities of expression, and to be made finer with
the very refinements of the phraseology. Like the professional
converser, he seems so apt at the finesse of expression, so prone
to modulate his words, that you cannot imagine him putting
his fine mind to tough thinking, really working, actually grap-
d2

36 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.
phng with the rough substance of a great subject. Of course,
if this were the place for an estimate of Mr. Canning, there
would be some limitation, and much excuse to be offered for all
this. He was early thrown into what we may call an aristocratic
debating society, accustomed to be charmed, delighting in
classic gladiatorship. To expect a great speculator, or a
principled statesman, from such a position, would be expecting
German from a Parisian, or plainness from a diplomatist. He
grew on the soil on which he had been cast; and it is hard,
perhaps impossible, to separate the faults which are due to it
and to him. He and it have both passed away. The old
delicate parliament is gone, and the gladiatorship which it
loved. The progress of things, and the Reform Bill which was
the result of that progress, have taken, and are taking, the
national representation away from the university classes, and
conferring it on the practical classes. Exposition, arithmetic/
detail, reforms— these are the staple of our modern eloquence-. J
The old boroughs which introduced the young scholars are"
passed away ; and even if the young scholars were in parliar \
ment, the subjects do not need the classic tact of expression.
Very plain speaking suits the 'passing tolls," registration of
joint-stock companies,' finance, the Post-office. The petty
regulation of the details of civilisation, which happily is the
daily task of our government, does not need, does not suit, a
recherchi- taste or an ornate eloquence. As is the speech, so
are the men. Sir Robert Peel was inferior to Canning in the.
old parliament; he would have been infinitely superior to him
in the new. The aristocratic refinement, the nice embellish
ment, of the old time, were as alien to him as the detail and
dryness of the new era were suitable. He was admirably fitted
to be where the Reform Bill placed him. He was fitted to work
and explain ; he was not able to charm or to amuse.
In its exact form this kind of eloquence and statesmanship
is peculiar to modern times, and even to this age. In ancient
times the existence of slavery forbade the existence of a middl^

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 37

class eloquence. The Cieon who possessed the tone and the
confidence of the people in trade was a man vulgar, coarse,
speaking the sentiments of a class whose views were narrow
and whose words were mean. So many occupations were con
fined to slaves, that there was scarcely an opening for the sen
sible, moderate, rational body whom we now see. It was, of
course, always possible to express the sentiments and prejudices
of people in trade. It is new to this era, it seems created for
Sir Robert Peel to express those sentiments, in a style refined,
but not too refined ; which will not jar people of high cultiva
tion, which will seem suitable to men of common cares and im
portant transactions.
In another respect Sir Robert Peel was a fortunate man.
The principal measures required in his age were 'repeals.'
From changing circumstances, the old legislation would no
longer suit a changed community ; and there was a clamour,
first for the repeal of one important act, and then of another.
This was suitable to the genius of Peel. He could hardly have
created anything. His intellect, admirable in administrative
routine, endlessly fertile in suggestions of detail, was not of the
class which creates, or which readily even believes an absolutely
new idea. As has been so often said, he typified the practical
•intelligence of his time. He was prone, as has been explained,
to receive the daily deposits of insensibly-changing opinion ; but
he could bear nothing startling ; nothing bold, original, single,
is to be found in his acts or his words. Nothing could be so
suitable to such a mind as a conviction that an existing law was
wrong. The successive gradations of opinion pointed to a clear
and absolute result. When it was a question, as in the case of
the Reform Bill, not of simple abolition, but of extensive and
diflfcult reconstruction, he ' could not see his way.' He could
be convinced that the anti-Catholic laws were wrong, that the
currency laws were wrong, that the commercial laws were
wrong ; especially he could be convinced that the laissez-faire
system was right, and the real thing was to do nothing ; but he

38 The Character of Sir Robert Peel.

was incapable of the larger and higher political construction.
A more imaginative genius is necessary to deal with the con
sequences of new creations, and the structure of an unseen
future. This remark requires one limitation. A great deal of what
is called legislation is really administrative regulation. It does
not settle what is to be done, but how it is to be done ; it does :
not prescribe what our institutions shall be, but directs in
what manner existing institutions shall work and operate. Of
this portion of legislation Sir Robert Peel was an admirable
master. Few men have fitted administrative regulations with
so nice an adjustment to" a prescribed. end. The Currency Act
of 1844 was an instance of this. If you consult the speeches.
by which that bill was introduced and explained to parliament,
you certainly will not find any very rigid demonstrations of
political economy, or dry compactness of abstract principle.
Whether the abstract theory of the supporters of that Act be
sound or unsound, no exposition of it ever came from the lips
of Peel. He assumed the results of that theory ; but no man
saw more quickly the nature of the administrative machinery
which was required. The separation of the departments of the
Bank of England, the limitation of the country issues, though
neither of them original ideas of Sir Robert's own mind, yet
were not, like most of his other important political acts, forced ']
on him from without. There was a general agreement among
the received authorities in favour of a' certain currency theory ;
the administrative statesman saw a good deal before other men
what was the most judicious and effectual way of setting it at
work and regulating its action.
We have only spoken of Sir Robert Peel as a public man,1
and if you wish to write what is characteristic about him, that '
is the way to do so. He was a man whom it requires an effort
to think of as engaged in anything but political business. .
Disraeli tells us that some one said that Peel was never happy
except in the House of Commons, or doing something which '

The Character of Sir Robert Peel. 39
had some relation to something to be done there. In com
mon life, we continually see men scarcely separable as it were
from their pursuits : they are as good as others, but their
visible nature seems almost all absorbed in a certain visible
calhng. When we speak of them we are led to speak of it, when
we would speak of it we are led insensibly to speak of them.
It is so with Sir Robert Peel. So long as constitutional states
manship is what it is now, so long as its function consists in
recording the views of a confused nation, so long as success
in it is confined to minds plastic, changeful, administrative —
we must hope for no better man. You have excluded the
profound thinker; you must be content with what you can
obtain — the business-gentleman.

4°

LORD BROUGHAM.1
[1857.]
It was a bold, perhaps a rash idea, to collect the writings of
Henry Brougham. They were written at such distant dates;
their subjects are so various ; they are often so wedged into the
circumstances of an age — that they scarcely look natural in a
series of volumes. Some men, doubtless, by a strong grasp of
intellect, have compacted together subjects as various; the
finger-marks of a few are on all human knowledge ; others, by
a rare illuminative power, have lit up as many with a light- that
seems peculiar to themselves. Franciscus Baconus sic cogi-
tavit may well illustrate an opera omnia. But Lord Brougham
has neither power; his restless genius has no claim to the
still, illuminating imagination ; his many-handed, apprehensive
intelligence is scarcely able to fuse and concentrate. Variety
is bis taste, and versatility his power. His career has not been
quiet. For many years rushing among the details of an age,
he has written as he ran. There are not many undertakings'
bolder than to collect the works of such a life and such a man.
The edition itself seems a good one. The volumes are con
venient in size, well printed, and fairly arranged. The various
writings it contains have been revised, but not over-revised,-by
their author. It is not, however, of the collection that we wish
to speak. We would endeavour, so far as a few hasty pages
may serve, to delineate the career and character of the writer.
The attempt is among the most difficult. He is still among
1 Works of BZewry Lord Brougham, F.R.S., Member of the National Insti
tute of France and the Eoyal Academy of Naples. London : Griffin.

Lord Brougham. 41

us ; we have not the materials, possibly not the impartiality,
of posterity. Nor have we the familiar knowledge of contem
poraries ; the time when Lord Brougham exerted his greatest
faculties is beyond the pohtical memory of younger men.
There are no sufficient books on the events of a quarter of a
century ago, we have only traditions ; and this must be our
excuse if we fall, or seem to fall, into error and confusion.
The years immediately succeeding the great peace were
years of sullenness and difficulty. The idea of the war had
passed away ; the thrill and excitement of the great struggle
were no longer felt. We had maintained, with the greatest
potentate of modern times, a successful contest for existence.
We had our existence, but we had no more ; our victory had
been great, but it had no fruits. By the aid of pertinacity and
capital, we had vanquished genius and valour ; but no visible
increase of European influence followed. Napoleon said that
Wellington had made peace as if he had been defeated. We
had delivered the Continent ; such was our natural idea : but
the Continent went its own way. There was nothing in its
state to please the everyday Enghshman. There were kings
and emperors ; ' which was very well for foreigners, they had
always been hke that ; but it was not many kings could pay ten
per cent, income-tax.' Absolutism, as such, cannot be popular
in a free country. The Holy Alliance, which made a religion
of despotism, was scarcely to be reconciled with the British
constitution. Altogether we had vanquished Napoleon, but we
had no pleasure in what came after him. The cause which
agitated our hearts was gone ; there was no longer a noise of
victories in the air ; continental affairs were dead, despotic, dull ;
we scarcely liked to think that we had made them so ; with,
weary dissatisfaction we turned to our own condition.
This was profoundly unsatisfactory. Trade was depressed ;
agriculture ruinous; the working class singularly disaffected.
' During the war, our manufacturing industry had grown most
rapidly; there was a not unnatural expectation that, after a

4 2 Lord Brougham.

general peace, the rate of increase would be accelerated. The
whole continent, it was considered, would be opened to us;
Milan and Berlin decrees no longer excluded us ; Napoleon
did not now interpose between 'the nation of shopkeepers'
and its customers ; now he was at St. Helena, surely those
customers would buy? It was half-forgotten that they could;
not. The drain of capital for the war had been, at timesg -
heavily felt in England ; there had been years of poverty and
discredit ; still our industry had gone on, our workshops had
not stopped. We had never known what it was to be the
seat of war, as well as a power at war. We had never known'"
our burdens enormously increased, just when our industry was
utterly stopped ; disarranged as trading credit sometimes was,
it had not been destroyed. No conscription had drained us of
our most efficient consumers. The Continent, south and norths >
had, though not everywhere alike, suffered all these evils ; its
populations were poor, harassed, depressed. They could not
buy our manufactures, for they had no money. The large pre
parations for a continental export lay on hand; our traders
were angry and displeased. Nor was content to be found in
the agricultural districts. During the war, the British farmer
had inevitably a monopoly of this market ; at the approach of
peace, his natural antipathy to foreign corn influenced the-
legislature. The Home Secretary of the time had taken into
consideration whether 76s.. or 80s. was such a remunerating
price as the agriculturist should obtain, and a corn-law had
passed accordingly. But no law could give the farmer famine '
prices, when there was scarcity here and plenty abroad. There \
were riots at the passing of the ' Bread-tax,' as it was ; in
1813, the price of corn was 120s. ; the rural mind was sullen ]
in 1816, when it sunk to 57s. The protectipn given, though
unpopular with the poor, did not satisfy the farmer.
The lower orders in the manufacturing districts were, of
necessity, in great distress. The depression of trade produced
-its inevitable results of closed mills and. scanty employment ¦

Lord Brougham. 43

Wages, when they could be obtaimed, were very low. The
ajrtisan population was then new to the vicissitudes of industry :
how far they are, even now, instructed in the laws of trade,
recent prosperity will hardly let us judge ; but, at that time,
they had no doubt that it was the fault of the State, and if not
of particular statesmen, then of the essential institutions, that
they were in want. They believed the Government ought to
regulate their remuneration, and make it sufficient. During
some straitened years of the war the name of ' Luddites '
became known. They had principally shown their discontent
by breaking certain machines, which they fancied deprived
them of work. Afer the peace, the records of the time are full
of ' Spencean Philanthropists,' ' Hampden Clubs,' and similar
associations, all desiring a great reform — some of mere politics*
others of the law of property and all social economy. Large
meetings were everywhere held, something like those of the
year 1839 : a general insurrection, doubtless a wild dream of a
few hot-brained dreamers, was fancied to have been really
planned. The name ' Radical ' came to be associated with this
discontent. The spirit which, in after years, clamoured dis
tinctly for the five points of the Charter, made itself heard in
mutterings and threatenings.
. Nor were the capitalists, who had created the new wealth,
socially more at ease. Many of them, as large employers of
labour, had a taste for Toryism ; the rule of the people to them
meant the rule of their workpeople. • Some of the wealthiest
and most skilful became associated with the aristocracy, but it
was in vain with the majority to attempt it. Between them
and the possessors of hereditary wealth there was fixed a great
gulf; the contrast of habits, speech, manners, was too wide.
The two might coincide in particular opinions ; they might
agree to support the same institutions ; they might set forth,
in a Conservative creed, the same form of sound words : but,
though the abstract conclusions were identical, the mode of
•holding them— to borrow a subtlety of Father Newman's — was

44 Lord Brougham.

exceedingly different. The refined, discriminating, timorous
immobility of the aristocracy was distinct from the coarse^
dogmatic, keep-downishness of the manufacturer. Yet more,
marked was the contrast, when the opposite tendencies of
temperament had produced, as they soon could not but do, a
diversity of opinion. The case was not quite new in England;
Mr. Burke spoke of the tendency of the first East Indians to
Jacobinism. They could not, he said, bear that their present
importance should have no proportion to their recently-acquired
riches. No extravagant fortunes have, in this century, been.i
made by Englishmen in India ; but Lancashire has been a
California. Families have been created there, whose names we
all know, which we think of when we mention wealth ; some of
which are now, by lapse of time, passing into the hereditary
caste of recognised opulence. This, however, has been a work .
of time ; and, before it occurred, there was no such intermediate
class between the new wealth and the old. 'It takes,' it is
said that Sir Robert Peel observed, ' three generations to make
a gentleman.' In the meantime, there was an inevitable mis
understanding ; the new cloth was too coarse for the old. Be
sides this, many actual institutions offended the eyes of. the
middle class. The state of the law was opposed both to their
prejudices and interests : that you could only recover your I
debts by spending more than the debt, was hard ; and the -
injury was aggravated, the money was spent in ' special plead-.;:-
ing '_< in putting a plain thing so as to perplex and misleadia
plain man.' ' Lord Eldon and the Court of Chancery,' as Sydney
Smith expressed it, ' sat heavy on mankind.' The existence of
slavery in our colonies, strongly supported by a strong aristor
cratic and parliamentary influence, offended the principles of
middle-class Christianity, and the natural sentiments of simple-!
men. The cruelty of the penal law— the punishing with death|
sheep-steahng and shop-lifting— jarred the humanity of that!
second order of Enghsh society, which, from their habits' of
.reading and non-reading, may be called, par excellence, the -

Lord Brougham. 45

scriptural classes. The routine harshness of a not very wise
executive did not mitigate the feeling. The modus operandi .
of Government appeared coarse and oppressive.
We seemed to pay, too, a good deal for what we did not like.
At the close of the war, the ten per cent, income tax was of
course heavily oppressive. The public expenditure was beyond
argument lavish ; and it was spent in pensions, sinecures (for
' them idlers ' in the speech of Lancashire), and a mass of sun
dries, that an economical man of business will scarcely admit
to be necessary, and that even now, afte'r countless prunings,
produce periodically ' financial reform associations,' ' adminis
trative leagues,' and other combinations which amply testify
the enmity of thrifty efficiency to large figures and muddling
management. There had remained from the eighteenth cen
tury a tradition of corruption, an impression that direct pecu
niary malversation pervaded the public offices ; an idea true in
the days of Rigby or Bubb Dodington, but which, like many
other impressions, continued to exist many years after the facts
in which it originated had passed away. Government, in the
hands of such a man as Lord Liverpool, was very different from
government in the hands of Sir Robert Walpole : respectability
was exacted : of actual money-taking there was hardly any. Still,
especially among inferior officials, there was something to shock
modern purity. The size of jobs was large : if the Treasury of
that time could be revived, it would be depressed at the little
ness of whatever is perpetrated in modern administration.
There were petty abuses too in the country— in municipalities
—in charitable trusts— in all outlying public moneys, which
seemed to the offended man of business, who saw them with
his own eyes, evident instances confirming his notion of the
malptactices of Downing Street. 'There are only five httle
boys in the school of Richester ; they may cost 200Z., and the
income is 2000Z., and the trustees don't account for the bal
ance ; which is the way things are done in England : we keeps
an aristocracy,' &c. The whole of this feeling was concentrated

46 Lord Brougham.

into a detestation of rotten boroughs. The very name was
enough : that Lord Dover, with two patent sinecures in the
Exchequer and a good total for assisting in nothing at the
Audit office, should return two members for one house, while
Birmingham, where, they made buttons, — ' as good buttons as
there are in the world, sir,' — returned no members at all, was
an evident indication that reform was necessary. Mr. Canning
was an eloquent man ; but ' even he could not say that a de- !
eaying stump was the people? Gatton and Old Sarum became
unpopular. The source of power seemed absurd, and the use
of power was tainted. Side by side with the incipient Chart
ism of the northern operative, there was growing daily more
distinct and clear the Manchester philosophy, which has since
expressed itself in the Anti-Corn-Law League, and which for good
and evil is now an element so potent in our national life.
Both creeds were forms of discontent. And the counterpoise
was wanting. The English constitution has provided that
there shall always be one estate raised above the storms- of
passion and controversy, which all parties may respect and
honour. The King is to be loved. But this theory requires,
for a real efficiency, that the throne be filled by such a person •
as can be loved. In those times it was otherwise. The no
minal possessor of the crown was a very old man, whom an
incurable malady had long sequestered from earthly things. The
actual possessor of the royal authority was a voluptuary of
overgrown person, now too old for healthy pleasure, and half
sickened himself at the corrupt pursuits in which,- nevertheless,
he indulged perpetually. His domestic vices had become'
disgracefully public. Whatever might be the truth about
Queen Caroline, no one could say she had been well treated.
There was no loyalty on which suffering workers, or an angry
middle class, could repose: all through the realm there was
a miscellaneous agitation, a vague and wandering discontent.%
The official mind of the time was troubled. We have a re
cord of its speculations in the life of Lord Sidmouth, who more

Lord Brougham. 47

than any one perhaps embodied it. He had been Speaker,and was
much inclined to remedy the discontent of the middle classes
by ' naming them to the House.' A more conscientious man
perhaps has never filled a public position. If the forms of the
House of Commons had been intuitively binding, no one could
have obeyed them better : the ' mace ' was a ' counsel of per
fection ' to him ; all disorder hateful. In the Home Office it
was the same. The Luddites were people who would not
obey the Speaker. Constituted authority must be enforced.
The claims of a suffering multitude were not so much neglected
as unappreciated. A certain illiberality, as we should now
speak, pervades the whole kind of thought. The most striking
feature is an indisposition, which by long indulgence has
become an inability, to comprehend another person's view, to
put oneself in another's mental place, to think what he thinks,
to conceive what he inevitably " is. Lord Sidmouth referred
to the file. He found that Mr. Pitt had put down disaffection
by severe measures. Accordingly, he suspended the Habeas
Corpus Act, passed six Acts, commended a Peterloo massacre,
not with conscious unfeelingness, but from an absorbed offi
ciality, from a knowledge that this was what ' the department '
had done before, and an inference that this must be done again.
As for the reforming ideas of the middle classes, red tape
had never tied up such notions ; perhaps it was the French
-Revolution over again : you could not tolerate them.
Between such a dominant mind as this, and such a subject
mind as has been described, there was a daily friction. The situ
ation afforded obvious advantages to enterprising men. Its pecu
liarity did not escape the shrewd eyes of John Lord Eldon. 'If,'
said the Conservative Chancellor, ' I were to begin hfe again,
4^  n my eyes, but I would begin as an agitator.' Henry
Brougham did so begin. During the war he had distinguished
himself in the exposition ofthe grievances ofthe trading interest.
Our Government had chosen a mode of carrying it on specially
fitted to injure our commerce. 'Napoleon had said that no

Lord Brougham.

vessel should touch a British port, and then enter a French one,
or one under French control. The Orders in Council said that
no vessel whatever should enter any such port without having
first touched at some port of Great Britain.' ] The natural results
were the annihilation of our trade with the Continent and a quar
rel with the United States. The merchants ofthe country were
alarmed at both consequences. Perhaps until then men hardly,
knew how powerful our trading classes had become. Meetings
were held in populous places; petitions in great numbers — an,
impressive and important thing in those times — were presented. ¦
Wherever foreign commerce existed, the discontent expressed
itself in murmurs. The forms of the House of Commons were
far more favourable than they now are to action from without;
and this is not unnatural, since there had been as yet but few
actions from without, and it had not been necessary to have a
guard against them. ' The petitions, as has been said, were nu
merous ; and on the presentation of each there was a speech
from the member presenting it, trying to bring on a debate, and
suggesting topics which might irritate the ministry and con
vince the country.' Mr. Brougham was always in his place.*
' Hardly an hour passed without detecting some false statement :
or illogical argument ; hardly a night passed without gaining
some convert to the cause of truth.' The result was decisive.
'Although opposed by the whole weight of the Govern
ment both in public and out of doors ; although at first vigo
rously resisted by the energy,- the acuteness, the activity,.;
and the expertness which made Mr. Perceval one of the
first debaters of his day; although, after" his death, the
struggle was maintained by the father of the system 2 with
all his fire and with his full knowledge of the subject-^.
nay, although7 the Ministry risked their existence on the
question, the victory remained with the petitioners. The
Orders in Council were abolished, and the efficacy : of
This and the following quotations are from the Speeches of Lord'
Brougham and the Introductions to them, published in 1838. The latter were
'written by himself . 2 Mr. Stephen.

Lord Brougham. 49

"agitation proved. ' The session of 1816 offered an example yet
more remarkable of the same tactics being attended with signal
success. On the termination of the war, the Government
were determined, instead of repealing the whole income-tax,
which the law declared to be " for and during the continuance
of the war, and no longer," to retain one-half of it.' ' As soon
as this intention was announced, several meetings were held.'
Some petitions were presented. Mr. Brougham declared that,
if the motion ' were pressed on Thursday, he should avail
himself of the forms of the House.' Of course the unpopu
larity of paying money was decisive ; the income-tax fell. The
same faculty of aggression, which had been so successful in
these instances, was immediately so applied as to give voice to
the sullenness of the country ; to express forms of discontent
as real, though not with an object as determinate.
Mr. Brougham did not understate his case : ' There is one
branch of the subject which I shall pass over altogether — I mean
the. amount of the distresses which are now universally admitted
to. prevail over almost every part of the empire. Upon this
3 topic all men are agreed ; the statements connected with it
are as unquestionable as they are afflicting.' Nor did he shrink
from detail. ' I shall suppose,' he observed to the House, ' a
farm of 400 acres of fair, good land, yielding a rent of from
5001. to 600L a-year.' 'It will require a four years' course —
200 acres being in corn, 100 in fallow, and 100 in hay and
grass ; ' and he seems to prove that at least it ought not to
answer, ' independently of the great rise in lime and all sorts
of manure.' The commercial mania of the time takes its turn
in the description. 'After the cramped state in which the
enemy's measures, and our own retaliation (as we termed it)
had "kept our trade for some years, when the events of spring
1814 suddenly opened the Continent, a rage for exporting
goods of every kind burst forth, only to be explained by re
flecting on the previous restrictions we had been labouring
under, and only to be equalled (though not in extent) by some

50 Lord Brougham.

of the mercantile delusions connected with South American
speculations. Everything that could be shipped was sent off.;
all the capital that could be laid hold of was embarked. The
frenzy, I can call it nothing less, after the experience of 1806
and 1810, descended to persons in the humblest circumstances
and the farthest removed, by their pursuits, from commercial!
cares. It may give the committee some idea of this disease, f|j|
I state what I know to have happened in one or two places.
Not only clerks and labourers, but menial servants, engaged -
the little sums which they had been laying up for a provision
against old age and sickness ; persons went round tempting.^
them to adventure in the trade to Holland, and Germany, and
the Baltic ; they risked their mite in the hopes of boundless
profits ; it went with the millions of the more regular traders :
the bubble soon burst, like its predecessors of the South Sea,-;
the Mississippi, and Buenos Ayres ; English goods were selling?
for much less in Holland and the north of Europe than in
London and Manchester; in most places they were lying a
dead weight without any sale at all; and either no returns
whatever were received, or pounds came back for thousands
that had gone forth. The great speculators broke ; the-.
middling ones lingered out a precarious existence, deprived of
all means of continuing their dealings either at home or abroad ;
the poorer dupes of the delusion had lost their little hoards,
and went upon the parish the next mishap that befel them ;
but the result of the whole has been much commercial distress
=-a caution now absolutely necessary in trying new adventures
—a prodigious diminution in the demand for manufactures, and
indirectly a serious defalcation in the effectual demand for the
produce of land.'
Next year Mr. Brougham described as the worst season
ever known. The year 1812, a year before esteemed one of
much suffering, rose in comparison to one of actual prosperity
He began with the ' clothing, a branch of trade which, from acci- '
dental circumstances, is not as depressed as our other greaitl

Lord Brougham. . 5 1

staples ; ' he passed to the iron trade, &c. &c. He dilated on
the distress, the discontent and suffering of the people. Of
course the Government were to blame. He moved that the
'unexampled' difficulties of trade and manufactures were
'materially increased by the policy pursued with respect
to our foreign commerce — that the continuance of these
difficulties is in a great degree owing to the severe pressure
of taxation under which the country labours, and which ought
by every practicable means to be lightened — that the system
of -foreign policy pursued by his Majesty's ministers has not
been such as to obtain for the people of this country those
commercial advantages which the influence of Great Britain
in foreign countries fairly entitled them to expect.' As be
came a pupil of the Edinburgh University, Mr. Brougham was
not averse to political economy. He was ready to discuss the
theory of rent or the corn-laws. He made a speech, which he
relates as having had a greater success than any other which he
made in Parhament, in support of Mr. Calcraft's amendment,
to 'substitute 192,6382. 4s. 9d. for 385,276Z. 9s. 6d., the esti
mate for the household troops.' Foreign policy was a favourite
topic Almost unsupported, as he said some years after, he
attacked the Holy Alliance. Looking back through the soften
ing atmosphere of reminiscence, he almost seems to have a
kindness for Lord Castlereagh. He remembers with pleasure
the utter ' courage with which he exposed himself unabashed to
the most' critical audience in the world, while incapable of utter
ing anything but the meanest matter, expressed in the most
wretched language ; ' nor has he ' forgotten the kind of pride
that mantled on the fronts ofthe Tory phalanx when, after being
overwhelmed with the fire of the Whig Opposition, or galled by
the fierce denunciations of the Mountain, or harassed by the
splendid -displays of Mr. Canning, their chosen leader stood
forth, and presenting the graces of his eminently patrician
figure, flung open his coat, displayed an azure ribbon traversing
a snow-white chest, and declared 'his high, satisfaction that he
e2

52 Lord Brougham.

could now meet the charges against him face to face, and repel
with indignation all that his adversaries had been bold and rash
enough to advance. But the- ' Mr. Brougham ' of that time
showed no admiration; no denunciations were stronger than
his; no sarcasm impinged more deeply; if the ' noble lord in
the blue ribbon ' wished anyone out of the House, the ' man
from the Northern Circuit ' was probably that one. Kings and
emperors met with little mercy, and later years have shown
how little was merited by the petty absolutism and unthinking
narrowness of that time.
That Mr. Brougham indissolubly connected the education
movement with his name everybody knows, but scarcely
anyone remembers how unpopular that movement was. Mr.
Windham had said, some years before, ' That the diffusion of
knowledge was proper, might be supported by many good
arguments ; but he confessed he was a sceptic on that point;?
It was said, Look at the state of the savages as compared with
ours. A savage among savages was very weU, and the dif-.
ference was only perceived when he came to be introduced into ;-.
civilised society.' ' His friend Dr. Johnson was of opinion
that it was not right to teach reading beyond a certain ex
tent in society.' The same feehng continued. Mr. Peel, in
his blandest tones, attacked the education committee. Lord
Stowell, not without sagacity, observed, ' If you provide a larger
amount of highly-cultivated talent than there is a demand for, the
surplus is very likely to turn sour.' Such were the sentiments
of some of the best scholars of that era ; and so went all ortho
dox sentiment. That education was the same as republicanism,;
and republicanism as infidelity, half the curates beheved. But,
in spite of all this opposition, perhaps with more relish on
account of it, Mr. Brougham was ever ready. He was a kind of
prophet of knowledge. His voice was heard in the streets. He
preached the gospel of the alphabet ; he sang the praises of the
primer all the day long. ' Practical observations,' ' discourses '
« speeches,' exist, terrible to all men now. To the kind of edu-

Lord Brougham. 53

cation then advocated there may be objections. We may object
to the kind of ' knowledge ' then most sought after ; but there
can be no doubt that those who then laboured in its behalf must
be praised for having inculcated, in the horrid heat of the day,,
as a boring paradox what is now a boring commonplace.
Our space would fail us if we were to attempt to recount
"Brougham's labours on the slavery question, on George IV.
and Queen Caroline, or his hundred encounters with the
- routine statesmen. The series commenced at the Peace, but
it continued for many years. Is not its history written in the
chronicles of Parliament ? You must turn the leaves — no
unpleasant reading — of those old debates, and observe how
often Mr. Brougham's name occurs, and on what cumbrous
subjects, before you can estimate the frequency of his attacks
and the harassing harshness of his labour. One especial sub
iect was his more than any other man's — law reform. He had
Romilly and Mackintosh as fellow-labourers in the ameliora
tion of the penal code ; he had their support, and that of some
others, in his incessant narrations of the grievances of indi
viduals, and denunciations of the unfeeling unthinkingness of
our Home administration ; but no man grappled so boldly — we
had almost said so coarsely — with the crude complexities of our
civil jurisprudence : for a rougher nature, a more varied know
ledge of action than we can expect of philanthropists were
needed for that task. The subject was most difficult to deal
with. The English commerce and civihsation had grown up in
the meshes of a half-feudal code, further complicated with the
curious narrowness and spirit of chicane which haunt every
where the law-courts of- early times. The technicahty which
produced the evil made the remedy more difficult. There was
no f eneral public opinion on the manner of reform ; the public
felt the evil, but no one could judge of the efficacy of a remedy,
save persons studious in complicated learning, who would
hardly beexpected to show how that learning could be rendered
useless — hardly, indeed, to imagine a world in which it did not-

.

5 \ Lord Brougham.

exist. The old creed, that these ingenious abuses were the
last 'perfection of reason,' still lingered. It must give Lord
Brougham some pride to reflect how many of the improvements
which he was the first to popularise, if not to suggest, have
been adopted — how many old abuses of detail, which he first
indicated to Parliament, exist no longer — how many more are
now admitted by everybody to be abuses, though the mode of
abolition is contested. The speech on law reform, which, he
published in the collected edition of his speeches, is nearly a
summary of all that has been done or suggested in common or
civil law reform for the last thirty years. The effect which so
bold an attack on so many things by a single person produced ¦
in that conservative time was prodigious. -'There never was
such a nuisance as the man is,' said an old lawyer whom we
knew ; and he expressed the feeling of his profession. If we
add, that beside all these minor reforms and secondary agitar..
tions, Mr. Brougham was a bold advocate of Catholic emanci
pation and parliamentary reform — the largest heresies of that
epoch — we may begin to understand the sarcasm of Mr.
Canning : ' The honourable and learned gentleman having, in
the course of his parliamentary life, supported or proposed'
almost every species of innovation which could be practised on
the constitution, it was not very easy for ministers to do any
thing without seeming to borrow from him. Break away in
what direction they would, whether to the right or to the left,
it was all alike. « Oh," said the honourable gentleman, " I was
there before you : you would not have thought of that if I had
not given you a hint." In the reign of Queen Anne there was
a sage and grave critic of the name of Dennis, who in his old age
got it into his head that he had written all the good plays
which were acted at that time. At last a tragedy came forth
with a most imposing display of hail and thunder. At the first
peal, Dennis exclaimed : " That is my thunder ! " So with the
honourable and learned gentleman ; there was no noise astir for'
the good of mankind in any part of the world, but he instantly

L ord Brougham. 5 5

claimed it for his thunder.' We may have wearied our readers
with these long references to old conflicts, but it was necessary.
We are famihar with the aberrations of the ex-ChanceUor ; we
forget how bold, how efficacious, how varied was the activity of
Henry Brougham.
There are several qualities in his genius which make such a
life peculiarly suited to him. The first of these is an aggressive,
impulsive disposition. Most people may admit that the world
goes ill ; old abuses seem to exist, questionable details to
abound. Hardly anyone thinks that' anything may not be
made better. But how to improve the world, to repair the
defects, is a difficulty. Immobility is a part of man. A sluggish
conservatism is the basis of our Enghsh nature. ' Learn, my
son,' said the satirist, ' to bear tranquilly the calamities of others.'
We easily learn it. Most men have a line of life, and it im
poses certain duties which they fulfil ; but they cannot be
induced to start out of that line. We dwell in ' a firm basis of
content.' ' Let the mad world go its own way, for it will go its
own way.' There is no doctrine of the English Church more
agreeable to our instinctive taste than that which forbids all
works of supererogation. 'You did a thing without being
obhged,' said an eminent statesman: 'then that must be
wrong.' We travel in the track. Lord Brougham is the
opposite of this. It is not difficult to him to attack abuses.
The more difficult thing for him would be to hve in a world
without abuses. An intense excitability is in his nature. He
must ' go off.' He is eager to reform corruption, and rushes out to
refute error. A tolerant placidity is altogether denied to him.
And not only is. this excitabihty eager, it is many-sided.
The men who have in general exerted themselves in labours for
others, have generally been rather of a brooding nature ; certain
ideas, views and feelings have impressed themselves on them
in sohtude ; they come forth with them among the crowd, but
they have no part in its diversified hfe. They are almost
irritated by it. They have no conception except of their cause ;

56 Lord Brougham.

they are abstracted in one thought, pained with the dizziness of '
a heated idea. There is nothing of this in Brougham. He. is,.
excited by what he sees. The stimulus is from without. He
saw the technicalities of the law-courts ; observed a charitable
trustee misusing the charity moneys ; perceived that George
IV. oppressed Queen Carohne; went to Old Sarum. He is not"
absorbed in a creed : he is pricked by facts. Accordingly," his
activity is miscellaneous. The votary of a doctrine is concen
trated, for the logical consequences of a doctrine are limited.
But an open-minded man, who is aroused by what he sees, quick
at discerning abuses, ready to reform anything which he thinks
goes wrong — will never have done acting. The details of hfe
are endless, and each of them may go wrong in a hundred ways.
Another faculty of Brougham (in metaphysics it is perhaps,. ;
but a phase of the same) is the faculty of easy anger. The
supine placidity of civilisation is not favourable to animosity. A
placid Conservative is perhaps a httle pleased that the world is
going a little ill. Lord Brougham does not feel this. Like an
Englishman on the Continent, he is ready to blow up anyone.
He is a Jonah of detail ; he is angry at the dust of life, and
wroth with the misfeasances of employes. The most reverber
ating of bastinadoes is the official mind basted by Brougham.
You did this wrong ; why did you omit that ? Document C
ought to be on the third file ; paper D is wrongly docketed in
the ninth file. Red tape will scarcely succeed when it is ques
tioned; you should take it as Don Quixote did his helmet,
without examination, for a most excellent helmet. A vehement,
industrious man proposing to untie papers and not proposing
to spare errors is the terror of a respectable administrator.
'Such an impracticable man, sir, interfering with ,the office,
attacking private character, messing in what cannot concern:
him.' These are the jibes which attend an irritable anxiety for
the good of others. They have attended Lord Brougham- through
life. He has enough of misanthropy to be a philanthropist.
How much of this is temper, and how much public spirit, it

Lord Brougham. 57

is not for anyone to attempt to say. That a natural pleasure
in wrath is part of his character, no one who has studied the
career of Brougham can doubt. But no fair person can doubt,
either, that he has shown on many great occasions — and, what
is more, on many petty occasions — a rare zeal for the public
welfare. He may not be capable of the settled calm by which
the world is best administered. There is a want of consistency
in his goodness, of concentration in his action. The gusts of
passion pass over him, and he is gone for a time you can scarcely
say where. But, though he is the creature of impulse, his im
pulses are often generous and noble ones. No one would do
what he has done, no one could have the intense motive power
to do what he has done, without a large share of diffused un
selfishness. The irritation of the most acute excitability would
not suffice. It is almost an axiom in estimates of human
nature, that in its larger operations all that nature must
concur. Doubtless there is a thread of calculation in the
midst of his impulses ; no man rises to be lord-chancellor with
out, at least in lulls and intervals of impulse, a most dis
criminating and careful judgment of men and things and
chances. But after every set-off and abatement, and with
out any softening of unamiable indications, there will yet
remain — and a long series of years will continue to admire it —
an eager principle of disinterested action.
Lord Brougham's intellectual powers were as fitted for the
functions of a miscellaneous agitator as his moral character.
The first of these, perhaps, is a singular faculty of conspicuous
labour. In general, the work.of agitation proceeds in this way :
a conspicuous, fascinating popular orator is ever on the surface,
ever ready with appropriate argument, making motions, attract
ing pubhc attention ; beneath and out of sight are innumerable
workers and students, unfit for the public eye, getting up the
lacts, elaborating conclusions, supplying the conspicuous orator
with the data on wbich he lives. There is a perpetual contro
versy, when the narrative of the agitation comes to be written,

58 Lord Brougham.

whether the merit of what is achieved belongs to the skilful ad
vocate who makes a subtle use of what is provided for him, or
the laborious inferiors and juniors who compose the brief and
set in order the evidence. For all that comes before the pubhc,
Lord Brougham has a wonderful power : he can make motions,,
addresses^ orations, when you wish and on what you wish. He
is like a machine for moving amendments. He can keep at
work any number of persons under him. Every agitation has a
tendency to have an office ; some league, some society, some
body of labourers must work regularly at its details. Mr.,
Brougham was able to rush hither and thither through a hun
dred such kinds of men, and gather up the whole stock of the
most recent information, the extreme decimals of the statistics,
and diffuse them immediately with eager comment to a listen
ing world. This may not be, indeed is not, the strictest and
most straining kind of labour ; the anxious, wearing, verifying,
self-imposed scrutiny of scattered and complicated details is a
far more exhausting task ; it is this which makes the eye dim
and the face pale and the mind heavy. The excitement of a
multifarious agitation will carry the energies through much ;
the last touches, and it is these which exhaust, need not be
put on any one subject. Yet, after all deductions, such a career
requires a quantity far surpassing all that most men have of
life and verve and mind.
Another advantage of Lord Brougham is his extreme readi
ness ; what he can do, he can do at a moment's notice. He has
always had this power. Lord Holland, in his Memoirs referring
to transactions which took place many years ago, gives an illus
tration of it. ' The management of our press,' he is speaking, ¦:
of the question of the general election of 1807, ' fell into the '
hands of Mr. Brougham. With that active and able individual
I had become acquainted through Mr. Allen in 1805. At the
formation of Lord Grenville's ministry, he had written, at my
suggestion, a pamphlet called the " State of theNation." He sub
sequently accompanied Lord Rosslyn to Lisbon. His early con- -

Lord Brougham. 59

nection with the Abolitionists had familiarised him with the
means of circulating political papers, and given him some weight
with those best qualified to co-operate in such an undertaking.
His extensive knowledge, his extraordinary readiness, his assi
duity and habits of composition, enabled him to correct some
articles, and to furnish a prodigious number himself. With
partial and scanty assistance from Mr. Allen, myself, and one
or two more, he in the course of a few days filled every book
seller's shop with pamphlets — most London newspapers, and all
country ones without exception, with paragraphs — and supplied
a large portion of the boroughs throughout the kingdom with
handbills adapted to the local interests of the candidates, and all
tending to enforce the conduct, elucidate the measures, or ex.-
pose the adversaries of the Whigs.'
Another power which was early remarked of Brougham, and
which is as necessary as any to an important leader in great
movements, is a skilful manipulation of men. Sir James
Mackintosh noted in his Journal, on January 30, 1818 : ' The
address and insinuation of Brougham are so great, that nothing
but the bad temper which he cannot always hide could hinder
him from mastering everybody as he does Romilly. He leads
others to his opinion ; he generally appears at first to concur
with theirs, and never more than half opposes it at once. This
management is helped by an air of easy frankness that would
lay suspicion itself asleep. He will place himself at the head of
an opposition among whom he is unpopular ; he will conquer the
House of Commons, who hate, but now begin to fear him.' An
observer of feces would fancy he noted in Lord Brougham this
pliant astuteness marred by ill-temper. It has marked his career.
Another essential quality in multifarious agitation is an
extreme versatility. No one can deny Lord Brougham this.
An apparently close observer has described him: 'Take the
routine of a day, for instance. In his early hfe he has been
known to attend, in his place in court, on circuit, at an early
hour in the morning. After having successfully pleaded the.

60 Lord Brougham,

cause of his client, he drives off to the hustings, and dehvers,
at different places, eloquent and spirited speeches to the elec
tors. He then sits down in the retirement of his closet to pen
an address to the Glasgow students, perhaps, or an elaborate
article in the " Edinburgh Review." The active labours of the
day are closed with preparation for the court business of the
following morning ; and then, in place of retiring to rest, as
ordinary men would after such exertions, he spends the night
in abstruse study, or in social intercourse with some friend
from whom he has been long separated. Yet he would be
seen, as early as eight on the following morning, actively
engaged in the court, in defence of some unfortunate object of
government persecution, astonishing the auditory, and his
fellow-lawyers no less, with the freshness and power of his elo
quence. A fair contrast with this history of a day, in early
life, would be that of one at a more advanced period ; say, in
the year 1832. A watchful observer might see the new Lord
Chancellor seated in the court over which he presided, from an
early hour in the morning until the afternoon, listening to the
arguments of counsel, and mastering the points of cases with a
grasp of mind that enabled him to give those speedy and un
embarrassed judgments that have so injured him with the
profession. If he followed his course, he would see him, soon
after the opening of the House of Lords, addressing their lord
ships on some intricate question of law, with an acuteness that
drew down approbation even from his opponents ; or, on some
all-engrossing political topic, casting firebrands into the camp
of the enemy, and awakening them from the complacent repose
of conviction to the hot contests with more active and inquiring.
inteUects. Then, in an hour or so, he might follow him to the
Mechanics' Institution, and hear an able and stimulating dis
course on education, admirably adapted to the peculiar capacity.
of his auditors; and towards ten, perhaps, at a Literary and
Scientific Institution in Marylebone, the same Proteus-like:
intellect might be found expounding the intricaeies of physical

Lord Brougham. 61

science with a never-tiring and elastic power. Yet, during all
those multitudinous exertions, time would be found for the
composition of a discourse on Natural Theology, that bears no
marks of haste or excitement of mind, but presents as calm a
face as though it had been the laborious production of a con
templative philosopher.' We may differ in our estimate of the
quality of these various efforts ; but no one can deny to him
who was capable of them a great share in what Adam Smith
mentioned as one of the most important facilities to the in
tellectual labourer — a quickness in ' changing his hand.'
Nor would any of these powers be sufficient, without that
which is, in some sense, the principle of them all — an enter
prising intellect. In the present day this is among the rarest of
gifts. The speciahty of pursuits is attended with a timidity of
mind. Each subject is given up to men who cultivate it, and
it only ; who are familiar with its niceties and absorbed in its
details. There is no one who dares to look at the whole. ' I
have taken.aM knowledge to be my province,' said Lord Bacon.
The notion, and still more the expression, of it seems ridiculous
now. The survey of each plot in the world of knowledge is
becoming more complete. We shall have a plan of each soon,
on a seven-inch scale ; but we are losing the picturesque pic
tures of the outside and surface of knowledge in the survey of
its whole. We have the petty survey, as we say, but no chart,
no globe of the entire world ; no bold sketch of its obvious
phenomena, as they strike the wayfarer and impress themselves
on the imagination. The man of the speciality cannot describe
the large outlines ; he is too close upon the minutiae ; he does
o t know the relations of other knowledge, and no one else
dares to infringe on his province — on the ' study of his life ' —
foffear of committing errors in detail which he alone knows,
and which he may expose. Lord Brougham has nothing of
this cowardice. He is ready to give, in their boldest and most
general form, the rough outlines of knowledge as they strike
the man of the world, occupied in its affairs and familiar with

62 Lord Brougham.

its wishes. He is not cooped up in a single topic, and he has
no dread of those who are. He may fall into error, but he
exhibits a subject as it is seen by those who know other
subjects, by a man who knows the world ; he at least attempts
an embracing conception of his topic, he makes you feel its con
nection with reality and affairs. He has exhibited this virtue
at all stages of his career, but it was most valuable in his
earlier time. There is no requisite so important as intel-"
leetual courage in one who seeks to improve all things in all
ways. His oratory also suits the character of the hundred-subject
agitator well. It is rough-and-ready. It abounds in sarcasm,
in vituperation, in aggression. It does not shrink from detail.
It would batter any thing at any moment. We may think
as we will on its merits as a work of art, but no one can deny
its exact adaptation to a versatile and rushing agitator — to a
Tribune of detail.
The deficiencies of Brougham's character — in some eases they
seem but the unfavourable aspects of its excellences — were also
fitted for his earher career. The first of these, to say it in a sen
tence, is the want of a thinking intellect. A miscellaneous agi
tator must be ready to catch at anything, to attack everything;
to blame anyone. This is not the life for a mind of anxious
deliberation. The patient philosopher, who is cautious in his
positions, dubious of his data, slow in his conclusions, must fail
at once. He would be investigating while he should attack, in
quiring while he should speak. He could not act upon a
chance ; the moment of action would be gone. A sanguine and
speedy intellect, ready to acquire, by its very idea all but ex
cludes the examining, scrupulous, hesitating intellect which
reflects. Nor would a man of very sensitive judgment endure such a
career. An agitator must err by excess ; a delicate nature errs
by defects. There is a certain coarseness in the abusive breed.
A Cleon should not feel failure. No man has ever praised very

Lord Brougham. 63

highly Lord Brougham's- judgment; but to have exceedingly
improved it would perhaps have impaired his earlier utility.
You might as fitly employ some delicate lady as a rough-rider,
as a man of a poising, refining judgment in the task of a
grievance- stater.
Harsh nerves, too, are no disadvantage. Perhaps they are
essential. Very nice nerves would shrink from a scattered and
jangled life. Three days out of six the sensitive frame would
be jarred, the agitator, would be useless. It is possible, indeed,
to imagine that in a single noble cause — a cause that would
light up the imagination, that would move the inner soul, a
temperament the most delicate, a frame that is most poetic,
might well be absorbingly interested. A little of such quahties
may be essential. The apostle of a creed must have the nature
to comprehend that creed ; his fancy must take it in, his
feelings realise it, his nature absorb it. To move the finer
nature, you need the deeper nature. Perhaps even in a
meaner cause, in a cause which should take a hold on the
moving mob, sway the masses, rule the popular fancy, rough as
the task of the mob-orator is, you require the delicate imagina
tion. One finds some trace of it — still more of what is its
natural accompaniment, a sweet nature — buried in the huge
frame and coarse exterior of O'Connell. No unpoetie heart
could touch the Irish people. Lord Brougham is prose itself.
He was described, many years ago, as excelling all men in a
knowledge of the course of exchange. ' He is,' continued the
satirist, ' apprised of the exact state of our exports and imports,
and scarce a ship clears out its cargo at Liverpool or Hull but
he has the notice of the bill of lading.' To explain the griev
ances of men of business needs no poetic nature. It scarcely
negds the highest powers of invective. There is something
nearly ridiculous in being the ' Mirabeau of sums.'
There is a last quality, which is difficult to describe in the
language of books, but which Lord Brougham excels in, and
which has perhaps been of more value to him than all his

64 Lord Brougham*

other qualities put together. In the speech of ordinary' men
it ia' called ' devil; ' persons instructed in the German language
call it 'the demonic element.' What it is one can hardly
express in a single sentence. It is most easily explained by
physiognomy. There is a glare in some men's eyes which seems
to say, ' Beware, I am dangerous ; noli me tangere.'. Lord
Brougham's face has this. A mischievous excitability, is the
most obvious expression of it. If he were a horse, nobody
would buy him; with that eye, no one could answer for his
temper. Such men are often not really resolute, but they are
not pleasant to be near in a difficulty. They have an aggressive
eagerness which is formidable. They would kick against, the
pricks sooner than not kick at all. A little of the demon is
excellent for an agitator.
His peculiar adaptation to his peculiar career raised Mr,
Brougham, in a few years, to a position such as few men have
ever obtained in England — such as no other man perhaps has
attained by popular agitation. When he became member, for
Yorkshire, in 1830, he was a power in the country. The cause
which he was advocating had grown of itself. The power of the
middle classes, especially ofthe commercial classes, had increased,! ;;
Lord Eldon was retiring. Lord Sidmouth had retired. What
we now call ' liberality' was coming into fashion. Men no longer
regarded the half-feudal constitution as a ' form of thought.'
Argument was at least thought fair. And this seems likely and
natural. No one can wonder that the influence of men of
business grew with the develppment of business, and that they
adopted the plain, straightforward, cautious creed, which we now
know to be congenial to them. It is much more difficult to ex
plain how reform became a passion. The state of the public
mind during the crisis of the Reform Bill is one which those
who cannot remember it cannot understand. The popular^
enthusiasm, the intense excitement, the rush of converts the
union of rectors and squires with those against whom they had
respectively so long preached and sworn, the acclamation for;

Lord Brougham. 65

the ' whole bill and nothing but the bill,' are become utterly
strange. As the first French Assembly in a single night
abohshed, with public outcry, the essential abuses of the old
regime, so our fathers at once, and with enthusiasm, abolished
the close boroughs and the old representation, the lingering
abuses of half-feudal England. The present Frenchmen are
said not to comprehend August 4 : we can hardly understand
the year '32. An apathy has fallen upon us. But we can
nevertheless, and without theorising, comprehend what an
advantage such an enthusiasm was to the Liberals of that time.
Most Whig ministries have been hke Low-Church bishops.
There is a feeling that the advocates of liberty ought
scarcely to coerce ; they have ruled, but they seem to deny the
succession by which they ruled ; they have been distrusted by
a vague and half-conservative sentiment. In the tumult of
1 832 all such feelings were carried away. Toryism was abolished
¦with delight.
Mr. Brougham was among the first to share the advantage.
There is a legend that in the first Whig ministry Lord Brougham
was offered the post of Attorney-general, and that he only re
phed by disdainfully tearing up the letter containing the offer.
Whether the anecdote be literally true or not, we cannot say.
The first of the modern Whig ministries is in the post-histori-
: cal period. We have not yet enough of contemporary evidence
to be sure of its details : years must pass before the memoir-
writers can accumulate. But in spirit the tale is doubtless
accurate. Lord Grey did not wish to make Mr. Brougham
Lord-Chancellor, and Mr. Brougham refused any inferior place
as beneath his merits and his influence. The first Whig
ministry were, indeed, in a position of some difficulty. The
noticfo. that a successful Opposition, as such, should take the
reins of administration, has been much derided. ' Sir,' said a
sceptic on this part of constitutional government, ' I would as
soon choose for a new coachman the man who shied stones best at
my old one ! ', And, without going the length of such critics, it
F

66 Lord Brougham.

must be allowed that the theory may produce odd results, when"
the persons summoned by their victory to assume office have
been for many years in opposition. The party cannot have-
acquired official habits ; the traditions • of business cannot be
known to them; their long course of opposition will have
forced into leadership men hardly fitted for placid government.
There is said to have been much of this feeling when Lord
Grey's ministry were installed ; it seemed as if that ' old
favourite of the public,' Mr. Buckstone, were called to licensed
plays. Grave- Englishmen doubted the gravity of the, adminis' ¦'-:
tration. To make Lord Brougham Chancellor was, therefore,
particularly inconvenient. He was too mobile : you could not
fancy him droning. He had attacked Lord Eldon during many
years, of course ; but did he know law ? He was a most
active person ; would he sit still upon the woolsack ? Of his
inattention to his profession men circulated idle tales. ' Pity \
he hadn't known a little law, and then he would have known a
little of everything,' was the remark of one who certainly only
knows one thing. A more circumstantial person recounted that,
when Brougham had been a pupil of Sir Nicholas Tindal, in the;-;
Temple, an uncle of his, having high hopes of his ability, asked?
the latter : ' I hope my nephew is giving himself up, soul and
body, to his profession?' 'I do not know anything,' rephed .
the distinct special-pleader, ' as to his soul, but his bodyis very
seldom in my chambers.' Putting aside with contempt this
surface of tales, it could not be denied that Mr. Brougham's
practice at the bar — large and lucrative as it was — immense as
was the energy required to maintain it at the same time with
his other labours — had yet not shown him to possess the finest
discretion, the most delicate tact ofthe advocate. Mr. Scarlett ."
stole verdicts away from him. ' He strikes hard, sir,' said an \
attorney ; ' but he strikes wrong.' His appointment as Chan'- 7
cellor scarcely strengthened the ministry of the time. Mr.
Brougham was a hero ; Lord Brougham was 'a necessity.' It
was like Mr. Disraeli being Chancellor of the Exchequer.

L ord Brougham . 6 7

After the lapse of years, and with the actual facts before us,.
it is not difficult to see how far these anticipations have been
falsified, and how far they have been justified by the result. All
the notions as to Lord Brougham's ignorance of law may at once
be discarded. A man of his general culture and vigorous facul
ties, with a great memory and much experience in forensic busi
ness, is no more likely to be ignorant of the essential bookwork
of law than a tailor to be ignorant of scissors and seams. A man
in business must be brought in contact with it ; a man of mind
cannot help grasping it. No one now questions that Lord
Brougham was and is a lawyer of adequate attainments. But,
at the same time, the judgments which supply the conclusive
proof of this — the complete refutation of earlier cavillers — also
would lead us to deny him the praise of an absolutely judicial
intellect. Great judges may be divided into two classes^judges
for the parties, and judges for the lawyers. The first class of
these are men who always decide the particular case before them
rightly, who have a nice insight into all that concerns it, are
acute discerners of fact, accurate weighers of testimony, just dis
criminators of argument. Lord Lyndhurst is perhaps as great a
judge in this kind as it is easy to fancy. If a wise man had a
. good cause, he would prefer its being tried before Lyndhurst to
its being tried before anyone else. For the ' parties,' if they
were to be considered in litigation, no more would be needed.
By law-students, however, and for the profession, something
more is desired. They like to find, in a judicial decision, not
- only a correct adjustment of the particular dispute in court, but
also an ample exposition of principles applicable to other dis
putes. The judge who is peculiarly exact in detecting the pre
cise peculiarities of the ease before him, will be very apt to decide
only'what is essential to, absolutely needed by, that case. His
delicate discrimination will see that nothing else is necessary ; he
will not bestow conclusions on after^generations ; he will let pos
terity decide its own controversies. A judge of different kind
has a professional interest in what comes before him : it is
i2

-68 Lord Brougham.

in his eyes not a pitiful dispute whether A or B is entitled to
a miserable field, but a glorious opportunity of deciding some
legal controversy on which he has brooded for years, and on
which he has a ready-made conclusion. Accordingly, his judg
ments are in the nature of essays. They are, in one sense,,
applicable to the matter in hand — they decide it correctly; but
they go so much into the antecedents of the controversy —
give so much of principle — that the particular facts seem a
httle lost : the general doctrine fills the attention. No one
can read a judgment of the. late Lord Cottenham without feel
ing that it fixed the law on the matter in hand upon a defined
basis for future years. Very likely he finds an authority for the
case which has occurred in his practice ; he does not stay to
inquire whether the litigants appreciated the learning; perhaps
they did not — possibly they would have preferred that a more
-exclusive prominence should be given to themselves. Now Lord
Brougham has neither of these qualities ; his intellect wants the
piercing precision which distinguishes the judge— the unerring
j udge — of the case then pres ent ; and, though competently learned,
he has never been absorbed in his profession as a judge of prin
ciple ' almost always must be. A man cannot provide a dogma
suiting all the cases of the past, and deciding all the cases for the
future, without years of patient reflection. His mind must be
stored with doctrines. No one can fancy this of Lord Brougham.
He is not to be thought of as giving still attention to technical
tenets, years of brooding consideration to an abstract jurispru
dence. Accordingly, though an adequate, and, in his time— for
his speed cleared off arrears— a most useful judge, he cannot be
said to attain the first rank in the judicial scale ; and such we
believe is the estimation of the world.
Of the political duties of the Chancellor, and Lord Brougham's
performance of them, it is not easy to speak. Many of them are
necessarily secret, and the history of those times cannot yet be;
written. That he showed wonderful energy, zeal, and power, no
one can doubt; nor that the essential defects of his character

Lord Brougham. 69

soon showed him but little qualified for an administrator. In
the year 1802, Francis Horner anticipated, that if 'an active
career were opened to Brougham, he would show a want of
-prudence and moderation ; ' and it is curious to read, as a
commentary on it, what the Duke of Wellington wrote to
Sir R. Peel, on the 15th November, 1835. ' His Majesty men
tioned that Lord Brougham1 had threatened he would not put
the great seal to a commission to prorogue ' the parliament ; '
and afterwards correcting himself: 'It appears that Lord
Brougham did not make the threat that he would not prorogue
the parliament, but that Lord Melbourne said he was in such a
state of excitement that he might take that course.' We must
wait for Lord Brougham's memoirs before we know the exact
history of that time ; but all the glimpses we get of it show the
same picture of wildness and eccentricity.
The times — the most nearly revolutionary times which Eng
land has long seen — were indeed likely to try an excitable tem
perament to the utmost; but at the same time they afforded
scope to a brilhant manager of men, which only such critical
momentary conjunctures can do. Mr. Roebuck gives a curious
instance of this : —
The necessity of a dissolution had long been foreseen, and decided
on by the ministers, but the King had not yet been persuaded to con
sent to so bold a measure ; and now the two chiefs of the administra
tion were about to intrude themselves into the royal closet, not only
to advise and ask for a dissolution, but to request the king on the
sudden — on this very day, and within a few hours — to go down and
put an end to his parliament in the midst of the session, and with all
the ordinary business of the session yet unfinished. The bolder mind
of the Chancellor took the lead, and Lord Grey anxiously solicited him
to manage the King on the occasion. So soon as they were admitted,
the Chancellor, with some care and circumlocution, propounded to
the King the object of the interview they had sought. The startled
monarch no sooner understood the drift of the Chancellor's somewhat
1 The editors of Sir E,. Peel's Memoirs have left this name in blank ; but
if they had wished it not to be known, they should have suppressed the pas
sage. Everybody knows who held the great seal at that time.

jo Lord Brougham.

periphrastic statement, than he exclaimed in wonder and amazement
against the very idea of such a proceeding. ' How is it possible, my
lords, that I can after this fashion repay the kindness of parhament
to tbe queen and myself] They have just granted me a most hberal
civil-list, and to the queen a splendid annuity in case she survives me.'
The Chancellor confessed that they had, as regarded his Majesty, v
been a liberal and wise parliament, but said that nevertheless their
further existence was incompatible with the peace and safety of the
kingdom. Both he and Lord Grey then strenuously insisted upon
the absolute necessity of their request, and gave his Majesty to under
stand that this advice was by his ministers unanimously resolved on ;
and that they felt themselves unable to conduct the affairs of the
country in the present condition of the parliament. This last state
ment made the King feel that a general resignation would be the con
sequence of a further refusal. Of this, in spite of his secret wishes, .
he was at the moment really afraid, and therefore he, by employing
petty excuses, and suggesting small and temporary difficulties, soon
began to show that he was about to yield. ' But, my lords, nothing
is prepared ; the great officers of state are not summoned.' ' Pardon
me, sir,' said the Chancellor, bowing with profound apparent humility, <
' we have taken the great hberty of giving them to understand that
your Majesty commanded their attendance at the proper hour.' ' But,
my lords, the crown and the robes, and other things needed, are not
prepared.' ' Again I most humbly entreat your Majesty's pardon for
my boldness,' said the Chancellor; ' they are aU prepared and ready
—the proper officers being desired to attend in proper form and time.'
' But, my lords,' said the King, reiterating the form in which he put
his objection, 'you know the thing is wholly impossible; the guards,
the troops, have had no orders, and cannot be ready in time.' This,
objection was in reality the most formidable one. The orders to the
troops on such occasions emanate always directly from the King, and
no person but the King can in truth command them for such service ;
and as the Prime Minister and daring Chancellor well knew the nature
of royal susceptibility on such matters, they were in no slight degree
doubtful and anxious as to the result. The Chancellor therefore, with
some real hesitation, began again as before,' Pardon me, sir, we know
how bold the step is that, presuming on your great goodness, and
your anxious desire for the safety of your kingdom, and happiness of
your people, we have presumed to take. I have given orders and '
the troops are ready.' The King started in serious anger, flamed red
in the face, and burst forth with, < What, my lords, have you dared

Lord Brougham. 7 1

to act thus ? Such a thing was never heard of. You, my Lord
Chancellor, ought to know that such an act is treason, high treason,
my lord.' 'Yes, sir,' said the Chancellor, ' I do know it ; and nothing
but my thorough knowledge of your Majesty's goodness, of your
paternal anxiety for the good of your people, and my own solemn
belief that the safety of the state depends upon this day's proceedings,
could have emboldened me to the performance of so unusual, and, in
ordinary circumstances, so improper a proceeding. In all humility I
submit myself to your Majesty, and am ready in my own person to
bear all the blame, and receive all the punishment which your
Majesty may deem needful; but I again entreat your Majesty to
listen to us and to follow our counsel, and as you value the security
of your crown and the peace of your realms, to yield to our most
earnest solicitations.' After some further expostulations by both his
ministers, the King cooled down and consented. Having consented,
he became anxious that everything should be done in the proper
manner, and gave minute directions respecting the ceremonial. The
speech to be spoken by him at the prorogation was ready prepared
and in tbe Chancellor's pocket. To this he agreed, desired that every
body might punctually attend, and dismissed his ministers for the
moment with something between a menace and a joke upon the
audacity of their proceeding.
With the fall of Lord Melbourne's first administratioti ter
minated Lord Brougham's administrative career. As everyone
knows, on the defeat of Sir Robert Peel and the subsequent
return of the Whigs to power, he was not invited to resume
office. Since that time — for how more than twenty years —
he has had to lead the life, in general the most trying to po
litical reputation, perhaps to real character, and more than any
other alien to the character of his mind and the tendencies of
his nature. We have had many recent instances how diffi
cult it is to give what is variously termed an 'independent
support,' and a ' friendly opposition,' to a Government of which
you approve the general tendencies, but are inclined to criticise
the particular measures. The Peelites and Lord John Russell
have for several years been in general in this position, and
generally with a want of popular sympathy. As they agree
with the Government in principle, they cannot take, by way of

'*j 2 Lord Brougham.

objection, what the country considers broad points; .their sug
gestions of detail seem petty and trivial to others — the public
hardly think of such things ; but men who have long considered|
a subject, who have definite ' ideas and organised plans, can
scarcely help feehng an eager interest in the smallest minutise
of the mode of dealing with it. Sometimes they discern a real
importance undiscerned by those less attentive ; more com
monly, perhaps, they fancy there is something peculiarly feli
citous in contrivances settled by themselves and congenial to
their- habits or their notions. Lord Brougham was in a posi-
•tion to feel this peculiarly. The various ideas which he had :
struggled for in earlier life were successful one ^by one ; the
hundred reforms he suggested were carried ; the hundred
abuses he had denounced were abolished. The world which
was, was changed to the world which is ; but it was not changed';
by him. That he should have been favourably disposed to the
existing liberal administrations was not likely ; the • separation
was too recent, perhaps too abrupt. An eager and excitable
disposition is little likely to excel in the measured sentences* :
the chosen moments, the polished calm of the frondeur. Ac
cordingly, the life of Brougham for many years has not been
favourable to his fame. On particular occasions, as on the
abolition of Negro apprenticeship, he might attain something
of his former power. But, in general, his position has been
that of the agitator whose measure is being substantially car
ried, yet with differences of detail aggravating to his temper
and. annoying to his imagination. Mr. Cobden described Sir
Robert Peel's mode of repealing the corn-laws with the micro*
scopic sliding-scale for three years, as seventeen-and-sixpence
on the demand of the Anti-corn-law League, and good security
for the other half-crown. Yet excitable men at that very
moment clamoured for the last half-crown ; they could not
bear the modification, the minute difference from that on which
they bad set their hearts. We must remember thisin relation
to what is now most familiar to us in the life, of Lord Brougham.

Lord Brougham. 7$

To a man so active, to be out of action is a pain which
few can appreciate ; that other men should enter into your
labours is not pleasant ; that they should be Canningites does
not make it any better. We have witnessed many escapades
of Lord Brougham ; we perhaps hardly know his temptations
and his vexations.
Such is the bare outline of the career of Lord Brougham.
A life of early, broken, various agitation ; a short interval of
ordinary administration — occurring, however, at a time singu
larly extraordinary ; a long old age secluded from the actual
conduct of affairs, and driven to distinguish itself by miscel
laneous objection and diversified sarcasm. Singular stories of
eccentricity and excitement, even of something more than
either of these, darken these latter years. On these we must
not dwell. There are many aspects of Brougham's varied cha
racter, a few of which we should notice by themselves.
The most connected with his political life is his career as a
law reformer. We have spoken of his early labours on this
subject ; we have said that few men who have devoted them
selves to nothing else have exposed so many abuses, propounded
so many remedies ; that one of his early motions is a schedule of
halfj and much more than half, that has been, or will be, done
Upon a large portion of the subject. But here praise must end.
The completed, elaborated reforms by which Lord Brougham
will be known to posterity are few, are nothing in com
parison with his power, his industry, and his opportunities.
There is nothing, perhaps, for which he is so ill qualified.
The bold vehement man who exposes an abuse has rarely the
'skilful, painful, dissecting power which expunges it. Lord
Brougham once made a speech on conveyancing. ' I should
not, said, on the next day, an eminent professor of that art,
'like him to draw a deed relating to my property.' A law
reformer, in order that his work may be perfect, requires the
conveyancing abilities. He must be able to bear in mind the
whole topic — to draw out what is necessary of it on paper —

74 Lord Brougham.

to see what is necessary — to discriminate the rights of indi
viduals — to distinguish, with even metaphysical nicety, the
advantage he would keep from the abuse he would destroy.
He must elaborate enacting clauses which will work in the
complicated future, repealing clauses which will not interfere ¦
with the complicated machinery of the past. His mind must
be the mind of a codifier. A rushing man, hke Lord Brougham,
cannot hope to have this. A still and patient man, in quiet
chambers, apt in niceties, anxious by temperament, precise in
habit, putting the last extreme of perfection on whatever he
may attempt, is the man for the employment. You must not
expect this quiet precision from an agitator. There is the
same difference as that between the hard-striking pugilist and
the delicate amputating operator.
The same want of repose has impaired his excellence in a
pursuit to which, at first sight, it seems much less needful —
the art of oratory. We are apt to forget that oratory is an
imaginative art. From our habits of business, the name of
rhetoric has fallen into disrepute : our greatest artists strive
anxiously to conceal their perfection in it; they wish their
address in statement to be such, that the effect seems to be
produced by that which is stated, and not by the manner in
which it is stated. But not the less on that account is there a
real exercise of the imagination in conceiving of the events of
a long history, in putting them forward in skilful narration,
each fact seeming by nature to fall into its place, all the
details appearing exactly where they should — a group, to
borrow a metaphor from another art, collecting itself from
straggling and desultory materials. Still more evidently is the
imagination requisite in expressing deep emotions, even com
mon emotions, or in describing noble objects. Now, it seems
to be a law of the imagination that it only works in a mind
of stillness. The noise and crush of life jar it. 'No man,'
it has been said, ' can say, I will compose poetry ; ' he must

Lord Brougham. 75

wait until — from a brooding, half-desultory inaction — poetry
may arise, hke a gentle mist, delicately and of itself,
I waited for the train at Coventry ;
I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge
To watch the three tall spires ; and there I shaped
The city's legend into this.
Lord Brougham would not have waited so. He would have
rushed up into the town ; he would have suggested an improve
ment, talked the science of the bridge, explained its history to
the natives. The quiet race would think twenty people had
been there. And of course, in some ways this is admirable ;
such life and force are rare ; even the ' grooms and porters '
would not be insensible to such an aggressive intelligence —
so much knocking mind. But, in the meantime, no lightly-
touched picture of old story would have arisen on his imagina
tion. The city's legend would have been thrust out : the ' fairy
frostwork ' of the fancy would have been struck away : there
would have been talk on the schooling of the porter's eldest boy.
The rarity of great political oratory arises in a great measure from
this circumstance. Only those engaged in the jar of life have the
material for it ; only those withdrawn into a brooding imagina
tion have the faculty for it. M. de Lamartine has drawn a strik
ing picture of one who had the opportunity of action and the
dangerous faculty of leisure : ' Vergniaud s'enivrait dans cette
vie d'artiste, de musique, de declamation et de plaisirs ; il se
pressait de jouir de sa jeunesse, comme s'il eut le pressenti-
ment qu'elle serait sitot cueillie. Ses habitudes etaient medita-
tives et paresseuses. II se levait au milieu du jour ; il ecrivait
peu et sur des feuilles eparses ; il appuyait le papier sur ses
genoux comme un homme presse qui se dispute le temps ; il
composait ses discours lentement dans ses reveries et les re-
tenait a l'aide de notes dans sa memoire ; il pohssait son
eloquence a loisir, comme le soldat poht son arme au repos.'
This is not the picture of one who is to attain eminence in
stirring and. combative times. Harsher men prevailed; a

f6 Lord Brougham.

mournful fate swallowed up Vergniaud's delicate fancies. He
died, because he was idle ; but he was great, because he was
idle. Idleness with such minds is only the name for the pas
sive enjoyment of a justly-moving imagination.
We.should only weary our readers with a repetition of what
has been said a hundred times already, if we tried to explain
that Lord Brougham has nothing of this. His merit is, that
he was never idle in his hfe. He must not complain if he has
the disadvantage of it also. That he was a most effective
speaker in his great time, is of course undoubted. His power-'.
of sarcasm, his amazing readiness, his energetic vigour of
language, made him, if not a very persuasive, at least a most
formidable orator. His endless animation must tell even to
excess upon his audience. But he has not acted wisely for his
fame in publishing his speeches. They have the most un
pardonable of all faults— the fault of dulness. It is scarcely
possible to read them. Doubtless, at the time their influence
was considerable ; they may even have been pleasant, as you
like to watch the play of a vicious horse ; but now, removed
from the hearing of the speaker's voice— out of the way of the
motions of his face and the glare of his eye— even their evil-
speaking loses its attractiveness. The sarcasm seems blunt-ft'
the denunciation heavy. They are crowded with a detail
which may have been, though acute observers say it was not,
attractive at the time, but whieh no one can endure now. Not
only do you feel that you are bored, but you are not sure that
you are instructed. An agitator's detail is scarcely to be
trusted. His facts may be right, but you must turn historian
in order to test them ; you must lead a life of state-papers and
old letters to know if they are true. It is perhaps possible for
the imagination of man to give an interest to any considerable
action of human life. A firmly-drawing hand may conduct
us through the narration— an enhancing touch enliven the
details ; but, to achieve this with contested facts in a combative
hfe, is among the rarest operations of a rare power. The imagina-

Lord Brougham. 77

tion has few tasks so difficult. To Lord Brougham, least of all,
has it been possible to attract men by the business detail and
cumbrous aggressions of the last age. His tone is too harsh.
He has shattered his contemporaries, but he will not charm
posterity. Lord Brougham has wished to be known, not only as an
orator, but as a writer on oratory. He has written a ' Discourse '
on Ancient Oratory, recommending, and very deservedly, its
study to those who would now excel in the art ; and there is no
denying that he has rivalled the great Greek orator, at least
in one of his characteristic excellences. There is no more
manly book in the world than Brougham's Speeches ; he always
' calls a spade a spade ' ; the rough energy strikes ; we have none
of the tawdry metaphor, or half-real finery of the inferior
orators, there is not a simile which a man of sense should not
own. Nevertheless, we are inclined to question whether his
studies on ancient oratory, especially on the great public
oration of Demosthenes, have been entirely beneficial to him.
These masterly productions were, as everyone knows, the eager
expression of an intense mind on questions of the best interest ;
they have accordingly the character of vehemence. Speaking
on subjects which he thought involved the very existence of
his country, he could not be expected to speak very temperately;
he did not, and could not admit, that there was fair ground for
difference of opinion; that an equally patriotic person, after
proper consideration, could by possibility arrive at an opposite
conclusion. The circumstances of the parliamentary orator in
this country are quite different. A man cannot discuss the
dowry of the Princess Royal, the conditions of the Bank Charter,
as if they were questions of existence— all questions arising now
present masses of fact, antecedents in blue-books, tabulated
statistics, on which it is impossible that there should not be a
necessity for an elaborate inquiry — that there should not be
discrepancy of judgment after that inquiry. The Demosthenic
vehemence is out of place. ' The calm didactic exposition,

78 Lord Brougham.

almost approaching to that of the lecturer, is more efficacious
than the intense appeal of an eager orator. That ' Counsellor
Broom was all in a fume,' is a line in one of the best ludicrous
poems of a time rather fertile in such things. On points of
detail it is ridiculous to be in a passion ; on matters of business
it is unpersuasive to be enthusiastic ; even on topics less
technical, the Greek oratory is scarcely a model to be imitated
precisely. A certain nonchalant ease pervades our modern world
— we affect an indifference we scarcely feel ; our talk is light,
almost to affectation ; our best writing is the same ; we suggest
rather than elaborate, hint rather than declaim. The spirit of
the ancient world was very different — the tendency of its con
versation probably was to a rhetorical formality, an haranguing;!
energy ; certainly it is the tendency of its written style. ' With
every allowance,' says Colonel Mure, ' for the peculiar genius of
the age in which the masterpieces of Attic prose were produced
— a consideration which must always have a certain weight in
literary judgments — still, the impartial modern critic cannot
but discern in this pervading rhetorical tone a defect, perhaps
the only serious defect, in the classical Greek style. .... It
certainly is not natural for the historian or the popular essayist
to address his readers in the same tone in which the defender
of a client or the denouncer of a pohtical opponent addresses
a public assembly.' So great a change in the general world, in
the audience to be spoken to, requires a change in the speaker.
The hght touch of Lord Palmerston is more effective than the
most elaborated sentences of a formal rhetorician. Of old,
when conversation and writing were half oratorical, oratory
might be very oratorical ; now that conversation is very con-
versational, oratory must be a little conversational. In real
life, Lord Brougham has too much of the orator's tact not to be
half aware of this ; but his teaching forgets it.
That Lord Brougham should have adopted a theory enjoining
vehemence in oratory, is an instance to be cited by those who
hold that a man's creed is a justification for his inclinations.

Lord Brougham. 79

He is by nature over- vehement; and what is worse, it is not vehe
mence of the best kind : there is something of a scream about
it. People rather laughed at his kneeling to beseech the peers.
No one is sure that there is real feeling in what he reads and
hears ; it seems like a machine going. Lord Cockburn has an odd
anecdote. An old judge, who loved dawdling, dishked the * dis
composing quahties ' of Brougham. His revenge consisted in
sneering at Brougham's eloquence, by calling it or him the
Harangue. ' Well, gentlemen, what did ihe Harangue say next ?
Why it said this (misstating it); but here, gentlemen, the
Harangue was wrong and not intelligible.' We have some
feeling for the old judge. If you take a speech of Brougham,
and read it apart from his voice, you have half a notion that
it is a gong going, eloquence by machinery, an incessant talking
thing. It is needless to point out how completely an excitable un-
genial nature, such as we have so much spoken of, incapacitates
Lord Brougham for abstract philosophy. His works on that
subject are sufficiently numerous, but we are not aware that even
his most ardent admirers have considered them as wprks of really
the first class. It would not be difficult to extract from the
' Political Philosophy,' which is probably the best of them,
singular instances of inconsistency and of confusion. The error
was in his writing them : he who runs may read, but it does
not seem hkely he will think. The brooding disposition, and
the stiU, investigating intellect, are necessary for consecutive
reasonings on delicate philosophy.
The same qualities, however, fit a man for the acquisition of
•general information. A man who is always rushing into the
street will become familiar with the street. One who is for
ever changing from subject to subject will not become painfully
acquainted with any one, but he will know the outsides of them
all, and the road from each to the other. Accordingly, all the
descriptions of Lord Brougham, even in his earliest career,
speak of his immense information. Mr. Wilberforce, in perhaps

8o Lord Brougham:

the earliest printed notice of him, recommended Mr. Pitt to
employ him in a diplomatic capacity, on account of his famili
arity with languages, and the other kinds of necessary knowledge.-
He began by writing on Porisms ; only the other day he read a
paper on some absurdities imputed to the Integral Calculus, in
French, at Paris. It would be in the highest degree tedious to
enumerate all the subjects he knows something of. Of course,
an extreme correctness cannot be expected. ' The most mis
informed man in Europe,' is a phrase of satire ; yet, even in its
satire, it conveys a compliment to Brougham's information.
An especial interest in physical science may be remarked in
Brougham, as in most men of impressible minds in his- genera-'
tion. He came into life when the great discoveries in our know
ledge ofthe material world were either just made, or were on the
eve of being made. The enormous advances, which have been
actually made in material civilisation, were half anticipated.
There was a vague hope in science. The boundaries of the uni
verse, it was hoped, would move. Active, ardent minds were
drawn with extreme hope to the study of new moving power •
a smattering of science was immeasurably less common then
than now, but it exercised a stronger dominion, and influenced a
higher class of genius. It was new, and men were sanguine.
In the present day, younger men are perhaps repelled into the •
opposite extreme. We live among the marvels of science, but
we know how little they change us. The essentials of hfe are
what they were. We go by the train, but we are not improved.
at our journey's end. We have railways, and canals, and manu
factures—excellent things, no doubt, but they do not touch
the soul. Somehow, they seem to make life more superficial.
With a half-wayward dishke, some in the present generation
have turned from physical science and material things. ' We
have tried these, and they fail,'- is the feehng. ' What is the
heart of man the better for galvanic engines and hydraulic
presses ? Leave us to the old poetry and the old philosophy:
there is at least a life and a mind.' It is the day after the

Lord Brougham.

feast. We' do not care for its delicacies ; we are rather angry
at its profusion; we are cross to hear it praised. Men who
came into active life half a century ago were the guests invited
to the banquet ; they did not know what was coming, but they
heard it was something gorgeous and great ; they expected
it with hope and longing. The influence of this feehng was
curiously seen in the Useful Knowledge Society, the first great
product of the educational movement in which Lord Brougham
was the most ardent leader. No one can deny that their
labours were important, their intentions excellent, the collision
of mind which they created most beneficial. Still, looking to
their well-known publications, beyond question the knowledge
they particularly wished to diffuse is, according to the German
phrase, ' factish.' Hazlitt said ' they confounded a knowledge
of useful things with useful knowledge.' An idea, half uncon
scious, pervades them, that a knowledge of the detail of ma
terial knowledge, even too of the dates and shell of outside
history, is extremely important to the mass of men ; that
all will be well when we have a cosmical ploughboy and a mob
that knows hydrostatics. We shall never have it ; but even if
we could, we should not;be much the better. The heart and
passions of men are moved by things more within their attain
ment ; the essential nature is stirred by the essential life ; by
the real actual existence of love, and hope, and character, and
by the real literature which takes in its spirit, and which is
in some sort its undefecated essence. Thirty years ago tbe
"-" preachers of this now familiar doctrine were ud known, nor was
their gospel for a moment the one perhaps most in season. It
was good that there should be a more diffused knowledge of
the material world ; and it was good, therefore, that there
should be partisans of matter, believers in particles, zealots for
tissue, who were ready to incur any odium and any labour that
a few more men might learn a few more things. How a man
of incessant activity should pass easily to such a creed is
evident. He would see the obvious ignorance. The less
- ¦ 7 g

g 2 L ord Brougham.

obvious argument, which shows that this ignorance, in great
measure inevitable, was of far less importance than would be
thought at first sight, would never be found by one who moved
so rapidly. We have gone through now, in some hasty way, most ofthe
hghts in which Lord Brougham has been regarded by his con
temporaries. There is still another character in which posterity
will especially think of him. He is a great memoirist. His
' Statesmen of George IIL' contains the best sketehe's of the poh
tical men of his generation, one with another, which the world
has, or is likely to have. He is a fine painter of the exterior of
human nature. Some portion of its essence requires a deeper
character ; another portion, more delicate sensations ; but of the
rough appearance of men, as they struck him in the law-court
and in parliament — of the great debater struggling with his
wor(is — the stealthy advocate gliding into the confidence pf the
audience — the great judge unravelling all controversies, and de
ciding by a well-weighed word ah comphcated doubts — of such
men as these, and of men engaged in such tasks as these, there
is no greater painter perhaps than Brougham. His eager aggres^
sive disposition brought him into collision with conspicuous men ;
his skill in the obvious parts of human nature has made him
understand them. A man who has knocked his head against a
wall — if such an illustration is to be hazarded — will learn the
nature of the wall. Those who have passed fifty years in man
aging men of the world, will know their external nature, and if
they have hterary power enough, will describe it. In general,
Lord Brougham's excellence as a describer of character is con
fined to men whom he had thus personally and keenly encoun
tered. The sketches of the philosophers of the eighteenth
century, of French statesmen, are poor and meagre. He re
quires evidently the rough necessities of action to make him
observe. There is," however, a remarkable exception. He pre
serves a singularly vivid recollection of the instructors of his
youth ; he nowhere appears so amiable as in describing them.

Lord Brougham. 83

He is over-partial, no doubt ; but an old man may be permitted
to reverence, if he can reverence, his schoolmaster.
This is all that our limits will permit us to say of Lord
Brougham. On so varied a life, at least on a life with such varied
pursuits, one might write to any extent. The regular biographer
will eome in after years. It is enough for a mere essayist to
sketch, or strive to sketch, in some rude outline, the nature of
the man.

84

MR. GLADSTONE.1
[I860.]
We believe that Quarterly essayists have a peculiar mission in
relation to the characters of public men. We believe it is then-
duty to be personal. This idea may seem ridiculous to some of
our readers ; but let us consider the circumstances carefully.
We allow that personality abounds already, that the names of
public men are for ever on our hps, that we never take up a
newspaper without seeing them. But this incessant personahty
is wholly fragmentary ; it is composed of chance criticism on
special traits, of fugitive remarks on temporary measures, of
casual praise and casual blame. We can expect little else from'
what is written in haste, or is spoken without limitation.
Pubhc men must bear this criticism as they can. Those whose^
names are perpetually in men's mouths must not be pained if
singular things are sometimes said of them. Still some
dehberate truth should be spoken of our statesmen, and if
Quarterly essayists do not speak it, who will ? We fear it will
remain unspoken.
Mr. Gladstone is a problem, and it is very remarkable that
he should be a problem. We have had more than ordinary
means for judging of him. He has been in public life for
seven and twenty years ; he has filled some of the most con
spicuous offices in the State; he has been a distinguished
member of the Tory party ; he is a distinguished member of
the Liberal party ; he has brought forward many measures ; he
1 Speech of the Chancellor of the ExcJiequer on the Finance of the Year
and the Treaty of Commerce with France. Delivered in the House of Com
mons on Friday, February 10, 1860. Corrected by the Author.

Mr. Gladstone. 85

has passed many years in independent Opposition, which is
unquestionably the place most favourable to the display of
personal peculiarities in Parliament ; he is the greatest orator
in the House of Commons ; he never allows a single important
topic to pass by without telling us what he thinks of it ; — and
yet, with all these data, we are all of us in doubt about him.
What he will do, and what he will think, still more, why he
will do it, and why he will think it, are qucestiones vexatce at
every political conjuncture. At the very last ministerial crisis,
when the Government of Lord Derby was on the verge of
extinction, when every voice on Lord John's resolution was of
critical importance, no one knew till nearly the last hour how
Mr. Gladstone would vote, and. in the end he voted against
his present colleagues. The House of Commons gossips are
generally wrong about him. Nor is the uncertainty confined
to parhamentary divisions ; it extends to his whole career.
Who can calculate his future course ? Who can tell whether
he will be the greatest orator of a great administration ;
whether he will rule the House of Commons ; whether he will
be, as his gifts at first sight mark him out to be, our greatest
statesman? or whether, below the gangway, he will utter
unintelligible discourses ; will aid in destroying many ministries
and share in none ; will pour forth during many hopeless years
a bitter, a splendid, and a vituperative eloquence ?
We do not profess that we can solve all the difficulties that
are suggested even by the superficial consideration of a cha
racter so exceptional. We do not aspire to be prophets. Mr.
Gladstone's destiny perplexes us — perhaps as much as it per
plexes our readers. But we think that we can explain much
of his past career ; that many of his peculiarities are not so un-
accoiintable as they seem ; that a careful study will show us
the origin of most of them ; that we may hope to indicate some
of the material circumstances and conditions on which his
future course depends, though we should not be so bold as to
venture to foretell it.

86 Mr. Gladstone.

During the discussion on the Budget, an old Whig who did not
approve of it, but who had to vote for it, muttered of its author,
'Ah, Oxford on the surface, but Liverpool below.' And there:-"
is truth in the observation, -though not in the splenetic sense
in which it was intended. Mr. Gladstone does combine, in a
very curious way, many of the characteristics which we generally
associate with the place of his education and many of those
which we usually connect with the place of his birth. No one -
can question the first part of the observation. No man has ;
through life been more markedly an Oxford man than Mr.
Gladstone. His ' Church and State,' published after he had
been several years in public life, was instinct with the very
spirit of the Oxford of that time. His ' Homer,' published the
other day, bears nearly equal traces of the school in which he
was educated. Even in his ordinary, style there is a tinge half
theological, half classical, which recalls the studies of his youth.
Many Oxford men much object to the opinions of their dis
tinguished representative ; but none of them would deny, that
he remarkably embodies the peculiar results of the peculiar
teaching of the place.
And yet he has something which his collegiate training
never would have given him, which it is rather remarkable it
has not taken away from him. There is much to be said in
favour of the University of Oxford. No one can deny to it
very great and very pecuhar merits. But certainly it is not an
exciting place, and its education operates as a narcotic rather
than as a stimulant. Most of its students devote their hves to
a single profession, and we may observe among them a kind of
sacred torpidity. In many rural parsonages there are men of
very great cultivation, who are sedulous in their routine duties,
who attend minutely to the ecclesiastical state of the souls in
their village, but who are perfectly devoid of general intellec
tual interests. They have no anxiety to solve great problems ;
to busy themselves with the speculations; of their age/ to

Mr. Gladstone. 87

impress their peculiar theology— for peculiar it is both in its
expression and its substance — on the educated mind of their
time. Oxford, it has been said, ' disheartens a man early.' At
any rate, since Newmanism lost Father Newman, few indeed of
her acknowledged sons attain decided eminence in our deeper
controversies. Jowett she would repudiate, and Mansel is but
applying the weapons of scepticism to the service of credulity.
The most characteristic of Oxford men labour quietly, deli
cately, and let us hope usefully, in a confined sphere ; they hope
for nothing more, and wish for nothing more. Even in secular
literature we may observe an analogous tone. The ' Saturday
Review ' is remarkable as an attempt on the part of ' university
men ' to speak on the political topics and social difficulties of
the time. And what do they teach us ? It is something like
this : ' So-and-so has written a tolerable book, and we would
call attention to the industry which produces tolerable books.
So-and-so has devoted himself to a great subject, and we would
observe that the interest now taken in great subjects is very
commendable. Such-and-such a lady has dehcate feehngs,
which are desirable in a lady, though we know that they are
contrary to the facts of the world. Ah common persons are
doing as well as they can, but it does not come to much after
all. AU statesmen are doing as ill as they can, and let us be
thankful that that does not come to much either.' We may
search and search in vain through this repository of the results
of ' University teaching ' for a single truth which it has estab
lished, for a single high cause which it has advanced, for a
single deep thought which is to sink into the minds of its
readers. We have, indeed, a nearly perfect embodiment of the
corrective scepticism of a sleepy intellect. ' A B says he has
done something, but he has not done it; C D has made a
parade of demonstrating this or that proposition, but he does
not prove his case; there is one mistake in page 5, and another
"in page 113 ; a great history has been written of this or that
century, but the best authorities as to that period have not

88 Mr. Gladstone.

been consulted, which, however, is not very remarkable, as
there is nothing in them.' We could easily find, if it were
needful, many traces of the same indifferent habit, the same~
apathetic culture, in the more avowed productions of Oxford
men. The shrewd eye of Mr. Emerson, stimulated doubtless
by the contrast to America, quickly caught the trait. ' After
all,' says the languid Oxford gentleman of his story, ' there is
nothing true and nothing new, and no matter ! '
To this, as to every other species of indifferentism, Mr.
Gladstone is the antithesis. Oxford has not disheartened him.
Some of his colleagues would say they wished it had. He is
interested in everything he has to do with, and often interested
too much. He proposes to put a stamp on contract notes with
an eager earnestness as if the destiny of Europe, here and here
after, depended upon its enactment. He cannot let anything
alone. ' Sir,' said an old distributor "of stamps in Westmoreland,
' my head, sir, is worn out. I must resign. The Chancellor,
sir, is imposing of things that I can't understand.' The world
is not well able to understand them either. The public de
partments break down under the pressure of the industry of their
superior. Mr. Gladstone is ready to work as long as his brain
will hold together — to make speeches as long as he has utterance
(words he is sure to have) ; but the subordinate officials will
not work equally hard. They have none of the excitement of
origination ; they will not share the credit of success. They do,
however, share the discredit of failure. In the high- pressure
season of this year's Budget, Acts of Parliament have been passed
in which essential provisions were not to be found, in which what
was intended to be enacted was omitted or exceeded, in which
the marginal notes were widely astray of the text. In his lite
rary works Mr. Gladstone is the same. His book on Homer is
perhaps the most zealous work which this generation has pro
duced. He has the enthusiasm of a German professor for the
scholastic detail, for the exact meaning of word No. 1, for the

Mr. Gladstone. 89
precise number of times which word No. 2 is used by the poet ;
he has the enthusiasm of a lover for Helen, the enthusiasm of an
orator for the speeches. Of his theological books we need not
speak ; every reader will recall the curious succession of need
less qucestiuncuke by which their interest is marred.
Some of this energy Mr. Gladstone probably owes to the
place of his birth. Lancashire is sometimes called ' America-
and-water : ' we suspect it is America and very little water,
The excessive energy natural to half-educated men who have
but a single pursuit cannot, indeed, in any part of England,
produce the monstrous results which it occasionally produces
in the United States ; it is kept in check by public opinion, by
the close vicinity of an educated world. But in its own pur
suit, in commerce, we question whether New York itself is more
intensely eager than Liverpool — at any rate, it is difficult to
conceive how it can be. Like several other remarkable men
whose families belong to the place, Mr. Gladstone has carried
into other pursuits the eagerness, the industry — we are loth to
say the rashness, but the boldness — which Liverpool men apply
to the business of Liverpool. Underneath the scholastic polish
of his Oxford education, he has the speculative hardihood, the
eager industry of a Lancashire merchant.
Such is one of the principal pecuharities which Mr. Glad
stone's character presents even to a superficial observer. But
something more than superficial observation is necessary really
to understand a character so comphcated and so odd. We will
touch upon some of the traits which are among the most im
portant ; and if our minute analysis has, or seems to have, some
of the painfulness of a vivisection, we would observe that a
defect of this kind is in some degree inseparable from the task
we have undertaken. We cannot explain the special pecu
harities of a singular man of genius without a somewhat ela
borate and a half-metaphysical discussion.
It is needless to say that Mr. Gladstone is a great orator.
Oratory is one of the pursuits as to which there is no error.

90 Mr. Gladstone.

The criterion is ready. Did the audience feel ? were they ex
cited ? did they cheer ? These questions, and others such as
these, can be answered without a mistake. A man who can
move the House of Commons — still, after many changes, the
most severe audience in the world — must be a great orator.
The most sincere admirers and the most eager depreciators of
Mr. Gladstone are agreed on this point, and it is almost the
only point on which they are agreed.
It will be well, however, to pause upon this characteristic
of Mr. Gladstone's genius, and to examine the nature of it
rather anxiously, because it seems to afford the true key to
some of his most perplexing peculiarities. Mr. Gladstone has,
beyond any other man in this generation, what we may call
the oratorical wa^guLM- We are in the habit of speaking of
rhetoric as an art, and also of oratory as a faculty, and in
both cases we speak quite truly. No man can speak with
out a special intellectual gift, and no man can speak well
without a special intellectual training. But neither this gift
of the intellect nor this education will suffice of themselves.
A man must not only know what to say, he must have a
vehement longing to get up and say it. Many persons, rather
sceptical persons especiaUy, do not feel this in the least. They
see before them an audience — a misceUaneous collection of
odd-looking men — but they feel no wish to convince them of
anything. ' Are not they very well as they are ? They be
lieve what they have been brought up to believe.' ' Confirm
every man in his own manner of conceiving,' said one great
sage. 'A savage among savages is very well,' remarked an
other. You may easily take away one creed and then not be
able to implant another. ' You may succeed in unfitting men
for their own purposes without fitting them for your purposes '
— thus thinks the cui bono sceptic. Another kind of sceptic
is distrustful, and speaks thus: 'I know I can't convince
these people; if I could, perhaps I would, but I can't. Only
look at them! they have all kinds of crotchets in their heads. ,

Mr. Gladstone. 91

There is a wooden-faced man in spectacles. How can you con
vince a wooden-faced man in spectacles ? And see that other
man with a narrow forehead and compressed lips — is it any
use talking to him ? It is of no use ; do not hope that mere
arguments will impair the prepossessions of nature and the
steady convictions of years.' Mr. Gladstone would not feel
these sceptical arguments. He would get up to speak. He has
the ^ffepfejmpulse. He has the ' courage of his ideas.' He
will convince the audience. He knows an argument whieh
will be effective, he has one for one and another for another ;
he has an enthusiasm which he feels will rouse the apathetic,
a demonstration which he thinks must convert the incredu
lous, an illustration which he hopes will drive his meaning even
into the heads of the stohd. At any rate, he will try. He has
a nature, as Coleridge might have said, towards his audience.
He is sure, if they only knew what he knows, they would feel as
¦ he feels, and believe as he beheves. And by this he conquers.
This living faith, this enthusiasm, this confidence, call it as we
, will, is an extreme power in human affairs. One croyant, said
the Frenchman, is a greater power than fifty incrSdules. In the
: composition of an orator, the hope, the credulous hope, that he
will convince his audience, is the primum mobile, it is the primi
tive incentive which is the spring of his influence and the source
of his power. Mr. Gladstone has this incentive in perhaps an
excessive and dangerous measure. Whatever may be right or
wrong in pure finance, in abstract political economy, it is cer
tain that no one save Mr. Gladstone would have come down
with the Budget of 1860 to the Commons of 1860. No other
man would have beheved that such a proposal would have a
chance. Yet after the warning — the disheartening warning of
a reluctant cabinet — Mr. Gladstone came down from a de
pressing sick-bed, with semi-bronchitis hovering about him,
entirely prevailed for the moment, and three parts conquered
after all. We will not say that the world is given to men of
this temperament and this energy; on the contrary, there is

92 Mr. Gladstone.

often a turn in the tide, the ovation of the spring may be the
prelude to unpopularity in the autumn; but we see that
audiences are given them ; we see that unimpressible men are
deeply moved by them— that the driest topics of legislation and
finance are for the instant affected by them — that the pro
longed effects of that momentary influence maybe felt for many
years, sometimes for centuries. The orator has a dominion
over the critical instant, and the consequences of the decisions
taken during that instant may last long after the orator and
the audience have both passed away.
Nor is the didactic impulse the only one which is essential
to a great political orator ; nor is it the only one which Mr.
Gladstone has. We say it with respect, but he has the con
tentious impulse. He illustrates the distinction between the
pacific and the peaceful. On all great questions, on the con
troversies of states and empires, Mr. Gladstone is the most
pacific of mankind. He hates the very rumour of war; he
trusts in moral influences ; he detests the bare idea of military
preparations. He will not beheve that preparations are neces
sary till the enemy is palpable. In the early part of 1853 he
did not believe that the Russian war was impending ; after the
conversations of the Emperor Nicholas with Sir Hamilton Sey
mour, he proposed to Parhament a scheme for converting some
portions of the National Debt, which could only be successful
if peace continued, and which, after the outbreak of the war,
failed ignominiously. In 1860, mutatis mutandis, he has done
the same. He staked his financial reputation upon a fine cal
culation ; he gave us a Budget in which the two ends scarcely
met. The Chinese war came, and they no longer meet. We be
lieve that Mr. Gladstone so much hates the bare idea of the
possibility of war, that after many warnings, after at least one
failure which must have been painful, and which should have
been instructive, he has refused to take even the contingency
of hostilities into his calculations. Some one said he was not
only a Christian, but a morbid Christian. He cannot imagine

Mr. Gladstone. 93

that anything so coarse as war will occur ; when it does occur,
he has a tendency to disapprove of it as soon as he can.
During the Russian war he soon joined, in fact if not in name,
the peace-at-all-price party; he exerted his finest reasonings
and his most persuasive eloquence against a war which was
commenced with his consent. At the present moment no
Englishman, not Mr. Bright himself, feels so little the impulse
to arm. He will not believe in a war till he sees men fighting.
He is the most pacific of our statesmen in theory and in policy .
When you hear Mr. Gladstone, he is about the most combative.
He can bear a good deal about the politics of Europe ; but
let a man question the fees on vatting, or the change in the
- game-certificate, or the stamp on bills of lading — what melo
dious thunders of loquacious wrath ! The world, he hints, is
likely to end at such observations, and it is dreadful that they
should be made by the honourable member who made them —
' by the honourable member who four years ago said so-and-so,
and five years before that moved,' &c. &c. The number of
well-intentioned and tedious persons whom Mr. Gladstone
annually scolds into a latent dislike of him must be consider
able. But though we may smile at the minutiae in which this
contentious impulse sometimes shows itself, we must remember
that the impulse itself is essential to a great political orator,
everywhere in some degree, but in England especially. To be
an influential speaker in the House of Commons, a man must
be a great debater. He must excel not only in elaborate set
speeches, but likewise in xruick occasional repartee. No one
but a rather contentious person will ever so excel. Mr. Fox,
the most genial of men, was asked why he disputed so vehe
mently about some trifle or other. He said, ' I must do so ; I
can't live without discussion.' And this is the temperament of
a great debater. It must be a positive pain to him to be silent
Under questionable assertions, to hear others saying that which
he cannot agree with.. An indifferent sceptic, such as we

94 Mr. Gladstone:

formerly spoke of, endures this very easily. ' He thinks, no
doubt, that what the speaker is saying is quite wrong ; but people
do not understand what he is saying ; very likely they won't
understand the answer : besides, we've a majority; what is the
use of arguing when you have a majority ? Let us outvote him
on the spot, and go to bed.' And so, report says, have whips
argued to Mr. Gladstone, but he is ever ready. He takes up
the parable of disputation at a quarter-past twelve, and goes on
till he has exhausted argument, illustration, ingenuity, and
research. To hardly any man have both the impulses of the
political orator been given in so great a measure : the didactic
orator is usually felicitous in exposition only ; the great debater
is, like Fox, only great when stung to reply by the oestrus of
contention. But Mr. Gladstone is by nature, by vehement
overruling nature, great in both arts ; he longs to pour forth
his own belief ; he cannot rest till he has contradicted everyone
else. In addition to this oratorioal temperament, Mr. Gladstone
has in a high degree the most important intellectual talent of
an orator ; he has what we may call an adagtivgjnind. He has
described this himself better than most people would describe
it:— Poets of modern times have composed great works in ages
that stopped their ears against them. 'Paradise Lost' does not
represent the time of Charles the Second, nor the ' Excursion ' the
first decades of the present century. The case of the orator is entirely
different. His work, from its very inception, is inextricably mixed
up with practice. It is cast in the mould offered to him by the mind
of his hearers. It is an influence principally received from his
audience (so to speak) in vapour, which he pours back upon them in
a flood. The sympathy and concurrence of his time, is, with his own
mind, joint parent of his work. He cannot follow nor frame ideals •
his choice is, to be what bis age will have him, what it requires in
order to be moved by him, or else not to be at all. And as when we
find the speeches in Homer, we know that there must have been men
who could speak them, so, from the existence of units who could speak
them, we know that there must have been crowds who could feel them.

Mr. Gladstone. 95

We may judge of the House of Commons in the same way from
the great ' Budget ' speech. No one, indeed, half guides,
half follows the moods of his audience more quickly, more
easily, than Mr. Gladstone. There is a little playfulness in
his manner, which contrasts with the dryness of his favourite
topics, and the intense gravity of his earnest character. He
has the same sort of control over the minds of those he is ad
dressing that a good driver has over the animals he guides : he
feels the minds of his hearers as the driver the mouths of his
horses. •
The species of intellect that is required for this task is pre-
1 eminently the advocate's intellect. The instrument of oratory,
at least of this kind of oratory, is the argumentum ad hominem.
It is 'inextricably mixed up with practice.' It argues from
the data furnished to him ' by the mind of his hearers.' He
receives his premises from them ' like a vapour,' and pours out
< his ' conclusions upon them like a flood.' Such an orator may
believe his conclusions, but he can rarely believe them for the
reasons which he assigns for them. He may be an enthusiast
in his creed, he may be a zealot in his faith, but not the less
will he be an advocate in his practice ; not the less will he
catch at disputable premises because his audience accepts them.;
not the less wiU he draw inferences from them which suit his
momentary purpose ; not the less will he accept the most start
ling varieties of assertion, for he wUl imbibe from one audience
a different ' vapour ' of premises from that which he wiU re
ceive from another ; not the less will he have the chameleon-like
character which we associate with a consummate advocate ; not
the less will he be one thing to-day, with the colour of one
audience upon him ; not the less will he be another to-morrow,
when he has to address, persuade, and influence some different
set of persons.
We scarcely think, with Mr. Gladstone, that this style of
oratory is the very highest, though it is very natural that he
should think so, for it exactly expresses* the oratory in which

96 Mr. Gladstone.

he is the greatest living master. Mr. Gladstone's conception
of oratory, in theory and in practice, is the oratory of Pitt, not
the oratory of Chatham or of Burke : it is the oratory of adap
tation. We do not deny that this is the kind of oratory which
is most generally useful, the only kind which is commonly per
missible, the only one which in general would not be a bore;
but, we must remember that there is an eloquence of great
principles which the hearers scarcely heed, and do not accept
— such as, in its highest parts, is the eloquence of Burke— -we
must remember that there is an eloquence of great passions, of
high-wrought intense feehng, which is nearly independent of
the peculiarities of its audience, because it appeals to our ele
mental human nature — which is the same, or much the same,
in almost every audience, which is everywhere and always
susceptible to the union of vivid genius and eager passion.
Such as this last was, if we may trust tradition, the eloquence
of Chatham, the source of his rare, magical, and occasional
power. Mr. Gladstone has neither of these. Few speakers
equally great have left so few passages which can be quoted —
so few which embody great principles in such a manner as to
be referred to by coming generations. He has scarcely given
us a sentence that lives in the memory ; nor is his declama
tion, facile and effective as it always is, the very highest de
clamation : it is a nearly perfect expression of intellectualised
sentiment, but it wants the volcanic power of primitive pas
sion. The prominence of advocacy in Mr. Gladstone's mind is in
appearance, though not in reahty, diminished by the purity and
intensity of his zeal. There is an elastic heroism about him.
When he begins to speak, we may know that we are going to
hear what we shall not agree with. We may believe that the
measures he proposes are mischievous ; we may smile at the
emphasis with which some of their minutiae are insisted upon ;
but we inevitably feel that we have left the ordinary earth.
We know that high sentiments will be appealed to by one

Mr. Gladstone. 97

who feels high sentiments; that strong arguments will be
strongly stated by one who believes that argument should
decide controversy. We know that we are beyond the realm of
the patronage Secretary ; we have left behind us the doctrine
that corruption is the ruling power in popular assemblies, that
patronage is the purchase-money of power. We are not alleging
that in the real world in which we hve there is not some truth
— more or less of truth — in these lower maxims ; but they do not
rule in Mr. Gladstone's world. He was not born to be a Secre
tary of the Treasury. If he tried his hand at it, he would per
plex the borough attorneys out of their lives. And he could not
keep the office a month ; he would evince a real disgust at de
testable requests, and guide with odd impulsiveness the deli
cate and latent machinery. His natural element is a higher
one. He has — and it is one of the springs of great power — a
real faith in the higher parts of human nature 5 he beheves,
with all his heart and soul and strength, that there is such a
thing as truth ; he has the soul of a martyr with the intellect \
of an advocate.
Another of Mr. Gladstone's characteristics is an extraor
dinary love of labour. We have alluded several times to his
taste, we might almost say his whimsical taste, for minutiae. He
is ready with whatever detail may be necessary on any subject,
no matter of what kind. He covers his greatest schemes with
a crowd of irrelevant appendages, till it is difficult to see their
outline. The Budget of 1860 was large enough and complicated
enough, one would have thought, in its essential irremovable
features ; but its author did not think so. He had supple
mentary provisions respecting game-certificates, respecting the
transmission of newspapers by the post, respecting 'several
other minuter changes with which he was almost ashamed to
trouble the committee.' The labour necessary to all these ac
cessories must have been enormous. Many of the alterations
may have— must have— been lying ready in his memory, or in
some old note-book, for many years. But the industry to fiu>
H

98 Mr. Gladstone.

bish them up, to get them into a practicable, or even into a
proposable shape, would frighten not only most persons, but
most laborious persons. And Mr. Gladstone's energy seems to
be strictly intellectual. Nothing in his outward appearance
indicates the iron physique that often carries inferior men
through heavy tasks. Whatever he does that is peculiar, he
does by the peculiarity of his mind. He is carried through his
work, or seems to be so, by pure will, zeal, and effort.
The last characteristic of Mr. Gladstone which is very re
markable, or which we shall mention, is his scholastic intellect.
We have not much of this in conspicuous men in the present
day, but in former times there was a good deal of it. Lord
Bacon had something hke it in his eye when he spoke of
minds which were not ' discursive ' or skilful in discovering
analogies, but were discriminative or skilful in detecting dif
ferences. The best scene for training this sort of intellect is the
law-court. Lord Bacon must have seen much of it in the work
of Gray's Inn when he was young, and traces of the discipline
which he then underwent may perhaps be found even in books
which were written by him many years afterwards. When, as
in positive law, the first principles are fixed, there is no room
for the highest originality ; the only admissible controversy is
whether a particular case comes or does not come within a
particular principle. On this point there is room for endless
distinctions and eternal hair-splitting. When the principles
settled by authority are not entirely consistent, the function of
this kind of distinguishing reason is even greater.; it has to
suggest nice refinements, which may reconcile the apparent dif
ferences between the principles themselves, as well as to settle
the exact relation of the case, or the facts, to the doctrine of
the authorities. Accordingly the scholastic theologians of me
diaeval times were the most expert masters of the djiscnminar
tive ratiocination which the world has ever seen. They had to
reconcile the recognised authorities of the Cathohc Church-
authorities vast in size, and scattered over centuries in time-^-

Mr. Gladstone. 99

with one another, with good sense, with the facts of special
cases, with the general exigencies of the age. By their labour
was formed that acute logic, that subtle, if unreal philosophy
which fell at the Reformation, when the authorities of the
Catholic Church were no longer conclusive, and the art of
arranging them was no longer important. We have learned to
smile at the scholastic distinctions of former times ; the induc
tive philosophy, which is now our most conspicuous pursuit, does
not need them ; the popular character of our ordinary discus
sion does not admit of them. In a free country we must . use
the sort of argument which plain men understand — and plain
men certainly do not appreciate or apprehend scholastic refine
ments. So at least we should say beforehand. Yet Mr. Glad
stone is the statesman whose expositions have, for good or for
evil, more power than those of any other ; his voice is a greater
power in the country of plain men than any other man's ;
nevertheless, his intellect is of a thoroughly scholastic kind.
He can distinguish between any two propositions ; he never
aUowed, he could not aUow, that any two were identical. If
anyone on either side of the House is bold enough to infer
anything from anything, Mr. Gladstone is ready to deny that
the inference is correct — to suggest a distinction which he
says is singularly important — to illustrate an apt subtlety
which, in appearance at least, impairs the validity of the de
duction. No schoolman could be readier at such work. We
may find the same tendency of mind even more strikingly
illustrated in his writings. At the time of the Gorham case,
for example, he wrote a pamphlet on the Royal Supremacy.
For the purposes of that case, it was of the last importance to
determine the exact position of the Crown with respect to
ecclesiastical affairs, and especially to the offence of heresy.
The law at first seems distinct enough on the matter. The
1st of Ehzabeth provides 'that such jurisdictions, privileges,
superiorities, and pre-eminences, spiritual and ecclesiastical, as
by any spiritual or ecclesiastical power of authority hath here-
H 2

100 Mr. Gladstone.

tofore been or may lawfully be exercised or used for the visita
tion of the ecclesiastical state and persons, and for reformation,
order, and correction of the same, and of all manner of errors,
heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, -
shall for ever, by authority of this present parliament, be united
and annexed to the imperial crown of this realm.' These words .
would have seemed distinct and clear to most persons. They
would have seemed to give to the Crown all the power it could
wish to exercise — all that any spiritual authority had ever
' theretofore exercised ' — all that any temporal authority could
ever use. We should think it was clear that Queen Ehzabeth
would have applied a rather summary method of instruction
to anyone who attempted to limit the jurisdiction conferred by
this enactment. If Mr. Gladstone had hved in the times about
which he was writing, he might have had to make a choice -
between being silent and being punished ; but in the times of
Queen Victoria he is not subjected to an alternative so painful.
He writes securely : —
We have now before us the terms of the great statute which,
from the time it was passed, has been the actual basis of the royal
authority in matters ecclesiastical ; and I do not load these pages by
reference to declarations of the Crown, and other public documents
less in authority than this, in order that we may fix our view the
more closely upon the expressions of what may fairly be termed a
fundamental law in relation to the subject-matter before us.
The first observation I make is this : there is no evidence in the
words which have been quoted that the Sovereign is, according to the
intention of the statute, the source or fountain-head of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction. They have no trace of such a meaning, in so far as it
exceeds (and it does exceed) tbe proposition, that this jurisdiction has
been by law united or annexed to the Crown.
I do not now ask what have been the glosses of lawyers — what are
the reproaches of polemical writers— or even what attributes may be
ascribed to prerogative, independent of statute, and therefore applicable
to the Church before as well as after the Reformation. I must for
the purposes of this argument assume what I shall never cease to
believe until the contrary conclusion is demonstrated by fact, namely,

Mr. Gladstone. 101

that, in the case of the Church, justice is to be administered from the
English bench upon the same principles as in aU other cases — tbat our
judges, or our judicial committees, are not to be our legislators — and
that the statutes of the realm, as they are above the sacred majesty of
the Queen, so are likewise above their ministerial interpreters. It
was by statute that the changes in the position of the Church at that
great epoch were measured — by statute that tbe position itself is
denned ; and the statute, I say, contains no trace of such a meaning
as that the Crown either ori,ginally was the source and spring of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or was to become such in virtue of the
annexion to it of the powers recited ; but simply bears the meaning,
that it was to be master over its administration.
So that which seems a despotism is graduaUy pruned down
into a vicegerency. ' All the superiorities and pre-eminences
spiritual and ecclesiastical,' which had ever been lawfully exer
cised, are restricted to the single function of regulation ; and by
a judicious elaboration the Crown becomes scarcely the head of
the Church, but only the visitor and corrector of it, as of several
other corporations. We are not now concerned with the royal
supremacy — we have no wish to hint or intimate an opinion on
a vast legal discussion ; but we are concerned with Mr. Glad
stone. And we venture to say that a subtler gloss, more
scholastically expressed, never fell from lawyer in the present
age, or from schoolmen in times of old.
The great faculties we have mentioned give Mr. Gladstone,
it is needless to say, an extraordinary influence in English
pohtics. England is a country governed mainly by labour and
; by speech. Mr. Gladstone wfil work and can speak, and the
result is what we see. With a flowing eloquence and a lofty
heroism ; with an acute intellect and endless knowledge ; with
eourage to conceive large schemes, and a voice which will per
suade men to adopt those schemes— it is not singular that Mr.
Gladstone is of himself a power in parliamentary life. He can
do there what no one else living can do.
But the effect of these peculiar faculties is by no means un-
mixedly favourable. In almost everyone of them some faulty

i o 2 Mr. Gladstone, -

tendency is latent, which may produce bad effects— in Mr. Glad
stone's case has often done so, perhaps does so still. His great
est characteristic, as we have indicated, is the singular vivacity
of his oratorical impulse. But great as is the immediate
power which a vehement oratorical propensity, when accom
panied by the requisite faculties, secures to the possessor, the
advantage of possessing it, or rather of being subject to it, is
by no means without an alloy. We have all heard that Paley
said he knew nothing against some one but that he was a
popular preacher. And Paley knew what he was saying. The -.
qratOTical__impulse is a disorganising impulse. The higher
faculties of the mind require a certain calm, and the excitement
of oratory is unfavourable to that calm. We know that this is
so with the hearers of oratory ; we know that they are carried
away from their fixed principles, from their habitual tendencies,
by a casual and unexpected stimulus. We speak commonly of
the power of the orator. But the orator is subject himself to
much the same calamity. The force which carries away his
hearers must first carry away himself. He will not persuade
any of his hearers unless he has first succeeded, for the
moment at least, in persuading his own mind. Every exciting
speech is conceived, planned, and spoken with excitement.
The orator feels in his own nerves, even in a greater degree,
that electric thrill which he is to communicate to his hearers.
The telling ideas take hold of him with a sort of seizure. They
fasten close upon his brain. He has a sort of passionate
impulse to tell them. He hungers, as a Greek would have said,
till they are uttered. His mind is full of them. He has the
vision of the audience in his mind. Until he has persuaded
these men of these things, life is tame, and its other stimulants
are uninteresting. So much excitement is evidently un
favourable to calm reflection and deliberation. Mr. Pitt is said
to have thought more of the manner in which his measures
would strike the House than of the manner in which, when
carried, they would work. Of course he did — every great

Mr. Gladstone. 103

orator will do so, unless he has a supernatural self-control.
An ordinary man sits down— say to make a Budget: he
arranges the accounts ; adds up the figures ; contrasts the
effects of different taxes ; works out steadily hour after hour
their probable incidence, first of one, then of another. Nothing
disturbs him. With the orator it is different. During that
whole process he is disturbed by the vision of bis hearers.
How they will feel, how they will think, how they will like
his proposals — cannot but occur to him. He hears his ideas
rebounding in the cheers of his hearers; he is disheartened,
at fancying that they wiU fall tamely on an inanimate and
listless multitude. He is subject to two temptations; he is
turned aside from the conceptions natural to the subject by
an imagination of his audience ; his own eager temperament
naturally inclines him to the views which will excite that
audience most effectually. The tranquil deposit of ordinary
ideas is interrupted by the sudden eruption of volcanic forces.
We know that the popular instinct suspects the judgment of
great orators ; we know that it does not give them credit for
patient equanimity ; and the popular instinct is right.
Nor is caoLxeflectioji_the only higher state of mind which
the oratorical impulse interferes with; we beheve that it is
singularly unfavourable also to the exercise of the higher kind
of imagination. Several great poets have written good di amatie
harangues ; but no great practical orator has ever written a
great poem. The creative imagination requires a singular
calm : it is ' the still unravished bride of quietness,' as the
poets say ' the foster-child of silence and slow time.' No
great work has ever been produced except after a long interval
of still and musing meditation. The oratorical impulse inter
feres with this. It breaks the exclusive brooding of the mind
upon the topic ; it brings in a new set of ideas, the faces of
the audience and the passions of listening men; it jerks the
mind, if the expression may be allowed, just when the delicate

io4 Mr, Gladstone.

poetry of the mind is crystallising into symmetry. The process
is stayed, and the result is marred.
Mr. Gladstone has suffered from both these bad effects of
the oratorical temperament. His writings, even on imaginative
subjects, even on the poetry of Homer, are singularly devoid of
the highest imagination. They abound in acute remarks; they
excel in industry of detaU ; they contain many animated and
some eloquent passages. But there is no central conception.
running through them ; there is no binding idea in them ;
there is nothing to fuse them together ; they are elaborate aggre
gates of varied elements ; they are not shaped and consolidated
wholes. Nor, it is remarkable, has his style the dehcate graces
which mark the productions of the gentle and meditative mind ;
there is something hard in its texture, something dislocated
in its connections. In his writings, where he is removed from
the guiding check of the listening audience, he starts off, just
where you least expect it. He hurries from the main subject
to make a passing and petty remark. As he has not the cen
tral idea of his work vividly before him, he overlays it with
tedious, accessory, and sometimes irrelevant detail.
His intellect has suffered also. He is undeniably defective in
the tenacity of first principle. Probably there is nothing which
he would less like to have said of him, and yet it is certainly
true. We speak, of course, of intellectual consistency, not of
moral probity. And he has not an adhesive mind ; such adhe
siveness as he has is rather to projects than principles. We
will give — it is all we have space to give— a single remarkable
instance of his peculiar mutability. He has adhered in the
year 1860 to his project of reducing the amount levied in
England by indirect taxation. He announced in 1853 that he
would do so, and, what was singular enough, he was able to
do it when the time came. But this superficial consistency
must not disguise from us the entire inconsistency in abstract
principle between the Budget of 1853 and the Budget of 1860.
The most important element in English finance at present is

Mr. Gladstone, 105
the income-tax. In 1853 that tax was, Mr. Gladstone explained
to us, an occasional, an exceptional, a sacred reserve. It had
done much that was wonderful for our fathers in the French
war ; Sir R. Peel had used it with magical efficiency in our
own time; but it was to be kept for first-rate objects. In
1860 the income-tax has become the tax of all work. Whatever
is to be done, whatever other tax is to be relinquished, it is but
a penny more or a penny less of this ever-ready and omnipotent
impost. We do not blame Mr. Gladstone for changing his
opinion. We believe that an income-tax of moderate amount
should be a permanent element in our financial system. We
think that additions to it from time to time are the best ways
of meeting any sudden demand for exceptional expenditure.
But we cannot be unaware of the transition whieh he has
made. His opinion as to our most remarkable tax has varied,
not only in detail but in essence. It was to be a rare and
residuary agency ; it is now a permanent and principal force.
The inconsistency goes further. He used to think that he
would be guilty of a ' high political offence ' if he altered the
present mode of assessing the income-tax, if he equahsed the
pressure on industrial and permanent incomes. But he is now
ready to consider any plan with that object — in other words,
he is ready to do it if he can. A great change in his funda
mental estimate of ourygreatest tax has made an evident and
indisputable change in his mode of viewing proposed reforms
and alterations in it.
Mr. Gladstone's inchnation — his unconscious inclination for
the art of advocacy — increases his tendency to suffer from the
characteristic temptations of his oratorical temperament. It is
scarcely necessary to say that professional advocacy is un
favourable to the philosophical investigation of truth ; a more
battered commonplace cannot be found anywhere. To catch at
whatever turns up in favour of your own case ; to be obviously
blind to everything which tells in favour of the case of your
adversary ; to imply doubts as to principles which it is not

io6 Mr. Gladstone.

expedient to deny ; to suggest with delicate indirectness the
conclusive arguments in favour of principles which it is not
wise directly to affirm — these, and such as these, are the. arts
of the advocate. A pohtical orator has them almost of neces
sity, and Mr. Gladstone is not exempt from them. Indeed,
without any fault of his own, he has them, if not to an un
usual extent, at least with a very unusual conspicuousnesgiX
His vehement temperament, his ' intense and glowing mind,'
drive him into strong statements, into absolute and unlimited
assertions. He lays down a principle of tremendous breadth,
to establish a detail of exceeding minuteness. He is not a
' hedging ' advocate. He does not understand the art which
Hume and Peel — different as were their respective spheres —
practised with almost equal effect in those spheres. Mr. Glad
stone dashes forth to meet his opponents. He will believe
easily — he will state strongly whatever may confute them.
An incessant use of ingenious and unqualified principles is
one of Mr. Gladstone's most prominent qualities ; it is unfa
vourable to exact consistency of explicit assertion, and to
latent consistency of personal belief. His scholastic intellect
makes matters worse. He will show that any two principles
are or may be consistent; that if there is an apparent dis
crepancy, they may still, after the manner of Oxford, ' be held
together.' One of the most remarkable of Father Newman's
Oxford Sermons explains how science teaches that the earth
goes round the sun, and how Scripture teaches that the sun
goes round the earth ; and it ends by advising the discreet
believer to accept both. Both,- it is suggested, may be accom
modations to our hmited intellect— aspects of some higher and
less discordant unity. We have often smiled at the recollection
of the old Oxford training in watching Mr. Gladstone's inge
nious ' reconcilements.' It must be pleasant to have an ar
gumentative acuteness which is quite sure to extricate you, at
least in appearance, from any intellectual scrape. But it is a
dangerous weapon to use, and particularly dangerous to a very

Mr. Gladstone. 107

conscientious man. He will not use it unless he believes in its
results ; but he will try and believe in its results, in order that
he may use it. We need not spend further words in proving
that a kind of advocacy at once acute, refined, and vehement*
is unfavourable both to consistency of statement and to tena
cious sluggishness of behef.
In this manner, the disorganising effects of his greatest
peculiarities have played a principal part in shaping Mr. Glad
stone's character nd course. They have helped to make him
annoy the old Whigs, confound the country gentlemen, and
"puzzle the nation generally. They have contributed to bring on
him the long array of depreciating adjectives, ' extravagant,'
' inconsistent,' ' incoherent,' and ' incalculable.'
Mf . Gladstone's intellectual history has aggravated the un
favourable influence of his characteristic tendencies. Such a
mind as his required, beyond any man's, the early inculcation
of a steadying creed. It required that the youth, if not the
child, should be father to the man : it required that a set of
fixed and firm principles should be implanted in his mind in its
first inteUectual years — that those principles should be precise
enough for its guidance, tangible enough to . be commonly
intelligible, true enough to stand the wear and tear of ordinary
life. The tranquil task of developing coherent principle might
have calmed the vehemence of Mr. Gladstone's inteUectual
impulses — might have steadied the impulsive discursiveness of
his nature. A settled and plain creed, which was in union with
the belief of ordinary men, might have kept Mr. Gladstone in
the common path of plain men — might have made him intehi-
gible and safe. But he has had no such good fortune. He
began the world with a vast religious theory ; he embodied it
in*, book on 'Church and State; ' he defended it, as was said,
mistily — at any rate, he defended it in a manner which re
quires much careful pains to appreciate, and much preliminary
information to understand; he puzzled the ordinary mass of
English Churchmen ; he has been half out of sympathy with

lo8 Mr. Gladstone.

them ever since. The creed which he had chosen, or which his
Oxford training stamped upon him, was one not likely to be
popular with common Enghshmen. It had a scholastic appear
ance and a mystical essence which they dislike almost equally.
But this was not its worst defect. It was a theory which broke
down when it was tried. It was a theory with definite practical
consequences, which no one in these days will accept — which
no one in these days will propose. It was a theory to be
shattered by the slightest touch of real hfe, for it had a definite
teaching which was inconsistent withv the facts of that hfe- -
which aU persons who were engaged in it were, on some ground
or other, unanimous in rejecting. In Mr. Gladstone's case it
has been shattered. He maintained, that a visible church
existed upon earth ; that every state was bound to be directed
by that church; that all members of that state should, if
possible, be members of that church ; that at any rate none of
the members should be utterly out of sympathy with her ; that
the state ought to aid her in her characteristic work, and
refrain from aiding her antagonists in that work ; that with
in her own sphere the church, though thus aided, is substan-
tiadly^jndgp£nji©»t.^-that^he^.hg,s an absolute right to elect her
own bishops, to determine her own creed, to make her own de
finitions of orthodoxy and heresy. This is the high Oxford creed ;
and, in all essential points, it was Mr. Gladstone's first creed.
But a curious series of instructive events proved that
England at least would not adopt it, — that the actual 'Church
of England is not the church of which it speaks, — that the
actual English State is by no means the state of which it
speaks. The additional endowment of the Maynooth CoUege
which Sir Robert Peel proposed was an express relinquishment
of the principle that the Church of England had an exclusive
right to assistance from the State ; it proved that the Conserva
tive party — the special repository of constitutional traditions —
was ready to aid a different and antagonistic communion. The
removal of the Jewish disabilities struck a still deeper blow : it

Mr. Gladstone. 109

proved that persons who could not be said to participate in
even the rudiments of Anglican doctrine might be prime
ministers and rulers in England. The theory of the exclusive
union of a visible church with a visible state vanished into the
air. The real world would not endure it. We fear it must be
said that the theory of the substantial independence of the
Enghsh church has vanished too. The case of Dr. Hampden
proved conclusively that the intervention of the English church
in the election of her bishops was an ineffectual ceremony;
that it could not be galvanised into effective life ; that it was
one of those fingering relics of the past which the steady
EngUsh people are so loth to disturb. Undisputed practice
shows that the prime minister, who is clearly secular prince, is
the dispenser of ecclesiastical dignities. And the judgment of
her Majesty's Council in the Gorham case went further yet.
It touched on the finest and tenderest point of all. It decided
that, on the critical question, heresy or no heresy, the final
appeal was not to an ecclesiastical court, but to a lay court — to
a court, not of saintly theologians, but of tough old lawyers, to
men of the world most worldly. The Oxford dream of an
independent church, the Oxford dream of an exclusive church,
are both in practice forgotten ; their very terms are strange in
our ears ; they have no reference to real life. Mr. Gladstone
has had to admit this. He has voted for the endowment of
Maynooth ; he has voted for the admission of Jews to the House
of Commons ; he has acquiesced in the Hampden case ; he sees
daily the highest patronage of the church distributed by Lord
Palmerston, the very man who, on any high-church theory,
ought not to dispense it, to the very men who, on any high-church
theory, ought not to receive it. He wrote a pamphlet on the
Gorham case, but he does not practically propose to alter the
constitution of the judicial committee of the privy council;
he has never proposed to bring in a bill for that purpose ; he
acquiesces inthe supreme decision of the most secular court
which can exist over the most peculiarly ecclesiastical questions

no Mr. Gladstone.

that can be thought of. These successive changes do credit to
Mr. Gladstone's good sense ; they show that he has a susceptible
nature, that he will not live out of sympathy with his age.
But what must be the effect of such changes upon any mind,
especially on a delicate and high-toned mind. They tend, and
must tend, to confuse the first principles of belief ; to disturb
the best landmarks of consistency ; to leave the mind open to
attacks of oratorical impulse ; to foster the catching habit of
advocacy; to weaken the guiding element in a disposition
which was already defective in that element. The ' movement
of 1 833,' as Father Newman calls it, has wrecked many fine
intellects, has broken many promising careers. It could not do
either for Mr. Gladstone, for his circumstances were favourable,
and his mental energy was far too strong ; but it has done him
harm, nevertheless ; it has left upon his intellect a weakening
strain and a distorting mark.
Mr. Gladstone was a likely man to be enraptured with the
first creed with which he was thrown, and to push it too far.
He wants the warning instincts. Some one said of him for
merly, ' He may be a good" Christian, but he is an atrocious
pagan ; ' and the saying is true. _He has not a trace of the
protective morality of the old world, of the modus in rebus,
the uso-ov, the shrinking from an extreme, which are the pro
minent characteristics of the ethics of the old world, which are
still the guiding creed of the large part of the world that is,
— scarcely altered after twb thousand years. And this much we
may concede to the- secular moralists — unless a man have from '
nature a selective tact which shuns the unlimited, unless he
have a detective instinct which unconsciously but sensitively
shrinks from the extravagant, he will never enjoy a placid life,
he will not pass through a simple and consistent career. The
placid moderation which is necessary to coherent success can
not be acquired, it must be born.
Perhaps we^may seem already to have more than accounted
for the prominence of Mr. Gladstone's characteristic defects.

Mr. Gladstone. 1 1 1

We may seem to have alleged sufficient reasons for his being
changeable and impulsive, a vehement advocate and an auda
cious financier. But we had other causes to assign which have
aggravated these faults. We shall not, indeed, after what we
have said, venture to dwell on them at length. We will bear in
mind the precept, ' If you wish to exhaust your readers, exhaust
your subject.' But we will very slightly allude to one of them.
A writer hke Mr. Gladstone, fond of deriving illustration
from the old theology, might speak of pubhc life in England as
an economy. It is a world of its own, far more than most
Englishmen are aware of. It presents the characters of public
men in a disguised form ; and by requiring the seeming adop
tion of much which is not real, it tends to modify and to distort
much which is real. An Enghsh statesman in the present day
lives by foUowing public opinion ; he may profess to guide it a
little ; he may hope to modify it in detail ; he may help to
exaggerate and to develop it ; but he hardly hopes for more.
Many seem not willing to venture on so much. And what does
this mean except that such a statesman has to follow the vary
ing currents of a varying world ; to adapt his public expressions,
if not his private belief, to the tendencies of the hour ; to be
in no shght measure the slave— the petted and applauded
slave, but still the slave — of the world which he seems to rule.
Nor is this all. A minister is not simply the servant of the
public, he is likewise the advocate of his colleagues. No one
supposes that a cabinet can ever agree ; when di3 fifteen able
* men— fifteen able men, more or less rivals — ever agree on any
thing ? We are aware that differences of opinion, more or less
radical, exist in every cabinet; that the decisions of every
cabinet are in nearly every case modified by concession ; that a
minority of the cabinet frequently dissents from them. Yet
all this latent discrepancy of opinion is never hinted at, much
less is it ever avowed. A cabinet minister comes down to the
House habitually to vote and occasionally to speak in favour of
measures which he much dislikes, from which, he has in vain

1 1 2 Mr. Gladstone.

attempted to dissuade his colleagues. The life of a great
minister is the life of a great advocate. No life can be ima
gined which is worse for a mind like Mr. Gladstone's. He was
naturally changeable, susceptible, prone to unhmited state
ments — to vehement arguments. He has followed a career in
which it is necessary to follow a changing guide and to obey
more or less, but always to some extent, a fluctuating opinion ;
to argue vehemently for tenets which you dislike ; to defend
boldly a given law to-day, to propose boldly that the same law
should be repealed to-morrow. Accumulated experience shows
that the public hfe of our parliamentary statesmen is singu
larly unsteadying, is painfully destructive of coherent principle ;
and we may easily conceive how dangerous it must be to a
mind like Mr. Gladstone's — to a mind, by its intrinsic nature,
impressible, impetuous, and unfixed.
What, then, is to be the future course of the remarkable
statesman whose excellences and whose faults we have ven
tured to analyse at such length ? No wise man would venture
to predict. A wise man does not predict much in this com
plicated world, least of all will he predict the exact course of
a perplexing man in perplexing circumstances. But we will
hazard three general remarks.
First, Mr. Gladstone is essentially a man who cannot impose
his creed on his time, but must learn his creed of his time.
Every parhamentary statesman must, as we have said, do so in
some measure ; but Mr. Gladstone must do so above all men.
The vehement orator, the impulsive advocate, the ingenious but
somewhat unsettled thinker, is the last man from whom we
should expect an original policy, a steady succession of mature
and consistent designs. Mr. Gladstone may well be the ex
positor of his time, the advocate of its conclusions, the admired
orator in whom it will take pride ; but he cannot be more.
Parliamentary hfe rarely admits the autocratic supremacy of
an original intellect; the present moment is singularly
unfavourable to it; Mr. Gladstone is the last man to obtain it.

Mr. Gladstone. 113

Secondly, Mr. Gladstone will fail if he follow the seductive
example of Sir Robert Peel. It is customary to talk of the un
favourable circumstances in which the latter was placed, but
in one respect those circumstances were favourable. He had
very unusual means of learning the ideas of his time. They
were forced upon him by a loud and organised agitation. The
repeal of the corn-laws, the repeal of the Cathohc disabilities,
— the two acts by which he will be remembered — were not
chosen by him, but exacted from him. The world around him
clamoured for them. But no future statesman can hope to
have such an advantage. The age in which Peel hved was an
age of destruction ; the measures by which he will be remem
bered were aboUtions. We have now reached the term of the
destructive period. We cannot abolish all our laws ; we have
few remaining with which educated men find fault. The ques
tions which remain are questions of construction — how the
lower classes are to be admitted to a share of pohtical power
without absorbing the whole power ; how the natural union of
Church and State is to be adapted to an age of divided reli
gious opinion, and to the necessary conditions of a parliamentary
government. These, and such as these, are the future topics
of our home policy. And on these the voice of the nation wiU
never be very distinct. Destruction is easy, construction is very
difficult. A statesman who will hereafter learn what our real
pubhc opinion is, wUl not have to regard loud agitators, but to
disregard them ; wiU not have to yield to a loud voice, but to
listen for a stiU smaU voice ; will have to seek for the opinion
which is treasured in secret rather than for that which is noised
abroad. If Mr. Gladstone will accept the conditions of his age ;
if he will guide himself, by the mature, settled, and cultured re
flection of his time, and not by its loud and noisy organs ; if he
wiU look for that which is thought, rather than for that which
is said — he may leave a great name, be useful to his country,
may steady and balance his own mind. But if not, not. The
coherent efficiency of his career will depend on the guide which

IT4 Mr. Gladstone.

he takes, the index which he obeys, the Salfiwv which he con
sults. There are two topics which are especially critical. Mr.
Gladstone must not object to war because it is war, or to ex
penditure because it is expenditure. Upon these two points
Mr. Gladstone has shown a tendency — not, we hope, an uncon-
troUable tendency, but still a tendency — to differ from the best
opinion of the age. He has been unfortunately placed. His
humane and Christian feehngs are opposed to war ; he has a
financial ideal which has been distorted, if not destroyed, by
a growing expenditure. But war is often necessary ; finance is
not an end ; money is but a means. A statesman who would
lead his age must learn its duties. It may be that the defence
of England, the military defence, is one of our duties. If so,
we must not sit down to count the cost. If so, it is not the age
for arithmetic. If so, it is for our statesmen — it is especially
for Mr. Gladstone, who is the most splendidly gifted amongst
them — to sacrifice cherished hopes ; to forego treasured schemes;
to put out of their thoughts the pleasant duties of a pacific
time ; to face the barbarism of war ; to vanquish the instinctive
shrinkings of a delicate mind.
Lastly, Mr. Gladstone must beware how he again commits
himself to a long period of bewildering opposition. Office is a
steadying situation. A minister has means of learning from his
colleagues, from his subordinates, from unnumbered persons
who are only too ready to give him information, what the truth
is, and what pubhc opinion is. Opposition, on the other hand,
is an exciting and a misleading situation. The bias of every
one who is so placed is to oppose the ministry. Yet on a
hundred questions the ministry are likely to be right. They
have special information, long consultations, skilled public
servants to guide them. On most points there is no misleading
motive. Every minister decides, to the best of his abihty, upon
most of the questions which come before him. A bias to oppose
him, therefore, is always dangerous. It is peculiarly dangerous

Mr. Gladstone. 115

to those in whom the contentious impulse is strong, whose life
is in debate. If Mr. Gladstone's mind is to be kept in a useful
track, it must be by the guiding influence of office, by an ex
emption from the misguiding influence of opposition.
No one desires more than we do that Mr. Gladstone's future
course should be enriched, not only with oratorical fame, but
with useful power. Such gifts as his are amongst the rarest
that are given to men ; they are amongst the most valuable ;
they are singularly suited to our parhamentary hfe. England
cannot afford to lose such a man. If in the foregoing pages we
have seemed often to find fault, it has not been for the sake of
finding fault. It is necessary that England should comprehend
Mr. Gladstone. If the country have not a true conception of a
great statesman, his popularity will be capricious, his power
irregular, and his usefulness insecure.

n6

WILLIAM PITT.1
[1861.]
Lord Stanhope's Life of Mr. Pitt has both the exceUences and
the defects which we should expect from him, and neither of
them are what we expect in a great historical writer of the pre
sent age. Even simple readers are becoming aware that histori
cal investigation, which used to be a sombre and respectable,
calhng, is now an audacious pursuit. Paradoxes are very bold
and very numerous. Many of the recognised ' good people' in
history have become bad, and all the very bad people have
become rather good. We have palhations of Tiberius, eulogies
on Henry VIII., devotional exercises to Cromwell, and fulsome
adulation of Julius Caesar and of the first Napoleon. The
philosophy of history is more alarming still. One school sees
in it but a gradual development of atheistic belief, another
threatens to resolve it all into 'the three simple agencies,
starch, fibrin, and albumen.' But in these exploits of audacious
ingenuity and specious learning Lord Stanhope has taken no
part. He is not anxious to be original. He travels, if possible,
in the worn track of previous historians ; he teUs a plain tale
in an easy plain way ; he shrinks from wonderful novelties ;
with the cautious scepticism of true common sense, he is
always glad to find that the conclusions at which he arrives
coincide with those of former inquirers. His style is charac
teristic of his matter. He narrates with a gentle sense and
1 Life of the Right Honowablc WilUam Pitt. By Earl Stanhope, author
of the ZBistory of England from the Peace of Utrecht.

William Pitt. 1 1 7

languid accuracy, very different from the stimulating rhetoric
and exciting brilliancy of his more renowned contemporaries.
In the present case Lord Stanhope has been very fortunate
-both in his subject and in his materials. Mr. Pitt has never
had even a decent biographer, though the peculiarities of his
career are singularly inviting to literary ambition. His hfe
had much of the solid usefulness of modern times, and not a
little also of the romance of old times. He was skilled in eco
nomical reform, but retained some of the majesty of old-world
eloquence. He was as keen in small figures as a rising
pohtician now ; yet he was a despotic premier at an age when,
in these times, a pohtician could barely aspire to be an Under-
Secretary. It is not wonderful that Lord Stanhope should
have been attracted to a subject which is so interesting in it
self, and which lies so precisely in the direction of his previous
studies. From his high standing and his personal connections,
he has been able to add much to our minuter knowledge. He
has obtained from various quarters many valuable letters which
have not been pubhshed before. There is a whole series from
George IIL to Mr. Pitt, and a scarcely less curious series from
Mr. Pitt to his mother. We need not add that Lord Stanhope
has digested his important materials with great care; that
he has made of them almost as much as could be made ; that
he has a warm admiration and a dehcate respect for the
great statesman of whom he is writing. His nearest approach
to an ungentle feeling is a quiet dishke to the great Whig
families. Mr. Pitt is an example of one of the modes in which the
popular imagination is, even in historical times, frequently
and easily misled. Mankind judge of a great statesman prin-
cipaUy by the most marked and memorable passage in his
career. By chance we lately had the honour lv travel with a
gentleman who said, that Sir Robert Peel was the ' leader of
the Whigs ; ' and though historical evidence will always prevent
common opinion- from becoming so absurd as this, it is unde-

1 1 8 William Pitt.

niable that, in the popular fancy of younger mem Sir Robert
Peel is the Liberal minister who repealed the Corn-laws and
carried Catholic Emancipation. The world is forgetting that
he was once the favourite leader of the old Tory party — the
steady opponent of Mr. Canning, and the steady adherent of
Lord Sidmouth and Lord Eldon. We remember his great re
forms, of which we daily feel the benefit ; we forget that, during
a complete pohtical generation, he was the most plausible sup
porter of ancient prejudices, and the most decent advocate of
inveterate abuses. Mr. Pitt's fate has been very similar, but
far less fortunate. The event in his hfe most deeply im
planted in the popular memory is his resistance to the French
Revolution; it is this which has made him the object of
affection to extreme Tories, and of suspicion and distrust to
reasonable Liberals. Yet no rash inference was ever more un
founded and more false. It can be proved that, in all the other
parts of Mr. Pitt's life, the natural tendency of his favourite
plan was uniformly Liberal ; that, at the time of the French
Revolution itself, he only did what the immense majority of the
Enghsh people, even of the cultivated English people, deli
berately desired ; that he did it anxiously, with many mis
givings, and in opposition to his natural inclinations' ; that it
is very dubious whether, in the temper of the French nation
and the temper of the English nation, a war between them
could by possibility have been avoided at that juncture ; that,
in his administration and under his auspices, the spirit of
legislative improvement which characterises modern times may
almost be said to begin ; that he was the first English minister
who discussed political questions with the cultivated thought-
fulness and considerate discretion which seem to characterise
us now; that, in political instruction, he was immeasurably
superior to-Fo3c, and that, in the practical apphcation of just
principles to ordinary events, he was equally superior to Burke.
There are two kinds of statesmen to whom, at different
times, representative government gives an opportunity and a

William Pitt. 119

career — dictators and administrators. There are certain men
who are caUed in conjunctures of great danger to save the
State. When national peril was imminent, all nations have felt
it needful to select the best man who could be found — for
better, for worse ; to put unhmited trust in him ; to allow
him to do whatever he wished, and to leave undone whatever he
did not approve of. The quahties which are necessary for a
dictator are two — a commanding .character and an original in-
tellget. All other quahties are secondary. Regular industry, a
concihatory disposition, a power of logical exposition, and argu
mentative discussion, which are necessary to a parliamentary
statesman in ordinary times, are not essential to the selected
dictator of a particular juncture. If he have force of character
to overawe men into trusting him, and originahty of intellect
sufficient to enable him to cope with the pressing, terrible, and
critical events with which he is selected to cope, it is enough.
Every subordinate shortcoming, every incidental defect, wiU be
pardoned. ' Save us ! ' is the cry of the moment ; and, in the
confident hope of safety, any deficiency will be overlooked, and
any frailty pardoned.
The genius requisite for a great administrator is not so
imposing, but it is, perhaps, equaUy rare, and needs a more
peculiar combination of qualities. Ordinary administrators are
very common : every-day hfe requires and produces every-day
persons. But a really great administrator thinks not only of
the day but of the morrow ; does not only what he must but
what he wants ; is eager to extirpate every abuse, and on the
watch for every improvement ; is on a level with the highest
pohtical thought of his time, and persuades his age to be ruled
according to it — to permit him to embody it in pohcy and in
laws. Administration in this large sense includes legislation,
for it is concerned with the far-seeing regulation of future con
duct, as weU as with the limited management of the present.
Great dictators are doubtless rare in political history ; but they
are not more so than great administrators, such as we have just

1 26 William Pitt.

defined them. It is Hot easy to manage any age ; it is not easy
to be on a level with the highest thought of any age ; but to
manage that age according to that highest thought is among
the most arduous tasks of the world. The inteUectual character
of a dictator is noble but simple ; that of a great administrator
and legislator is also complex.
The exact description of Mr. Pitt is, that he had in the
most complete perfection the faculties of a great administrator,
and that he added to it the commanding temperament, though
not the creative inteUect, of a great dictator. He was tried by
long and prosperous years, which exercised to the utmost his
peculiar faculties, which enabled him to effect brilliant triumphs
of policy and of legislation : he was tried hkewise by a terrible
crisis, with which he had not the originality entirely to cope,
which he did not understand as we understand it now, but in
which he showed a hardihood of resolution and a consistency of
action which captivated the English people, and which impressed
the whole world.
A very slight survey of Mr. Pitt's career is all we have room
for here ; indeed, it is not easy within the compass of an article
to make any survey, however slight ; but we hope at least to
show that peculiar training, peculiar opportunity, and peculiar
ability, combined to make him what he was.
It may seem silly to observe that Mr. Pitt was the son of
his father, and yet there is no doubt that it was a critical
circumstance in the formation of his character. When he was
born, as Lord Macaulay has described, his father's name was
the most celebrated in the whole civihsed world ; every post
brought the news of some victory or some great stroke of pohcy,
and his imagination dwelt upon the reahties before him. ' I
am glad I am not the eldest son,' he said. ' I should like to
speak in the House of Commons, like papa.' And there are
other sayings indicating an early ambition and an early con
sciousness of power. There is nothing extraordinary in this.
Most boys are conceited ; most boys have a wonderful belief in

William Pitt. 12I

their own power. ' At sixteen,' says Mr. Disraeli, ' everyone
beheves he is the most peculiar man who ever lived.' And
there is certainly no difficulty in imagining Mr. Disraeli think
ing so. The difficulty is, not to entertain this proud belief, but
to keep it ; not to have these lofty visions, but to hold them.
Manhood comes, and with it come the plain facts of the world.
There is no illusion in them ; they have a distinct teaching.
' The world,' they say definitely, ' does not beheve in you. You
fancy you have a caU to a great career, but no one else even
imagines that you fancy it. You do not dare to say it out loud.'
Before the fear of ridicule and the touch of reahty, the illusions
of youth pass away, and with them goes all intellectual courage.
We have no longer the hardihood, we have scarcely the wish
to form our own creed, to think our own thoughts, to act upon
our own belief; we try to be sensible, and we end in being
ordinary ; we fear to be eccentric, and we end in being com
monplace. It is from this fate that the son of a commanding
prime minister is at any rate preserved ; the world thinks about
him ; the world alludes to him. He can speak ' in the grand
style,' and he will not be laughed at, or not much. When we
wonder at the indomitable resolution and the inflexible self-
reliance which Mr. Pitt through life displayed, we may lessen
our wonder by remembering that he never endured the bitter
ignominy of youth ; that his self-confidence was never dis
heartened by being ' an unknown man ; ' that he early received
from fortune the inestimable permission to be himself.
The education of Mr. Pitt was as favourable to the develop
ment of his peculiar powers as his position. The public educa
tion of England has very great merits, and is weU fitted for the
cultivation of the average Englishman ; but one at least of the
.qualities which fit it for training ordinary men unfit it for
training an extraordinary man. Its greatest value to the mass
of those who are brought up in it, is its influence in diminishing
their self-confidence. They are early brought into a httle but
rough world, which effects on a small scale what the real world

122 William Pitt.

will afterwards effect still more thoroughly on a large one. It
teaches boys, who are no better than other boys, that they are
no better than other boys ; that the advantages of one are
compensated by the advantages of others ; that the world is a
misceUaneous and motley medley, in which it is not easy to
conquer, and over which it is impossible to rule. But it is
not desirable that a young man in Pitt's position should learn
this lesson. If, you are to train a man to be prime minister at
five and twenty, you must not dishearten his self-confidence,
though it be overweening; you must not tame his energy,
though it seem presumptuous. Ordinary men should and must
be taught to fear the face of the world ; they are to be guided
by its laws and regulated by its manners ; the one exceptional
man, who is in his first youth to rule the world, must be trained
not to fear it, but to despise it.
• The legitimate food of a self-relying nature is early sohtude,
and the most . stimulating sohtude is sohtude in the midst of
society. Mr. Pitt's education was of this kind entirely. He
was educated at home during his whole boyhood. He was sent
to Cambridge at a most unusually early age. He hved there
almost wholly with Mr. Pretyman, his tutor. ' While Mr. Pitt
was undergraduate,' writes that gentleman, ' he never omitted
attending chapel morning and evening in the pubhc hall,
except when prevented by indisposition. Nor did he pass a
single evening out of the college walls ; indeed, most of his
time was spent with me. During his whole residence at the
University,' Mr. Pretyman continues, 'I never knew him spend
an idle day, nor did he ever fail to attend me at the appointed
hour.' He did not make any friends, scarcely any social
acquaintances till he had taken his degree. He passed very
much of his time, his tutor tells us, in very severe study, and
very much of it, as we may easily beheve, in the most absorbing
of early pleasures — the monotonous excitement of ambitious
anticipation. On an inferior man, this sort of youth could have
had but one effect — it must have made him a prig. But it

William Pitt. 123

had not that effect on Pitt. It contributed to make him a shy,
haughty, and inaccessible man. Such he emerged from Cam
bridge, and such he continued through hfe to be ; but he was
preserved from the characteristic degradation of well-inten
tioned and erudite youth by two great counteracting influences,
— a strong sense of humour and a genuine interest in great
subjects. His sense of fun was, indeed, disguised from the
vulgar by a rigid mask of grave dignity ; but in private it was
1 his strongest characteristic. ' Don't tell me,' he is said to have
j remarked, ' of a man's being able to talk sense ; everyone can
| talk sense : can he talk nonsense ? ' And Mr. Wilberforce, the
most cheerful of human beings, who had seen the most amusing
society of his generation, always declared that Pitt's wit was
the best which he had ever known. And it was likely to be ;
humour gains much by constant suppression, and at no time of
life was Pitt ever wanting in dexterous words. No man who
really cares for great things, and who sees the laughable side
of httle things, ever becomes a * prig.'
While at Cambridge likewise Pitt paid, as his tutor tells
us, great attention to what are now, in popular estimation, the
characteristic studies, of the place. His attainments in mathe
matics were probably not much hke the elaborate and exact
knowledge which the higher wranglers now yearly carry away
.from the University, but they were considerable for his time,
and they comprehended the most instructive part of the subject,
the first principles; a vague hope, too, is expressed that he
may read Newton's ' Principia ' ' after some summer circuit,'
which, as we may easily suppose, was not realised.
Though the tutor's information is not very exact, we may
accept his general testimony that Pitt was a good mathemati
cian, according to the academic standing of that day. There is,
indeed, strong corroborative evidence of the fact in Mr. Pitt's
financial speeches. It is not easy to draw out the evidence
in writing, and it would be very tiresome to read the evidence
if it were drawn out ; but a skilful observer of the contrast

124 William Pitt.

between educated and uneducated language will find in Pitt
many traces of mathematical studies. Raw argument and
common-sense correctness come by nature, but only a prelimi
nary education can give the final edge to accuracy in statement,
and the last nicety to polished and penetrating discussion. In
later hfe, the facile use of financial rhetoric was as familiar to
Mr. Pitt as to Mr. Gladstone.
His classical studies were pursued upon a plan suggested
by his father, which was certainly well adapted for the par
ticular case, though it would not be good for mankind in gene
ral. A sufficient experience proves that no one can be taught
any language thoroughly and accurately except by composition
in it ; and Mr. Pitt had apparently never practised any sort
of composition in Greek or Latin, whether verse or prose. But,
for the purpose of disciphning a student in his own language,
the reverse practice of translating from the classical languages
is the best single expedient which has ever been made use of.
And to this Mr. Pitt was trained by his father from early boy
hood. He was taught to read off the classics into the best
English he could find, never inserting a word with which he
was not satisfied, but waiting till he found one with which he
was satisfied. By constant practice he became so ready that
he never stopped at aU ; the right word always presented itself
immediately. When he was asked in later life, how he had
acquired the mellifluous abundance of appropriate language
with which he amazed and charmed the House of Commons, it
was to this suggestion of his father that he at once imputed it.
To the probably unconscious influence of the same in
structor we may ascribe his early interest in parhamentary •
conflict. We have before quoted the naive expression of his
boyish desire to be in the House of Commons. There is a still
more curious story of him in very early youth. It is said, ' He
was introduced, on the steps of the throne in the House of
Lords, to Mr. Fox, who was his senior by ten years, and already
in the fulness of his fame. Fox used afterwards to relate that,

William Pitt. 125

as the discussion proceeded, Pitt repeatedly turned to him and
said, " But surely, Mr. Fox, that might be met thus ; " or, " Yes,
but he lays himself open to retort." What the particular criti
cisms were, Fox had forgotten ; but he said that he was much
struck at the time by the precocity of a lad who through the
whole sitting was thinking only how all the speeches on both
sides could be answered.'
Nor were his pohtical studies confined to the studious cul
tivation of oratorical language, or to a thorough acquisition of
the art of argumentative fence : he attended also to the sub
stance of pohtical science. He was the first great Enghsh
statesman who read, understood, and valued the ' Wealth of Na
tions.' Fox had ' no great opinion of those reasonings ; ' and the
doctrines of free trade, though present, like all great poUtical
ideas, to the overflowing mind of Burke, were, like all his ideas,
at the daily mercy of his eager passions and his intense and
vivid imagination. Mr. Pitt, as it would seem, while still at
college, acquired and arranged them with the collected con
sistency which was the characteristic of his mind. So thorough
a training, in the superficial accomplishments, the peculiar
associations, and the abstract studies of political hfe, has not
perhaps fallen to the lot of any other Enghsh statesman.
Nor was the political opportunity of Mr. Pitt at all inferior
to his political training. The history of the first twenty years
of the reign of George III. is a history of his struggles with
the aristocratic proprietors of parliamentary boroughs. Neither
the extension of the power of the Crown, nor the maintenance
of the political ascendency of the Whig famihes, was very
popular with the nation at large ; the popular element in the
constitution was for the most part neutral in the conflict ; it
reserved the greater part of its influence for objects more inte
resting to itself; but between the two parties, between the
Crown and the great borough proprietors, the strife was eager,
intense, and unremitting.
As the present writer has elsewhere explained, the situation

126 William PUt,

in which a constitutional king was placed under the old system
of an unreformed Parliament was more than an energetic man
could endure. According to the theory of that government,,
the patronage of the Crown was to be used to purchase votes
in Parliament, and to maintain a parliamentary majority by
constant bargains with borough proprietors.
But who is to use the patronage \ The theory assumes that it is
to be used by the minister of the day. According to it, the head of
the party which is predominant in Parliament is to employ the
patronage of the Crown for the purpose of confirming that predomi
nance. But suppose that the Crown chooses to object to this ; suppose
that the King for the time being should say, ' This patronage is mine -y
the places in question are places in my service ; the pensions in question
are pensions from me. I will myself have at least some share in the
influence that is acquired by the conferring of those pensions and the
distribution of those places.' George III. actually did say this.
He was a king in one respect among a thousand ; he was willing to
do the work of a Secretary of the Treasury ; his letters for very many
years are filled with the petty details of patronage ; he directed who
should have what, and stipulated who should not have anything.
This interference ofthe King must evidently in theory, and did certainly
in fact, destroy the efficiency of the alleged expedient. Very much of
the patronage of the Crown went, not to the adherents of the prime
minister, because they were his adherents, but to the King's friends,
because they were his friends. Many writers have been very severe
on George III. for taking the course which he did take, and have
frequently repeated the well-known maxims, which show that what
he did was a deviation from the constitution. Very likely it was ; but
what is the use of a constitution which takes no account of the
ordinary motives of human nature? It was inevitable that an
ambitious king, who had industry enough to act as he did, would so
act. Let us consider his position. He was invested with authority
which was apparently great. He was surrounded by noblemen and
gentlemen who passed their life in paying him homage, and in pro
fessing perhaps excessive doctrines of loyal obedience to him. When
the Duke of Devonshire, or the Duke of Bedford, or the Duke of
Newcastle, approached the royal closet, they implied by words and
manner that he had immeasurably more power than they had. In
fact, it was expected that he should have immeasurably less. It was
expected that, though these noblemen daily acknowledged that he was

William Pitt. 1 2 7

their superior, he should constantly act as if he were their inferior.
The prime minister was in reality appointed by them, and it was ex
pected that the King should do what the prime minister told him ;
that he should assent to measures on which he was not consulted ; that
he should make peace when Mr. Grenville said peace was right ; that
he should make war whenever Mr. Grenville said war was right ;
that he should allow the offices of his household and the dignities of
his court to be used as a means for the support of cabinets whose
members he disliked, and whose pohcy he disapproved of. It is
evident tbat no man who was not imbecile would be content with
such a position. It is not difficult to bear to be without power, it is
not very difficult to bear to have only the mockery of power ; but it
is unbearable to have real power, and to be told tbat you must con
tent yourself with the mockery of it ; it is unendurable to have in
your hands an effectual instrument of substantial influence, and also
to act day by day as a pageant, without any influence whatever.
Human nature has never endured this, and we may be quite sure that
it never will endure it. It is a fundamental error in the ' esoteric
theory ' of the Tory party, that it assumed the King and the prime
minister to be always of the same mind, while they often were of
different minds.1
By a series of stratagems George III. at last obtained, in
the person of Lord North, a minister who combined a sufficient
amount of parliamentary support with an unlimited devotion to
the royal pleasure. He was a minister of great abihty, great
parhamentary tact, unbounded good humour, and no firmness.
He yielded everything to the intense, eager, petty incisiveness
of his sovereign. The King was the true minister for all pur
poses of pohcy and business. Lord North was only the talking
minister of the present French Assemblies, who is bound to
explain and to defend measures which he did not suggest, and
about which he was not consulted.
It is difficult to say how long Lord North's government
might not have continued, if it had not been for the military
calamities of the American war. That war had been very
popular at its commencement, and continued popular as long
1 History of the Unreformed Parliament, and its lessons. An essay, published
"in 1868, p. 28.

128 William Pitt.

as it was likely to be successful :. it became unpopular as soon
as it was likely to fail. The merchants began to murmur at
the stoppage of trade. The country gentlemen began to mur
mur at the oppressive burden of war-taxes. The nation began
to reconsider its opinion as to the justice of the quarrel, as
soon as it appeared that our military efforts would probably be
disastrous. Lord North shared in these feelings ; he did not
believe the war would succeed; no longer hoped it would
succeed ; no longer thought that there was any motive for con
tinuing to carry it on, but for several years he did continue to
carry it on. The will of George III. was a very efficient force
on everyone just about him, and his personal ascendency over
many men intellectuaUy far his superiors is a curious example
of the immense influence of a distinct judgment and inflexible
decision, with fair abilities and indefatigable industry, and
placed in a close contact with great men and great affairs.
At length, in March, 1782, the calamitous issue of the
American war became too evident, and Lord North resigned.
Lord Holland gives us a curious history of the mode in which he
announced to the House that he was no longer prime minister..
I have heard my uncle Fitzpatrick give a very diverting account
of the scene that passed in the House of Commons on the day of
Lord North's resignation, which happened to be a remarkably cold
day with a fall of snow. A motion of Lord Surrey's, for the dismissal
of ministers, stood for that day, and the Whigs were anxious that it
should come on before the resignation of Lord North was officially
announced, that his removal from office might be more manifestly
and formaUy the act of the House of Commons. He and Lord
Surrey rose at the same instant. After much clamour, disorder, and
some insignificant speeches on order, Mr. Pox, with great quickness
and address, moved, as the most regular method of extricating the
House from its embarrassment, ' That Lord Surrey be now heard.' But
Lord North, with yet more admirable presence of mind, mixed with
pleasantry, rose immediately and said, 'I rise to speak to that
motion; ' and, as his reason for opposing it, stated his resignation and *
the dissolution of the Ministry. The House, satisfied, became
impatient, and after some ineffectual efforts of speakers on both sides
to procure a hearing, an adjournment took place. Snow was falling

William Pitt. 129

and the night tremendous. All the members' carriages were dismissed,
and Mrs. Bennet's room at the door was crowded. But Lord North's
carriage was waiting. He put into it one or two of his friends, whom
he had invited to go home with him, and turning to the crowd,
chiefly composed of his bitter enemies, in the midst of their triumph,
exclaimed, in this hour of defeat and supposed mortification, with
admirable good humour and pleasantry, ' I have my carriage. You
see, gentlemen,' the advantage of being in the secret. Good-night.'
Such acquiescent bonhomie is admirable, no doubt ; but
easy good-nature is no virtue for a man of action, least of
all for a practical poUtician in critical times. It was Lord
North's ' happy temper ' which first made him the mean slave
of George IIL, which afterwards induced him to ally himself
with the most virulent assailants of that monarch, and, at a
preceding period, of himself.
When Lord North resigned, it was natural that the leaders
ofthe Opposition should come at once into predominant power;
but a ministerial crisis in the early part of George III.'s reign
was never permitted to proceed in what is now fixed as the
constitutional etiquette. The King always interfered with it.
On this occasion, the only pohtical party who could take office
was that which, under the judicious guidance of Lord Rocking
ham, and supported by the unequalled oratory of Fox and
Burke, had consistently opposed the American War. But the
leaders of this party were personally disliked by George III.
Lord Rockingham he had once before called ' one of the most
insignificant noblemen in my service.' Mr. Fox, from a curious
combination of causes, he hated. Accordingly, though it was
necessary for him to treat with Lord Rockingham and his
friends, he did not treat with them directly. He employed as
an intermediate agent Lord Shelburne, the father of the present
Marquis of Lansdowne, a pohtician whom it is not difficult to
describe, but whom it is difficult really to understand. Police
men tell us that there is such a character as a ' reputed thief,'
who has never been convicted of any particular act of thievery.

130 William Pitt.

Lord Shelburne was precisely that character in political hfe ;
everyone always said he was dishonest, but no particular act of
dishonesty has ever been brought home to him. It is not for
us now to discuss the dubious peculiarities of so singular a
character. But it wiU be admitted, that it was a most unfor
tunate one for conducting the delicate personal negotiations
inevitable on the formation of a cabinet, and that it specially
unfitted the person believed to possess it to be a good go-between
between a King who hated the Opposition and an Opposition
who distrusted the King. The inevitable result followed : every
member of the incoming party was displeased with the King ;
everyone disbelieved the assertions of Lord Shelburne ; every
one distrusted the solidity of a ministry constructed in a
manner so anomalous. A ministry, however, was constructed,
of which Lord Shelburne and Lord Rockingham were both
members ; and both, Mr. Fox said, intended to be prime
ministers. Lord Rockingham must evidently have been a man of very
fine and delicate judgment. He could not speak in the House
of Lords, and his letters are rather awkwardly expressed ; but
those who compare the history of the Whig party for some
years before his death with the history of that party for some
years after it, and those who compare the career of Burke for
the same two periods, will perceive that both over the turbu
lence of the great party and the turbulence of the great orator
the same almost invisible discretion exercised -a guiding and
restraining control. After Lord Rockingham's death, both
the Whig party and Mr. Burke committed great errors and fell
into lamentable excesses, which were entirely unlike anything
which happened while he was yet ahve. If he had been per
mitted to exercise a composing influence, it is possible that the
ministry we have described might have lasted ; but, unfortu
nately, within three months after its formation he fell iU and
died. Mr. Fox, who had just been quarrelling with Lord Shel
burne, refused to serve under him and sent in his resignation ;

William Pitt. 131

and his example was followed by Burke, and by most of the
followers of Lord Rockingham.
Lord Shelburne, however, still intended to be prime min
ister. The King was in his favour. The Whigs had no great
aristocratic leader. The Duke of Portland, who was put for
ward as such, had no powers of speech and but feeble powers of
thought. There was no difference of pohtical opinion which
need have separated any Whig from Shelburne. He was there
fore justified in hoping that if he persevered, he might rally
round him in no long time the greater portion of the Whig party,
notwithstanding the secession of its present leaders. He doubt
less hoped also, by taking advantage of the various influences
of the Crown, to attach to himself very many of the followers
of Lord North, who were the old adherents of the Crown. But
these were anticipations only. For the moment he was more
completely separated from the parhamentary ability of his age
than any minister has since been. He came into office in op
position to Lord North and one great party ; he remained in
office in opposition to Fox and Burke, the leaders of the other
' great party. The trained leaders of the old Ministry and the
trained leaders of the old Opposition were both opposed to him.
If he decided to remain prime minister, it was necessary for
him to take some bold step. He did so. He made Mr. Pitt
ChanceUor of the Exchequer and the leader of the House of
Commons, though he was but twenty-three.
Such singular good fortune has never happened to any
English statesman since parliamentary government in this
cpuntry has been consohdated into its present form, and it is
very unlikely that anything hke it can ever happen again.
Perhaps no man of twenty-three could get through the quan
tity v of work that is now required to fill the two offices of
Finance Minister and leader of the House of Commons. In
Pitt's time the Chancellor of the Exchequer (he himself teUs
us) needed no private secretary; he had no business requiring
any. The leader of the House of Commons did not even
k2

132 William Pitt.

require one-tenth part of the ready available misceUaneous in
formation which he must now have at his command, and most
of which cannot be learned from any books. To fill the offices
which Mr. Pitt filled at twenty-three, it would in this age be
necessary that a man should have a trained faculty of trans
acting business rapidly, which no man of twenty-three can
have ; and that he should have also a varied knowledge of
half a hundred subjects, which no college can teach, and which
no book of reference will ever contain. Mr. Pitt, however, met
with no difficulty. Though the finances of the country had
been disordered by the American War, and though the ministry
was daily assailed by the dexterous good-humour of Lord North
and the vehement invectives of Fox and Burke, ' the boy,' as
they called him, was successful in his Budget, and successful in
his management of the House of Commons. It soon, however,
became evident that Lord Shelburne's ministry could not stand
long. There were three parties in the House, and a coalition
of any two was sufficient to outnumber any one. According to
a calculation preserved in a letter from Gibbon, everything de
pended on the decision of Mr. Fox. If he returned to the Go
vernment, it would be strong ; if he alhed himself with Lord
North, it must fail. He did ally himself with Lord North, and
Lord Shelburne resigned.
The coalition between Fox and Lord North is not defended
even by Lord John Russell, who defends almost every act in
the political life of his great hero. Indeed, it was not likely
that he would defend it; for to it we owe the almost unbroken .
subjection of the Whigs, and the almost unbroken reign of the
Tories, for five and twenty years.
No pohtical alliance in English history has been more
unpopular than this coalition. For once the King and. the
people were on tbe same side, and that side the right side.
During by far the greater part of his reign the wishes of
George III. were either opposed to the wishes of his people,
or the wishes of the two, though identical, were pernicious.

William Pitt. 133

During the first part of his reign his attempts to increase the
royal influence were generally unpopular; during the latter
part, he and his people were both favourable to the American
War and to the French- War, with what result history shows.
But at the period of which we are speaking, both the prominent
prejudices of the King and the deepest feelings of the people
were offended by the same event. The Coahtion deeply an
noyed the King. It was hateful to him that his favourite, Lord
North, who had been his confidential minister for years, who
was enriched with the marks of his bounty and good-will,
who was the leader of many pohticians, always biassed in
favour of the Crown, and always anxious to support its in
fluence, if they could, should after all ally himself with Mr.
Fox, who had opposed the Crown for years ; who had called
its latent influence ' an infernal spirit ;' who was the leader
of the party opposed to the American War, and therefore, in
the King's view, of the party which had advocated treason and
abetted the disruption of the empire ; who, worse than all, was
the companion and eneourager of the Prince of Wales in every
species of dissipation ; who introduced him to haunts and
countenanced him in habits which made the very heart of an
economical and decorous monarch horrified and angry ; who at
that very moment was endeavouring to make ' capital,' as we
should now say, out of the pohtical prospects and present in
fluence of his profligate associate. George III. used to call the
' coahtion ministry ' his ' son's ministry ; ' and he could not
embody his detestation of it in terms more expressive, to those
who knew their meaning. On the other hand, the people were
not unnaturally offended also. The Coalition brought into
very clear prominence the most characteristic weakness of our
uyeformed constitution. Though it professed to be, and
really was, a popular constitution, the people could not be
induced to believe that they had much concern in it. The
members chosen by popular election were a minority ; those no
minated, by aristocratic and indirect influence were a majority.

1 34 William Pitt.

Accordingly most men believed, or were prone to believe, that
the struggles in Parhament were faction-fights for place and
power ; that the interest of the nation had little to do with
them, or nothing ; that they were contests for political power,-.
and for the rich pecuniary rewards which influential office
then conferred. The Coalition seemed to prove that this was
so even to demonstration. If there ever had been a bona fide,
and not a simulated, struggle in Parliament, it was the struggle
between Fox and Lord North. They had opposed one another
for years ; Fox had heaped on Lord North every term of in
vective, opprobrium, and contempt ; Lord North had said every
thing which a good-natured and passive man could say in
reply. They had taken different sides both on the obvious
question which had been the dividing and critical one of the
last few years, and on the latent question which was the real.
one underlying the greater part of the controversies of the age
and giving to them most of their importance. Lord North was
the great parliamentary advocate of the American War ; Fox
was its most celebrated and effective opponent. Lord North
was the most decent agent, and the most successful co-operator,
whom George III. had yet found in his incessant policy of
maintaining and augmenting the power of the Crown. Fox
was known to be opposed to that policy with all his mind, soul,
and strength ; he was known to have heaped upon that policy
every bitter term of contempt, opprobrium, and execration
which the Enghsh language contains ; he was known to have
incurred the bitter hatred of George III. by so doing. With
these facts before them, what could the nation infer when they
saw these two statesmen combine for the evident purpose of
obtaining immediate office ? They could only say what they
did. They said at once that the Coalition must be dishonest if
the previous opposition had been real, and that the coalescing
statesmen were utterly untrustworthy if that opposition had
been simulated.
The government of the Coalition was not, however, destined

William Pitt. 135

to be durable. George III. was a dangerous man to drive to
extremity. Though without great creative abihty, he had dex
terous powers of political management, cultivated by long habit
and experience ; he had an eager obstinacy allied to the obsti
nacy of insanity; it was not safe to try him too far. The
" Coalition Government, however, tried him as far as it was
possible. They framed an India Bill, giving the patronage of
India to commissioners, to be from time to time nominated by
Parliament, to be irremovable by the Crown, the first of whom
were to be nominated by themselves. The King was enraged
at a scheme so injurious to his secret influence. He considered
that it was a scheme for enabling Mr. Fox to buy votes in
Parhament. Lord FitzwiUiam, his intimate pohtical friend,
was to be at the head of the new Board ; and it was expected,
perhaps intended, that the Board should be an independent
instrument of parhamentary power at the service of the aristo
cratic Whigs, and in daily opposition to the influence of the
Crown— to that personal influence which George III. had all
his life been hoarding and acquiring. The people were almost
as much enraged at .the scheme as the King himself. They
thought that the pohticians who had just formed a corrupt
coahtion to obtain office were now providing a corrupt expe
dient for retaining that office. ' Being dishonest themselves,'
it was said, ' they are providing themselves with the means of
purchasing the votes of others who are dishonest likewise.'
The exact value of these accusations we have not space to esti
mate now ; something might certainly be said in extenuation,
if it were needful, but at the time the popular feeling was
powerfuUy excited by them ; they were expressed by Pitt with
marvellous force and marvellous variety, and re-echoed through
the nation.
The parhamentary influence of the Coalition Government,
which was supported by the greater part of the borough pro
prietors, both Whig and Tory, was, however, sufficient to carry
their India Bill through the House of Commons by majorities

136 William Pitt.

which would now be considered very large. It reached the
House of Lords, and would have passed that House too, if
George III. had not taken one of the most curious steps in
our constitutional history. He wrote on a card : ' His Majesty
allowed Earl Temple to say that whoever voted for the India
Bill was not only not his friend, but would be considered by
him as an enemy ; and if these words were not strong enough.
Earl Temple might use whatever words he might deem stronger
and more to the purpose.'
Such was the influence of the Crown, such was especiaUy
the personal influence which George III. had acquired by
steady industry and incessant attention to the personalities of
pohtics, that the fate of the India Bill in the Lords very soon
became dubious. 'The bishops wavered;' the staunchest fol-;
lowers of Lord North especially, being high Tories, became
uncertain; and in the end the BiU was rejected by a majority
of ninety-five over seventy-six.
Nor did the King's active influence stop here. The Coahtion
Ministry did not resign ; although their principal measure had
been rejected in the Lords, they kept their places; they in
duced the House of Commons to resolve that it was a breach
of the privilege of Parliament to attempt to influence votes in
either House by announcing ' any opinion or pretended opinion
of his Majesty.' The ministry was passive in its place ; but
George III. was never deterred by minor difficulties. He sent
his commands at midnight to Mr. Fox and Lord North to
deliver up the seals of office, and to send them by their under
secretaries, as he must decline to see them in person. By this
parliamentary coup d'etat he broke up an administration which,
though unpopular in the country, was supported by the ' great
owners ' of parliamentary influence and an overwhelming ma
jority in the House of Commons.
But who was to come in ? That the King could turn out
the old ministry was very clear, for he had done so ; but that
he could form a ministry that could last in such circumstances

William Pitt. 137

seemed unlikely ; that he could form any ministry at aU was
not evident. PoUtical expectation was very eager. As soon as
the House met on the day after the midnight dismissal, a new
writ was moved for the borough of Appleby, 'in the room of
the Right Honourable William Pitt, who, since his election,
has accepted the office of First Lord of the Treasury and Chan
cellor of the Exchequer.' The announcement was received
with laughter, for it seemed unhkely that an ambitious boy
(such was the speech of the time) should be able to carry on
the government, and to lead the House of Commons in the
face of an adverse majority, in direct opposition to the most
experienced statesmen, the most practised debaters, and the
most skilful manceuvrers of his age.
Mr. Pitt was only twenty-five, and he had no one to rely
on. Mr. Dundas was a useful subordinate and an efficient
man of business, but he was not a great statesman or a great
orator, and he was a Scotch adventurer. In the Lords, Mr. Pitt
was confident of the support of Lord Temple, who had effected
the defeat of the India Bill by the use of the King's name ; but
Lord Temple wanted to be paid. He had great borough con
nections, which gave him permanent claims on every govern
ment ; he had just turned out the old government, which gave
him a peculiar claim upon the favour of the new. He asked
for a dukedom, and was refused. The King thought he had
asked too much, and perhaps beheved that it would be most
dangerous at that critical moment to give the highest of hono
rary rewards to the principal agent in an alarming act of royal
influence. At any rate, the apphcation was declined, and Lord
Temple resigned. Mr. Pitt was thus left almost alone. His
cabinet consisted but of seven persons, and he himself was
the only member of the House of Commons among those seven.
Everybody expected that Parhament would be immediately
dissolved. As Mr. Pitt was evidently in a minority in the House
of Commons which then existed, it was confidently believed that
he would at once see whether he would not have a majority in

r^S William Pitt.

a new House of Commons. He was too wary, however, to do
so. In that age, public opinion formed itself slowly and declared
itself slowly. The nation, as far as it had an opinion, was in
favour of the new administration ; but in many parts of the
country there was no opinion. Delay was in favour of the side
which had the advantage in teUing argument ; and so strong
were the objections of reasonable and moderate men to the
coalition between Fox and Lord North — so entirely was their
India Bill interpreted by the help of that connection, and
regarded in its relation to it — that every day's discussion made
converts. The members for close boroughs, and for counties
in which individual interest predominated, were, it is true, a
majority in the House of Commons, and they adhered for the
most part to the Coahtion. But the strength so obtained was
always weak at a trying crisis. The same influences acted on
the borough proprietors which acted upon others, and they
never liked to be opposed to the national will when it was
distinctly declared. Nor had the extreme partisans of either
party ever liked the coahtion of the two parties. The warmest
Whigs were alienated from Fox, and the strongest Tories were
ahenated from Lord North. The majority of Fox began to
waver, and the minority of Pitt began to augment. Every
division showed a tendency in the same direction. Pitt main
tained , the struggle with dauntless courage, and unbounded
dialectical dexterity, against aU the orators in the House of
Commons. The event began to be doubtful. In the unre-
formed Parhament no more was necessary. A large section of
every party was attached to it by the hope of patronage ; it had
been bought by promises of that patronage. As the present
writer has elsewhere explained, the strength so obtained was
unstable. It especially failed at the moment at which it was especially
wanted. A majority in Parliament which is united by a sincere
opinion, and is combined to carry out that opinion, is in some sense
secure. As long as that opinion is unchanged, it will remain ; it can

William Pitt. i 39

only be destroyed by weakening the conviction which binds it to
gether. A majority which is obtained by the employment of patron
age is very different ; it is combined mainly by an expectation. Sir
Robert Walpole, the great master in the art of dispensing patronage,
defined gratitude as an anticipation of future favours ; he meant that
the majority which maintained his administration was collected, not
by recollection, but by hope ; they thought not so much of favours
which were past as of favours which were to come. At a critical
moment this bond of union was ordinarily weak.1
As soon as it seemed likely that Mr. Pitt would be victorious,
the selfish part of the followers of the Coalition — a very large
part — began to go over to Mr. Pitt. The last motion of Mr. Fox
was carried by a majority of one.
Mr. Pitt then saw that his time had come; he dissolved
Parliament, and his triumph was complete. The popular feeling
was overwhelming. It prevailed even in the strongholds of the
Whig aristocracy. ' Thus in Norfolk,' says Lord Stanhope, ' the
late member had been Mr. Coke, lord of the vast domains of
Holkham, a gentleman who, according to his own opinion, as
stated in his address to the county, had played " a distinguished
. part " in opposing the American war. But notwithstanding his
alleged claims of distinction, and his much more certain claims
of property, Mr. Coke found it necessary to decline the contest.'
But of all the contests of this period, the most important in
that point of view was for the county of York. That great
county, not yet at election times severed into Ridings, had
been under the sway of the Whig houses. Bolton Abbey,
Castle Howard, and Wentworth Park had claimed the right to
dictate at the hustings. It was not till 1780 that the spirit
of the county rose. ' Hitherto ' — so in that year spoke Sir
George Savile — ' I have been elected in Lord Rockingham's
dining-room. Now I am returned by my constituents.' And
in 1784 the spirit of the county rose higher still. In 1784 the
independent freeholders of Yorkshire boldly confronted the
great houses, and insisted on returning, in conjunction with
1 History ofthe Tfnreformed Pm-lia-ment, and its Lessons, p. 29. <

140 William Pitt.

the heir of Duncombe Park, a banker's son, of few years and
of scarcely tried abilities, though destined to a high place in
his country's annals — Mr. WUberforce. With the help of the
country gentlemen, they raised the vast sum of 18,662L for the
expense of the election ; and so great was their show of num
bers and of resolution, that the candidates upon the other side
did not venture to stand a contest. Wilberforce was also
returned at the head of the poll by his former constituents
at Hull. ' I can never congratulate you enough on such glo
rious success,' wrote the Prime Minister to his young friend.
One hundred and sixty followers of Mr. Fox lost their seats,
and were called ' Fox's martyrs.' The majority for Pitt in the
new Parhament was complete, overwhelming, and enthusiastic.
The constitutional aspect of the events of 1784 has been
much discussed, and well merits discussion. It is certain that
George III. did much that was, according to the good notions
now fixedly estabhshed, thoroughly unconstitutional ; it is cer
tain that scarcely anyone will, upon any constitutional doctrines,
new or old, defend the ' card ' displayed by Lord Temple. But,
if we had room to argue the subject, we think it might be shown
that it would have been inexpedient to apply, in the year 1784,
the strict constitutional maxims on which we should act in the
year 1861 ; that the beneficial relations, and that the inevitable
relations of the Parliament and the Crown, were different then
from what they are now ; that, under such an aristocratic legis
lature as the unreformed Parhament principally was, it was
needful that the Crown should sometimes intervene, when the
opinion of Parliament was opposed to the opinion of the people";
that, in times when pubhc opinion was formed but slowly, it was
advisable that the Crown should do so, not by an instant disso
lution of the House of Commons, as we should now exact, but
by a deferred dissolution, which would enable the thinking part
of the community to reflect, and give the whole country, far
and near, time to form a real judgment.
But, at present, we have to deal with the events of 1784,

William Pitt. 14!

not in their relation to the constitution of England, but in
their relation to the life of Mr. Pitt. They were the completion
of his opportunity. But a short time previously the pohtical
isolation of Lord Shelburne had made him Chancellor of the
Exchequer at a boyish age ; the isolation of George IIL now
made him prime minister while still very young. The first
good fortune would have been a marvel in the life of any other
man, but was nothing to the marvel of the second. By a
strange course of great incidents, he was in the most command
ing position which an English subject has ever occupied since
parliamentary government was thoroughly established in the
country. The victory was so complete, that the mercenaries of
the enemy had deserted to his standard. The Crown was ne
cessarily on his side, for he alone stood between George III.
and the hated Coalition, which he had discarded and insulted ;
the people were on his side, from a hatred of the official cor
ruption of which they considered his opponents to be the
representatives and the embodiments, from a firm belief in his
true integrity, from a proud admiration of his single-handed
courage and audacious self-reliance. He had the power to do
what he would.
Nor was this all. The opportunity was not only a great
opportunity, but was an opportunity in the hands of a young
man. Half of our greatest statesmen would have been wholly
unprepared for it. When Lord Palmerston was in office in the
spring of 1857 with a large majority, a shrewd observer, now
no longer among us, said, ' Well, it is a large majority ; but
what is he to do with it?' He did not know himself; by
paltry errors and frivolous haughtiness he frittered it away
immediately. An old man of the world has no great objects,
no telhng enthusiasm, no large proposals, no noble . reforms ;
his advice is that of the old banker, ' Live, sir, from day to day,
and don't trouble yourself! ' Years of acquiescing in proposals
as to which he has not been considted, of voting for measures
which he did not frame, and in the wisdom of which he often

j 42 William Pitt.

did not believe, of arguing for proposals from half of which he
dissents — usually de-intellectualise a parliamentary statesman
before he comes to half his power. From all this Pitt was
exempt. He came to great power with a fresh mind. And
not only so ; he came into power with the cultivated thought
of a new generation. Too many of us scarcely remember how
young a man he was. He was born in 1759, and might have
well been in the vigour of life in 1830. Lord Sidmouth, his
contemporary, did not die till after 1840; he was younger
than his cousin, Mr. Thomas Grenville, who long represented
in London society the traditions of the past, and who died in
1846. He governed men of the generation before him. Alone
among English statesmen, while yet a youth he was governing
middle-aged men. He had the power of applying the eager
thought of five and twenty, of making it rule over the petty
knowledge and trained acquiescence of five and fifty. Alone
as yet, and alone perhaps for ever in our parliamentary his
tory, while his own mind was still original, while his own
spirit was still unbroken, he was able to impose an absolute
yoke on acquiescent spirits whom the world had broken for
him. We have expended so much space on a dehneation of the
peculiar opportunities which Mr. Pitt enjoyed, that we must be
very concise in showing how he used them. Three subjects
then needed the attention of a great statesman; though none of
them were so pressing as to force themselves on the attention
of a little statesman. These were, our economical and financial
legislation, the imperfection of our parliamentary representa
tion, and the unhappy condition of Ireland. Pitt dealt with
all three. Our economical legislation was partly in an uncared-for
state, and partly in an ill-cared-for state. Our customs laws
were a chaos of confusion. Innumerable Acts of Parliament
had been passed on temporary occasions and for temporary
purposes ; blunders had been discovered in them ; other Acts

William Pitt. 143

were passed to amend those blunders; those other Acts con
tained other blunders ; new corrective legislation was required,
and here too there were errors, omissions, and imperfections.
And in so far as our economical legislation was based upon a
theory, that theory was a very mistaken one ; it was the theory
of Protection. The first duty of the English Legislature, it
was believed, was to develop English industry and to injure
foreign industry. Our manufactures, it was thought, could be
made better by Acts of Parhament ; the manufactures of our
rivals, it was believed, could be made worse. The industry of
the nation worked in a comphcated network of fetters and
bonds. Mr. Pitt apphed himself vigorously to this chaos. He
brought in a series of resolutions consolidating our customs
laws, of which the inevitable complexity may be estimated by
their number. They amounted to 133, and the number of
Acts of Parliament which they restrained or completed was
much greater. He attempted, and successfully, to apply the
principles of Free Trade, the principles which he was the first
of English statesmen to learn from Adam Smith, to the actual
commerce of the country, and to the part of our commerce
which afforded the greatest temptations to a philosophic states
man, and presented the greatest accumulation of irritable and
stupid prejudice. France and England were near one another,
but had no trade with one another ; no such trade at least as
two countries so different in soil, in climate, and in natural
aptitude, ought to have. So far from either nation much wish
ing to trade with the other, neither wished to depend on the
other for anything. The national dignity was supposed to
be compromised by buying from an ancient rival. Mr. Pitt,
however, framed a treaty which, if its consequences had not
been swept away with so much else, both good and evil, in
the European storm of the French Revolution, would have
been quoted as the true commencement of free-trade legisla
tion ; would have been referred to as we now refer to the ten-

Izm William Pitt.

tative reforms of Huskisson, and to the earlier budgets of Sir
Robert Peel. ' So little was the subject then understood, even
by those most likely to understand it, that both Fox and Burke
opposed the treaty with virulence and vehemence ; declaring
that France was our natural enemy, and that it was unworthy
of anyone who pretended to be a statesman to create a
' peddling traffic,' and maintain ' huckstering ' relations with
her. The financial reputation of Pitt has greatly suffered from
the absurd praise which was once lavished on the worst part
of it. The dread of national ruin from the augmentation of.
the national debt was a sort of nightmare in that age ; the
evil was apparent, and the counteracting force was not seen.
No one perceived that EngUsh industry was yearly growing-
with an accelerating rapidity ; no one foresaw that in a few
years it would be aided by a hundred wonderful inventions—
by the innumerable results of apphed science ; no one com
prehended that the national estate was augmenting far faster
than the national burden. The popular mind was appre
hensive, and wished to see some remedy applied to what
seemed to be an evident and dangerous evil. Mr. Pitt sym
pathised with the general apprehension and created the well-
known ' Sinking Fund.' He proposed to apply annually a cer
tain fixed sum to the payment of the debt, which was in itself
excellent, but he omitted to provide real money to be so paid.
The only source out of wbich debt can be defrayed, as every
one now understands, is a surplus revenue ; out of an empty
exchequer no claims can ever be liquidated by possibility : an
excess of income over outlay is a prerequisite of a true repay
ment. Mr. Pitt, however, not, only did not see this, but per
suaded a whole generation that it was not so. He proposed to
borrow the money to pay off the debt, and fancied that he
thus diminished it. He had framed a puzzle in compound
interest, which deceived himself, and everyone who was en
trusted with the national finances, for very many years.

William Pitt. 145

The exposure of this financial juggle, for though not in
tended to be so, such in fact it was, has reacted very unfavour
ably upon Mr Pitt's deserved fame. It was so long said ' that
he was a great financier because he invented the Sinking
Fund,' that it came at last to be believed that he could not be
a great financier inasmuch as he had invented it. So much
merit had been claimed for something bad, that no search was
made for anything good. But an accurate study of these times
Will prove that Pitt was really one of the greatest financiers in
our history, that he repaired the great disorders of the Ameri
can war, that he restored a surplus revenue, that he understood
the true principles of taxation, that he even knew that the
best way to increase a revenue from the consumption of the
masses is to lower the rate of duty and develop their consuming
power. The subject of parliamentary reform is the one with which,
in Mr. Pitt's early days, the public most connected his name,
and is also that with which we are now least apt to connect it.
We have so long and so often heard him treated as the great
Conservative minister, that we can hardly realise to ourselves
that Jie was an unsparing and ardent reformer. Yet such is
the indisputable fact. He proposed the abolition of the. worst
of the rotten boroughs fifty years before Lord Grey accomplished
it. The period was a favourable one for reform. The failure
of the American War had left behind it a bitter irritation and
an anxious self-reproach. Why had we, with our great wealth,
our great valour, our long experience, failed in what seemed a
trivial enterprise ? Why had we been put to shame in the face
of Europe ? Why had we been forced to humble ourselves in
the face of Europe ? Why had we been compelled to make an
ignominious peace ? Why had we, as one of the greatest of
civilised states, failed to conquer a raw and unknown colony ?
The popular answer was, that our arms had been unsuccessful
because our Government was corrupt. The practical working
of our unreformed constitution has been tersely described as
L

146 William Pitt.

the barter of patronage for power ; the parliamentary majori
ties of that age were kept by an incessant commerce between
the proprietors of seats who sold and the Secretary of the
Treasury who bought* In the present day refined arguments
are often brought forward to justify or to palliate the system of
government. But whatever may be the abstract worth of those
arguments, their practical worth is not great. They will never
convince the mass of men ; they will never satisfy the unso
phisticated instinct of ordinary men; they will not remove
their natural distrust of what they believe to be unpatriotic
selfishness ; they wiU not lessen their conscientious repugnance
to that which they call corruption. After the disasters of
the American War, this feeling was very strong and very dif
fused. An unpopular tree was judged of by unpopular fruits ;
our calamities were evident, and our corruption was con
spicuous. A most distinct association of the two was formed -
in the popular mind. Of this Mr. Pitt took advantage. If
the strong counteracting influence of the French Revolution
had not changed the national opinion, he would unquestion
ably have amended our parliamentary representation. Even
after the French Revolution he never changed his own opinion ;
he considered that the time was not favourable for what. we
now call organic changes ; and he judged wisely, for the mass
of the nation was wildly and frantically Conservative; but
he did not abandon his early principles : he never became a
' Pittite.' The state of Ireland was a more pressing difficulty than our
financial confusion, our economical errors, or our parliamentary
corruption. It had an independent legislature, which might
at any time take a dangerously different view of national in
terests, of the expediency of a peace, or the expediency of a
war, from the English Parliament. That legislature was a
Protestant legislature in the midst of a Catholic people ; it was
the legislature of a small and hated minority in the midst of
an excitable, tumultuous, oppressed people. The mass of the

William Pitt. 147

Irish Catholics believed that the mass of the property, which
belonged in fact to the Protestants, was in strict right theirs ;
they believed that they were the true owners of the soil, and
that the Protestants were intruders ; they believed that they
had a right to govern the country, and that the Protestants
were usurpers ; they believed that the Church which the State
supported was a heretic Church ; that the Church which the
State did not support was the true Church — the only true
Church in Christendom. In every parish the distinction be
tween Protestant and Catholic was periodically ruled by the
most critical of tests — the pecuniary test. The collection of
the tithe in detail over the country, from the Catholic popula
tion for the Protestant Church, was the. source of chronic con
fusion and incessant bloodshed. Mr. Pitt proposed to remedy
all these evils in turn, and effectually. He proposed to remedy
the most immediate and pressing cause of trouble throughout
the country by changing — as has since been done — the period
ical extortion of the Irish tithe from the hostile farmer into
an equivalent payment by a rent-charge, which could be easily
collected, and could give rise to no disgraceful scenes. He pro
posed to put the Catholic majority and the Protestant minority
upon a perfect equality so far as civil rights were concerned.
He was desirous that Catholics should be eligible to aU offices,
and be electors for all offices. He was ready likewise to
destroy the prevalent rehgious agitation at its very root, by
paying the ministers of the Church of the poor as well as the
ministers of the Church of the rich. He proposed at once to
remedy the national danger of having two Parliaments, and to
remove the incredible corruption of the old Irish Parliament,
by. uniting the three kingdoms in a single representative sys-
t«n, of which the Parhament should sit in England. He
framed in a word, a scheme which would have cured the in
ternal divisions of Ireland, which would have united her effect
ually to the empire without impairing her real liberty.
Of these great reforms he was only permitted to carry a
*2

148 William Pitt.

few into execution. His power, as we have described it,- was
great when his reign commenced, and very great it continued
to be for very many years ; but the time became unfavourable
for all forward-looking statesmanship — for everything which
could be called innovation. The French Revolution and the
French War destroyed for many years our national taste for
political improvement. But, notwithstanding these calamities,
Pitt achieved some part of all his cherished schemes save one.
No opportunity would have enabled Pitt to effect these
great reforms, no peculiar situation would have suggested.
them to him, if he had not had certain more than ordinary
tendencies and abiUties — thej^ndenjeigs and abilitie&of La great
admjnisttator. Contrary to what might at first sight be sup
posed, using the word ' administrator ' in its most enlarged sense
— in the sense in which we used it at the commencement of
this article — the_first qualification of the highest administrator
is,J;hatJxe.shoulith.ink of something .which he need not. think
fi£=aOf jsomething which is not the pressing difficulty of the
hpur. For inferior men no rule could be so dangerous. Ambi
tious mediocrity is dangerous mediocrity : ordinary men find
what they must do amply enough for them to do ; the exacting
difficulty of the hour, which will not be stayed, which must be
met, absorbs their whole time and aU their energies. But the
ideal administrator has time, has mind — for that is the diffi
culty —for something more : he can do what he must, and he
will do what he wishes. This is Mr. Pitt's pecuharity among
the great English statesmen of the eighteenth century. As a
rule, the spirit of Sir Robert Walpole ruled over all these
statesmen. They respected his favourite maxim, quieta non
movere; to deal shrewdly and adroitly with what must be
dealt with; to leave alone whatever might be left alone;
to accumulate every possible resource against the inevitable
difficulties of the present moment, and never to think or
dream or treat of what was not inevitable ; — these were then
as always, the justifiable aims of commonplace men. They

William Pitt. 149
did their possible ; they did all that they could with their
strength and their faculties in their day and generation. The
philosophy of the time, with its definite problems and its un
aspiring tendencies, encouraged them ; it made them unalive
to the higher possibilities they were forgetting, to the higher
duties they were half-eonsciously, half-unconsciously passing
over. It was with reference to this oblivious neglect of the
future, this short-sighted absorption in the present, that Dr.
Arnold called this century the ' misused trial-time of modern
Europe.' It is the distinctive characteristic of Pitt that,
having a great opportunity, having power such as no par
liamentary statesman has ever had, having in his mind a
fresh stock of youthful thought such as no similar statesman
has ever possessed — he applied that power steadily and per-
severingly to embody that thought. To persons who think
but slightly, this may seem only a very slight merit. The first
remark of many a commonplace man would be, 'If I had
great power, I would carry out my own ideas.' A modern
Socrates, if there were such a person, would answer, ' But,
my good friend, what are your ideas ? ' When explained to an
exact and scrutinising questioner, still more when confronted
with the awful facts — the inevitable necessities of the real
world — these ' ideas ' Would melt away ; after a little while
the commonplace person, who was at first so proud of them,
would cease to beheve that he ever entertained them ; he would
say, 'Men of business do not indulge in those speculations.'
The characteristic merit of Pitt is, that in the midst of harass
ing details, in the midst of obvious cares, in the face of most
keen, most able, and most stimulated opposition, he applied
his whole power to the accomplishment of great but practicable
schemes. The marvel, or at any rate the merit, is greater. Pitt was,
by no means an excited visionary. He had by no means one
of those minds upon which great ideas fasten as a fanaticism.
There was among his contemporaries a great man, who was in

150 William Pitt.

the highest gifts of abstract genius, in the best acquisitions'
of political culture, far superior to him. But in the mind of
Burke great ideas were a supernatural burden, a superincumr
bent inspiration. He saw a great truth, and he saw nothing
else. At all times, with the intense irritability of genius, jn
later years with the extreme one-sidedness of insanity, he was
content, in season and out of season, with the great visions
which had been revealed to him, with the great lessons which
he had to teach, and which he could but very rarely induce
anyone to hear. But Pitt's mind was an absolute contrast to
this. He had an extreme discretion, tested at the most trying
conjunctures. In 1784, when he had no power, when there
was a hostile majority in the House of Commons, when he had
no sure majority in the House of Lords, when the support
of the King, which he undeniably had, was an undeniable
difficulty ; — for he did not intend to be a second Lord North ;
he did not intend to be a servitor of the Palace ; he would not
have stooped to carry out measures which he disapproved of;
he would not have been willing to enunciate measures as to
which he had not been consulted ; — at this very moment with
most of the constitutional powers against him, with the very
greatest greatly against him, with no useful part of it truly for
him — he never made a false step ; he guided the most feeble
administration of modern times so ably and so dexterously that
in a few months it became the strongest. A mind with so de
licate a tact as this is entitled to some merit for adhering to
distant principles. It is those who understand the present that
feel the temptation of the present ; it is those who comprehend
the hour that feel the truly arduous, though upon paper it may
seem the petty, difficulty of thinking beyond the hour. It is
no merit in those who cannot have the present to attempt to
act for posterity. There is nothing else left to them; they
have no other occupation open to them. But it is a great merit
in those who can have what is plain, apparent, and immediate,
to think ofthe unseen, unasking, impalpable future.

William Pitt. 151

It is this singular discretion which is Mr. Pitt's peculiar
merit, because he belongs to the class of statesmen who are
most apt to be defective in that discretion. He was an ora
torical statesman ; and an oratorical statesman means, ex vi
termini, an excitable statesman. His art consists in the power
of giving successfully in a more than ordinary manner the true
feelings and sentiments of ordinary men ; not their superficial
notions, nor their coarser sentiments, for with these any infe
rior man may deal, but their most intimate nature, that which
in their highest moments is most truly themselves. How is
the exercise of this art to be reconciled with terrestrial discre
tion ? Is the preacher to come down from his pedestal ? is he
who can deal worthily with great thoughts to be asked also to
deal fittingly with small details ? is it possible that the same
mind which can touch the hearts of all men can also be alive
to the petty interests of itself? is the microscopic power to
be added to the telescopic power ? is the capacity for careful
management to be added to the power of creating unbounded
enthusiasm ? Yet this is the perpetual difficulty of parliament
ary statesmen. A dry man can do the necessary business ; an
excitable man can give to the popular House of Parliament
the necessary excitement. Mr. Pitt was able, with surpassing
ability and surpassing ease, to do both ; scarcely anyone else
has been so.
This great parliamentary position he owed to a combination
of parhamentary abUities, of which only one or two can be,
within our necessary limits, distinctly specified, but one or two
of which are very prominent.
First, his singular oratorical power. He was, Lord Macaulay

tells us, ' at once the one man who could explain a budget with
out notes, and who could speak that most unmeaningly evasive of
human compositions, a Queen's speech, offhand.' He had the
eloquence of business both in its- expressive and its inexpressive
forms, and he had likewise the eloquence of character ; that
is, he had the singular power, which not half a dozen men in a

j 52 William Pitt.

generation possess, of imparting to a large audience the exact
copy of the feelings, the exact impress of the determination,
with whieh they are themselves possessed. On a matter of
figures, ' Pitt said so,' was enough ; on a question of legislative
improvement, an apathetic Parliament caught some interest
from his example ; in the deepest moments of national despair;
an anxious nation could show some remains of their characteris
tic courage, from his bold audacity, and unwearied, inflexible,
and augmenting determination.
No man could have achieved this without a sanguine tem
perament, and accordingly good observers pronounced Mr. Pitt
the most sanguine man they had ever known. In no stage of
national despondency, in no epoch of national despair, was his
capacity of hope, one of the important capacities for great men
in anxious affairs, ever shaken. At the crisis of his early life,
Lord Temple's resignation, which seemed the last possible addi
tion to the coahtion of difficulties under which he was labouring,
.is said to have deprived him of sleep ; but nothing else ever
did so after his power attained its maturity, and while his body
retained its strength.
Over the House of Commons, too, his anxious love of detail
had an influence which will not surprise those who know how -
sensitive that critical assembly is to eyery sort of genuineness,
and how keenly watchful it is for every kind of falsity. The
labour bestowed on his, reform of the Customs Acts, on his
Indian measures, on his financial proposals from year to year,
is matter of history ; no one can look with an instructed eye at
these measures without instantly being conscious of it. In
addition to his other great powers, Mr. Pitt added the rare one
of an intense capacity for work, in an age when that capacity
was rarer than it is now, and in a Parliament where the element
of dandies and idlers was far more dominant than it has since
become. Nor would this enumeration of Pitt's great parliamentary
qualities be complete ; it would want, perhaps, the most strik-

William Pitt. 153
ing and obvious characteristic, if we omitted to mention Pitt's
well-managed shyness and his surpassing pride.
In all descriptions of Pitt's appearance in the House of
Commons, a certain aloofness fills an odd space. He is a ' thing
apart,' different somehow from other members. Fox was the
exact opposite. He was a good fellow ; he rolled into the House,
fat, good-humoured, and popular. Pitt was spare, dignified,
and reserved. When he entered the House, he walked to the
place. of the Premier, without looking to the right or to the left,
and he sat at the same place. He was ready to discuss impor
tant business with all proper persons, upon all necessary occa
sions ; but he was not ready to discuss business unnecessarily
with anyone, nor did he discuss anything but business with any
save a very few intimate friends, with whom his reserve at once
vanished, and his wit and humour at once expanded, .and his
genuine interest in all really great subjects was at once displayed.
In a popular assembly this sort of reserve rightly manipulated
is a power. It is analogous to the manner which the accom
plished author of 'Eothen' recommends in dealing withOrien-
. tals : ' it excites terror and inspires respect.' A recent book of
memoirs illustrates it. During Addington's administration, a
certain rather obscure ' Mr. G.' was made a privy-councillor,
and the question was raised in Pitt's presence as to the mode
in which he could have obtained that honour. Some one said,
' I suppose he was always talking to the Premier, and bothering
him.' Mr. Pitt quietly observed, ' In my time I would much
rather have made him a privy-councillor than have spoken to
him' It is easy to conceive the mental exhaustion which this
well-managed reserve spared him, the number of trivial conver
sations which it economised, the number of imperfect ambitions
which it quelled before they were uttered. An ordinary man
could not of course make use of it. But Pitt at the earliest
period imparted to the House of Commons the two most impor
tant convictions for a member in his position : he convinced
them that he would not be the King's creature, and that he

154 William Pitt.

desired no pecuniary profit for himself. As he despised royal
favour and despised real money, the House of Commons thought
he might well despise them.
We have left ourselves no room to speak of Mr. PittV
policy at the time of the French Revolution. It would
require an essay of considerable length to do it substantial
justice. But we may observe, that the crisis which that revo
lution presented to an English statesman was one rather
for a great dictator than for a great administrator. The
Enghsh people were at first in general pleased with the
commencement of the French Revolution. ' Anglo-manie,'
it seemed, had been prevalent on the Continent ; the English
constitution it was hoped would be transplanted ; the funda
mental principles of the Enghsh Revolution it was, at any
rate, hqped, would be imitated. The essay of Burke by its
arguments, the progress of events by an evident experience,
proved that such would not be the history. What was to come
was uncertain. There was no precedent on the English file ;
the Enghsh people did not know what they ought to think ;
they were ready to submit to anyone who would think for them.
The only point upon which their opinion was decided was, that
the French Revolution was very dangerous ; that it had pro
duced awful results in France ; that it was no model for imita
tion for sober men in a sober country. They were ready to
concede anything to a statesman who allowed this, who acted on
this, who embodied this in appropriate action.
Mr. Pitt saw little further than the rest of the nation ; what
the French Revolution was he did not understand ; what forces
it would develop he did not foresee ; what sort of opposition it
would require he did not apprehend. He was, indeed, on one
point much in advance of his contemporaries. The instinct of
uncultivated persons is always towards an intemperate inter
ference with anything of which they do not approve. A most
worthy police-magistrate in our own time said, that 'he in
tended to put down suicide.' The English people, in the very

William Pitt. 155

same spirit of uncultured benevolence, wished to ' put down the
French Revolution.' They were irritated at its excesses ; they
were alarmed at its example ; they conceived that such impiety
should be punished for the past and prohibited for the future.
Mr. Pitt's natural instinct, however, was certainly in an en
tirely opposite direction. He was by inclination and by tem
perament opposed to all war ; he was very humane, and all war
is inhuman ; he was a great financier, and all war is opposed to
well-regulated finance. He postponed a French war as long as
he could ; he consented to it with reluctance, and continued it
from necessity.
Of the great powers which the sudden excitement of demo
cratic revolution would stimulate in a nation seemingly ex
hausted, Mr. Pitt knew no more than those who were around
him. Burke said that, as a military power, France was
' blotted from the map of Europe ;v and though Pitt, with cha
racteristic discretion, did not advance any sentiment which
would be so extreme, or any phrase which would adhere so
fixedly to everyone's memory, it is undeniable that he did
hot anticipate the martial power which the new France, as by
magic^ displayed ; that he fancied she would be an (effete
country ; that he fancied he was making war with certain
scanty vestiges of the ancien rSgime, instead of contending
against the renewed, excited, and intensified energies of a
united people. He did not know that, for temporary purposes,
a revolutionary government was the most powerful of all go
vernments ; for it does not care for the future, and has the
entire legacy of the past. He forgot that it was possible, that
from a brief period of tumultuous disorder, there might issue
a military despotism more compact, more disciplined, and more
overpowering than any which had preceded it, or any which
has followed it.
. But, as we have said, the conclusion of a prolonged article
is no place for discussing the precise nature of Mr. Pitt's anti-
revolutionary policy. Undoubtedly, he did not comprehend

156 William Pitt.

the Revolution in France ; as Lord Macaulay has explained,
with his habitual power, he over-rated the danger of a revo
lution in this country ; he entirely over-estimated the power
of the democratic assailants, and he entirely under-estimated
the force of the conservative, maintaining, restraining, and,
if need were, reactionary, influence. He saw his enemy; —
he did not see his allies. But it is not given to many
men to conquer such difficulties; it is not given to the
greatest of administrators to apprehend entirely new pheno
mena. A highly imaginative statesman, a man of great mo
ments and great visions, a greater Lord Chatham, might have
done so, but the educated sense and equable dexterity of
Mr. Pitt failed. All that he could do he did. He burnt the
memory of his own name into the Continental mind. After
sixty years, the French people still half believe that it was the
gold of Pitt which caused many of their misfortunes ; after half
a century it is still certain that it was Pitt's indomitable spirit
and Pitt's hopeful temper which was the soul of every conti
nental coalition, and the animating life of every anti-revolu
tionary movement. He showed most distinctly how potent i's
the influence of a commanding character just when he most
exhibited the characteristic limitation of even the best ad
ministrative intellect.

i57

BOLINGBROKE AS A STATESMAN.
[1863:]
Who- now reads Bolingbroke? was asked sixty years ago.
Who knows anything about him? we may ask now. Pro
fessed students of our history or of our literature may have
special knowledge ; but out of the general mass of educated
men, how many could give an intelligible account of his career ?
How many could describe even vaguely his character as a
statesman ? Our grandfathers and their fathers quarreUed for
two generations as to the peace of Utrecht, but only an odd
person here and there could now give an account of its pro
visions. The most cultivated lady would not mind asking,
'The peace of Utrecht! yes — what was that ? ' Whether Mr.
St. John was right to make that peace ; whether Queen Anne
was right to create him a peer for making it; whether the
Whigs were right in- impeaching him for making it — the mass
of men have forgotten. So is history immade. Even now, the
dust of forgetfulness is falling over the Congress of Vienna and
the peace of Paris ; we are forgetting the last great pacification
as we have wholly forgotten the pacification before that ; in
another fifty years ' Vienna ' will be as ' Utrecht,' and Welling
ton be no more than Marlborough.
In the meantime, however, Mr. Macknight has done well to
collect for those who wish to know them the principal events of
Bolingbroke's career. There was no tolerable outline of them
before, and in some respects this is a good one. Mr. Mac-
1 The Life of Hewry St. Mm Viscmmt.JBoUngorolte, Secretary of State in the
reign of Queen Anne. By Thomas Macknight, author of the History of the
'Life and Times of Edmund Burhe.

158 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
knight's style is clear, though often ponderous; his remarks
are sensible, and he has the great merit of not being imposed
on by great names and traditional reputations. The defect of
the book is, that he takes too literary a view of pohtics and
politicians ; that he has not looked closely and for himself at
real political life ; that he therefore misses the guiding traits
which show what in Queen Anne's time was so like our present
politics, and what so wholly unlike. We shall venture in the
course of this article to supply some general outline of the
controversies that were to be then decided, and of the political
forces which decided them; for unless these are distinctly
imagined, a reader of the present day cannot comprehend why
such a man as Bolingbroke was at one moment the most con-*
spicuous and influential of English statesmen, and then for
years an exile and a wanderer.
We must own, however, that it is not the intrinsic interest
even of events once so very important as the war of the Grand
Alliance and the peace of Utrecht which tempts us to write
this article. It is the interest of Bolingbroke's own character.
He tried a great experiment. There lurks about the fancies of
many men and women an imaginary conception of an ideal
statesman, resembling the character of which Alcibiades has
been the recognised type for centuries. There is a sort of
intellectual luxury in the idea which fascinates the human
mind. We like to fancy a young man, in the first vigour of
body and in the first vigour of mind, who is full of bounding
enjoyment, who is fond of irregular luxury, who is the favourite
of society, who excels all rivals at masculine feats, who gains
the love of women by a magic attraction, but who is also a
powerful statesman, who regulates great events, who settles
great measures, who guides a great nation. We seem to outstep
the masnia mundi, the recognised limits of human nature,
when we conceive a man in the pride of youth to have domi
nion over the pursuits of age, to rule both the light things of
women and the grave things of men. Human imagination so

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 159
much loves to surpass human power, that we shall never be
able to extirpate the conception. But we may examine the
approximations to it in life. We see in Bolingbroke's case
that a life of brilliant license is really compatible with a life
of brilhant statesmanship; that license itself may even be
thought to quicken the imagination for oratorical efforts ; that
an intellect similarly aroused may, at exciting conjunctures,
perceive possibihties which are hidden from duller men ; that
the favourite of society will be able to use his companionship
with men and his power over women so as much to aid his strokes
of policy, but, on the other hand, that these secondary aids and
occasional advantages are purchased by the total sacrifice of a
primary necessity; that a life of great excitement is incom
patible with the calm circumspection and the sound estimate
of probability essential to great affairs ; that though the excited
. hero may perceive distant things which others overlook, he will
overlook near things that others see ; that though he may be
stimulated to great speeches which others could not make, he
will also be irritated to petty speeches which others would not ;
that he will attract enmities, but not confidence ; that he will
not observe how few and plain are the alternatives of common
business, and how little even genius can enlarge them ; that
his prosperity wUl be a wild dream of unattainable possibilities,
and his adversity a long regret that those possibilities have
departed. At any rate, such was Bolingbroke's career. We
have better evidence about him than about any similar states
man, for the events in which he was concerned were large, and
he has given us a narrative of them from his own hand. A
summary retrospect of his career will not be worthless, if
it show what sudden brilliancy and what incurable ruin such
a hfe as his, with such a genius as his, was calculated to
ensure. Bolingbroke's father was a type of his generation. He was
a rake of the Restoration. Charles II. is the only king of
England who has had both the social qualities' which fitted him

1 60 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
to be the head of society, and the immoral qualities which
fitted him to corrupt society. His easy talk, his good anec
dotes, his happy manners, his conversancy with various life,
made Whitehall the ' best club ' of that time. What sort of
life he encouraged men to lead there we all know. Boling
broke's father learned of him all the evil which he could learn.
It was not singular that he committed excesses of dissipation,
but it was rather singular that he committed what was thought
to be murder. He stabbed a man in a drunken broil, and if.
Burnet can be trusted, only escaped from the gallows by a
great bribe. He dawdled on at the coffee-houses far into Queen
Anne's time, a monument of extinct profligacy, and a spectacle
and a wonder to a graver generation.
Bolingbroke's mother was a daughter of the Earl of War
wick ; but she died early, and his father married again, so that
we hear very little about her. If the silence of his biographers
may be trusted as evidence, she exercised but little influence
upon his infancy or upon his life.
The most influential preceptors of Bolingbroke's boyhood
were his grandfather and grandmother, who also were not un
usual characters in their generation. The former was a serious
and moderate Royalist, the latter was a serious but moderate
.Puritan. Bolingbroke's father apparently did not much like,
keeping house: it must have interfered with his pleasures,
and marred the life of coffee-houses. The whole direction of
Bolingbroke's mind was given to his grave grandfather and
grandmother. In after-times, when he was a prominent Tory
and a professed high-churchman, satirists used to say that he
was brought up among 'Dissenters.' And it is probable that
his grandmother, who was the daughter of the celebrated
Ohver St. John, the great parliamentary lawyer and chief
justice, was far from being in . opinion what a high Anglican
divine would term a ' Churchwoman.' Bolingbroke himself
used to relate terrible stories of having been compelled to read
the sermons of Puritan divines. But, as far as our slight

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 1 6 1
information goes, he did not suffer more than in any moder
ately ' serious ' family of our own time. All serious families were
then thought to have a little taint of Dissent, and Bolingbroke
was probably very sensitive to the partial dulness of a semi-
puritanical religion.
At any rate, we have no doubt it was said (and that his elder
relatives much grieved at it) that ' the boy was gone wrong,
like his father.' When he eame out into the world, he aston
ished his associates by his license. He had been at Eton and
Oxford, but he had not learnt, what is often learned there, a
decorum in profligacy. To what precise enormities his license
extended is immaterial, and cannot now be known. Goldsmith
had talked to an old gentleman who related that Bolingbroke
and his companions, in a drunken frolic, ran ' naked through
the Park.' But this is hardly credible ; and probably Gold
smith's informant was one of the many old people who believe
that the more wonderful the stories they tell, the more won
derful they themselves become. But at any rate his outrages
attracted censure. He did not, like his father, belong to his
generation. The age of King WiUiam tolerated much that we
tolerate no longer, but it was not like the first years of Charles
II. There was no longer a headlong recoil from Puritan strict
ness, and the Crown was on the side of at least apparent
morality. As is usual in England, grave deoorum and obvious
morals had a substantial influence, and against these Boling
broke offended.
He wrote poetry too, and the sort of poetry can only be ap-.
preciated by reading Locke's celebrated warning against that
art, and the connections which it occasions. Bohngbroke's
verses are addressed to a Clara A — , an orange-girl, who pre
tended to sell that fruit near the Court of Requests, but who
really had other objects. She was a lady of what may be called
mutable connections ; and the object of Bohngbroke's verses is
to induce her to give them up and adhere to him only. He
says : — M

1 62 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.-
No, Clara, no ; that person and that mind
Were formed by Nature, and by Heaven designed
For nobler ends : to these return, though late ;
Return to these, and so avert thy fate.
Think, Clara, think ; nor will that thought be vain ;
Thy slave, thy Harry, doom'd to drag his chain
Of love ill-treated and abused, that he
From more inglorious chains might rescue thee :
Thy drooping health restored by his fond care,
Once more thy beauty its full lustre wear ;
Moved by his love, by his example taught,
Soon shall thy soul, once more with virtue fraught,
With kind and generous truth thy bosom warm,
And thy fair mind, like thy fair person, charm.
To virtue thus and to thyself restored,
By all admired, by one alone adored,
Be tq thy H^rry ever kind and true,
And live for him who more than dies for you.
One would like to know what the orange-girl thought of all
this, but it would seem he was lavish of money as well as of
verses. At twenty^two he married. We do not know much about
his money matters ; and, as his father and grandfather were
both alive, his means could not have been at all large, especially
as his expenses had been great. But his wife had certainly a
considerable fortune. She was descended from a clothier called
Jack of Newbury, who had made a fortune several generations
before, and was one of the coheiresses of Sir Henry Winches-
comb, who had large property. What sort of person she was
does not very clearly appear. But it does appear that the
match was an unhappy one. He said she had a bad temper,,
with what truth we cannot ascertain now ; and she said he was
a bad husband, which was unquestionably true. He had been
a rake before marriage, and did not cease afterwards. He could
drink more wine than anyone in London, and continued that
habit too. A kind of connection was kept up between them for
many years, but it was a dubious and unhappy connection.

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 163
We may suppose, however, that when he was a great states
man she derived some glory, if little happiness, from him ; and
he certainly received a large income from her property during
very many years.
At the age of twenty-eight Bolingbroke entered the House
of Commons. Before that time he had done nothing to prove
himself a man of great ability. At school and college he had
done well, and had laid up perhaps a greater store of classical
knowledge than those around him knew of. When abroad for
a year or so, he had learned to speak French unusually well and
unusually easily. But since he had been of age and in the
world, his vices had been great, and he had not done much
to compensate for them. Probably his boon companions con
sidered him very clever ; but then sober men rated very low
the judgment of those companions. His skill in writing poetry
had not been greater than most people's, and his choice of sub
jects had been worse. Until now he had had no opportunity of
showing great talents, and much opportunity of showing con
siderable vices.
In the House of Commons it was otherwise. His hand
some person, long descent, and aristocratic mien set off a very
remarkable eloquence, which seems to have been very ready
even at the first. Years afterwards he was the model to whom
. Lord Chesterfield pointed in all the arts of manner and expres
sion. ' Lord Bolingbroke,' he tells us, ' without the least
trouble, talked all day long full as elegantly as he wrote. He
adorned whatever subject he either spoke or wrote upon by the
most splendid eloquence ; not a studied and laboured eloquence,
but by such a flowing happiness of diction which (from care
perhaps at first) was become so habitual to him, that even his
most familiar conversations, if taken down in writing, would
have borne the press without the least correction either as to
method or style.' ' He had the most elegant politeness and
good-breeding which ever any courtier or man of the world was
blessed. with.' M 2

164 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
Nor did he neglect matter in the pursuit of manner. In
later life he wrote some characters of the two great orators of
antiquity, which showed how acutely he had studied them. He
turned aside from the commonplace topics, from their language
and their manner, to comment on their acquaintance with all
the topics of their time, and on the practical style in which they
discuss practical questions. No one can read those delineations
without perceiving that the writer is speaking of an art which
he has himself practised. Those who knew how little studious
Bohngbroke's habits were, appear to have been surprised at the
information he displayed. But his excitable life rather pro
moted than forbad brief crises of keen study. His parts were
quick, his language vague, though imposing, and he could
always talk very happily on subjects of which he only knew a
very httle.
The time was favourable to a great orator. The Tory party
was exactly in the state in which it has been in our own time.
It had many votes and no tongue. Our county system tends to
prevent our county magnates from ruling England. Stringent
limitations are laid down which narrow the electoral choice
and tend to exclude available talent. It is wise and natural that
the landed interest should choose to be represented by landed
gentlemen ; a community of nature between it and its represen
tatives is desirable and inevitable. But our counties are more
exacting than this : each county requires that the member shall
have land within the county, and as in each the number of
¦candidates thus hmited is but small, unsuitable ones must be
chosen. We have left off expecting eloquence from a county
member. Grave files of speechless men have always represented
the land of England. In Queen Anne's time too, as in our own
time, a lingering prejudice haunted rural minds, and inclined
them to prefer stupid magnates who shared it to clever ones
who were emancipated from it. Bolingbroke, like Mr. Disraeli,
found the Tory party in a state of dumb power ; like him, too,
he became its spokesman and obtained its power.

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 165
Bolingbroke came into Parliament just at the end of King
William's reign, and was at once forced into contact with tbe two
subjects which were to occupy almost exclusively his active life.
The reign of King William, which was about to end, and that
of Queen Anne, which was just about to begin, were filled by
two of the greatest topics which can occupy a period. The first
of these was a question of dynasty. Our revolution has been
called the ' minimum of a revolution,' and in the eyes of a po
htical philosopher so it is. It altered but httle in the substance
of our institutions and in our positive law. But to common
people, when it happened, the change was great. Even now the
detail of our parliamentary system is not much understood by
the poorer part of the public, and they care for it but little ; the
Queen and her famUy, and the Prince of Wales and the Princess
Alexandra, mainly interest them. The person of the sovereign
embodies to them constitution, law, power. But our revolution
changed the sovereign. The only political name and idea
known to rural hamlets were taken away, and another name and
idea were substituted in their stead. Jacobites went about say
ing that there was one king whom God had made, and another
king whom Parliament had made. At this moment, though the
dogma of hereditary right has been confuted for ages, though
it has been laughed at for ages, though parliaments have con
demned it, though divines have been impeached for preaching
it, though it is a misdemeanour to maintain it, the tenet still
lives in ordinary minds. In Somersetshire and half the quiet
counties the inhabitants would say that Queen Victoria ruled
by the right of birth and the grace of God, and not by virtue
of an Act of Parliament. They still think that she has a divine
right to the crown, and not a right by statute only. If the old
creed of the Jacobites is still so powerful, what must have been
its force in Queen Anne's time ? That generation had seen the
change from 'God's king' to 'man's king,' and very many of
them did not like it. Shrewd men said that England was
prosperous under the revolutionary government ; common sense

1 66 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
said that an ill-born king who governed well was better than
a well-born king who governed ill ; Whigs said that England
was free after the revolution, and would have been enslaved
but for the revolution ; yet on the simple superstition of many
natural minds the force of these arguments was lost. They
admitted the advantage of liberty and of prosperity, but they
would not renounce ' the Lord's anointed for a mess of pottage.'
HappUy this political feeling was counteracted by a religious
feehng. The hatred to Popery supported the successful and
rebellious king, who was a Protestant, against the unsuccess
ful and legitimate king, who was a Papist. But the strength
so obtained was precarious ; it might cease at any time. The
* Pretender ' might change his religion, and reports were
(continually circulated that he had done so, or was to do so.
The existing dynasty could not be strong while its best support
in the most natural minds was the continued profession of one
religion by a person who had very strong motives to profess
another. The question of dynasty was the prominent question in
Bolingbroke's age ; such a question must always be the first
Where it exists. The question, who shall be king, can never be
secondary. But it had a formidable rival. AU through King
Wilham's and all through Queen Anne's time, the English mind
was occupied with almost the only question which could compete
With the question who should be king of England — the question
whether there ought or ought not to be war with France. Fre
quent battles, daily hopes of battles, daily arguments whether
there should be battles or not, kept even the greatest domestic
question out of our thoughts.
On both these subjects Bolingbroke was compelled to cri
tical action in his first parliament. The question of dynasty was
in a very odd and very English state of complexity. It might
have been thought to be a question of bare alternatives, and to
have been susceptible of no compromise. Either Parliament had
no power to choose a sovereign upon grounds of expediency, or it

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 167
might choose any sovereign who was expedient. If King James
might be expelled at all, it Could only be because he was a bad
king, and in order to put in a better king. On principle, Parlia
ment was either powerless or omnipotent. But this clear deci
sive logic has never suited Englishmen. As for King William,
indeed, no one could say he was any sort of king except a par
liamentary king, but his heir was the Princess Anne. ' Surely,
it was thought, she and her children had some divine right — a
httle, if not much ? She had no right by birth certainly, for
her father and her brother came before her ; she was not the
nearest heir, but she was the nearest Protestant heir ; she was
not the eldest son of the last king, but she was his eldest
daughter that was living.' These facts do not seem to be
very material to us now, but at the time they were critically
material. Half the population probably believed that it would
be right — not merely expedient, but right in some high mystic
sense — to obey Anne and her children. They were not only
ready, but were anxious, to take her for the root of a new
dynasty. But the Fates seemed capriciously determined to
defeat their wishes. Anne had thirteen children, and all the
thirteen died. At the death of the Duke of Gloucester, who was
the last of them, some further settlement was necessary, and
what it should be was decided in Bolingbroke's first parliament.
On this subject he ought to have been a Whig of the Whigs.
His writings are full of such expressions as the ' chimera of
prerogative ; ' ' the slavish principles of passive obedience and
non-resistance which had skulked ' in old books till the reign of
James I. And he has stated the Whig conception of the revo
lution as well as anyone, if not better. ' If,' he says, ' a divine,
indefeasible, hereditary right to govern a community be once
acknowledged; a right independent of the community, and
which vests in every successive prince immediately on the
death of his predecessor, and previously to any engagement
taken on his part towards the people ; if the people once
acknowledge themselves bound to such princes by the ties of

1 68 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
passive obedience and non-resistance, by an allegiance uncon
ditional, and not reciprocal to protection ; if a kind of oral law,
or mysterious cabbala, which pharisees of the black gown and
the long robe are always at hand to report and interpret as a
prince desires, be once added, like a supplemental code, to the
known laws of the land : then, I say, such princes have the
power, if not the right, given them of commencing tyrants ;
and princes who have the power, are prone to think that they
have the right. Such was the state of king and people before
the revolution.' He could have no horror of Popery, for he re
garded all the historical forms of Christianity with an impartial
scepticism ; he probably thought it more gentlemanly than
Presbyterianism, and not more absurd than Anglicanism. He
ought to have been ready to obey whatever king was most
eligible upon grounds of rational expediency.
The proposal of the Whigs, too, was as moderate as it was
possible for it to be. As public opinion required, they selected
the next Protestant heir. They passed over all the children of
James IL, who were Catholics, the descendants of Henrietta,
daughter of Charles I., who were Catholics, the elder descendants
of Ehzabeth, the daughter of James L, who were Catholics, and
found the Princess Sophia, a younger daughter of Elizabeth, who
was a very clever and accomplished lady, and who, if she had any
religion, was a Protestant. All the reasonable and prudent part
of the nation were in favour of this scheme. The Whigs were
of course in favour of it, for it was their scheme. Harley, at the
head of the moderate Tories, strenuously supported it. But
it was not popular with the unthinking masses, and perhaps
could not be. Half or more than half the believers in divine
right were ready, as we have explained, to pay obedience to
Queen Anne as a sort of consecrated queen ; she was at any
rate a princess born of a real king and queen in real England ;
we had always been used to her. But a search in Germany for
the sort of Protestants we were likely to find there was not
pleasant to the mass of Englishmen ; and of the strong-minded

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 1 69:
old lady who had been discovered nothing whatever was
commonly known. After all, too, there was no certainty that
in future we should be obeying the nearest Protestant heir.
We were passing over several Catholic families ; and if here
after any one of them were to become a Protestant — according
to principle, or what was called such, we must obey him as our
king. Though the choice of the Hanoverian family as heirs to the
crown was prudent, wise and statesmanlike, there was no strong
popular sentiment on which it was firmly based, and no neat
popular phrase by which it could in argument be precisely sup
ported. In a word, unthinking people of the common sort did
not much like the House of Hanover, and a mass of ill-defined
prejudice accumulated against it. Of this prejudice Boling
broke made himself the organ. He did not share it or try to
share it. But, finding a large and speechless party, he thought
he could become at once politically important by saying for
them that which they could not say for themselves. The
scheme was successful. He became at once important in Par
liament, because he was the eloquent spokesman of many in
audible persons.
In foreign pohcy, Bolingbroke's tactics were the same. The
aggression of France was the natural terror of lovers of liberty
at that time. Louis XIV. was as ready to use his power with
out scruple against free nations as Napoleon ; and his power,
though not equal to that of Napoleon at his zenith, was greater
than that of Napoleon at most times, and than that of any other
French sovereign at any time. The King of Spain, too, was
about to die ; it was to be feared that he would name as his
heir Philip, the grandson of Louis, and few doubted but that
louis, notwithstanding an express renunciation of all such claims
by treaty, would permit his grandson to accept the throne.
Nor was the Spain of 1700 merely the Spain of our time. She
was much more powerful. She possessed the ' California ' of
that age, a vast empire in South America, producing gold and

1 70 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
silver, which were then thought to be magically potent sub
stances, for the whole civilised world. She possessed, too,
Sicily, and Naples, and Milan, and Belgium ; and the popular
imagination, which ever clings to decaying grandeur, still be
lieved that Spain itself was a nation of great power — was still
able, as in former generations, to obtain ascendency in Europe.
The terror, for such it was, of liberal politicians then was, that
this vast inheritance would practically fall into the dominion of
Louis XIV. — that it would belong to a Bourbon prince brought
up under his eye, and slavishly in subjection to him. The
Whigs contended that this calamity should be prevented, if
possible, by an amicable partition of Spain, by giving France
as little as possible, and that httle in places as little important
as possible. If no such amicable arrangement were possible,
they said, it must be prevented by a war. The Tories did not
like war, did not like partition treaties. They did not love
France, but they were not anxious to oppose France. In that
age we were uneducated in foreign policy ; the mass of men
had no distinct conception of continental transactions, nor
was reason reinforced very distinctly by antipathy. We hated
France, it is true, but we hated Holland also ; she was our
rival in commerce, and our enemy^-sometimes our successful
enemy — in naval warfare ; and to vanquish the French by the
aid of the Dutch did not greatly gratify our animosity. The
anti-revolutionary part of the nation did not care for liberty,
for that was the code of the Whigs and the basis of the revolu
tion." In a word, though there was little distinct or rational
opinion opposed to a war with France, there was much indis
tinct and crude prejudice. Of this too Bolingbroke became the
organ. In the later part of his hfe he did not attempt to defend his
first notion of foreign policy. He says : ' I have sometimes
considered, in reflecting on these passages, what I should have
done if I had sat in parliament at that time ; and have been
forced to own myself that I should have voted for disbanding

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 1 7 f
the army then, as I voted in the following parliament for cen
suring the partition treaties. I am forced to own this, because
I remember how imperfect my notions were of the situation of
Europe in that extraordinary crisis, and how much I saw the
true interest of my own country in a half light. But, my lords,
I own it with some shame, because in truth nothing could be
more absurd than the conduct we held. What ! because we
had not reduced the power of France by the war, nor excluded
the house of Bourbon from the Spanish succession, nor com
pounded with her upon it by the peace ; and because the house
of Austria had not helped herself, nor put it into our power to
help her with more advantage and better prospect of success —
were we to leave that whole succession open to the invasions of
France, and to suffer even the contingency to subsist of seeing
those monarchies united ? What ! because it was become ex
travagant, after the trials so lately made, to think ourselves
any' longer engaged by treaty, or obliged by good policy, to
put the house of Austria in possession of the whole Spanish
monarchy, and to defend her in this possession by force of
arms, were we to leave the whole at the mercy of France ? If
we were not to do so, if we were not to do one of the three
things that I said above remained to be done, and if the Em
peror put it out of our power to do another of them with ad
vantage ; were we to put it still more out of our power, and to
wait unarmed for the death of the king of Spain ? In fine, if
we had not the prospect of disputing with France, so success
fully as we might have had it, the Spanish succession when
ever it should be open ; were we not only to show by disarm
ing, that We would not dispute it at all, but to censure like
wise the second of the three things mentioned above, and
•which King William put in practice, the compounding with
France, to prevent if possible a war, in which we were averse
to engage ? ' The truth doubtless is, that Bolingbroke never
believed, or much believed, these absurdities. As he was the
spokesman of the Tories, he advocated, and was compelled to

172 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
advocate, the vague notions which they- not unnaturally held,
and these were prejudices imbibed by habit, not opinions ela
borated by effort.
That his mode of advocacy was very skilful, we may easily
believe. His speeches have perished, but their merit may be
conjectured. He is in his writings a great master of specious
statement. Accessory arguments and subordinate facts seem of
themselves to fall precisely where they should fall. He has the
knack of never making a case ; the case always seems made
for bim ; he seems to be giving it its most suitable expression,
but to be doing no more. In the greater part of his writings
which were written late in life, except when he defends the
peace of Utrecht, he had no tenet to defend in which he took
a keen interest. He had not the habits suitable to abstract
thought, nor the genius for it. He is apt, therefore, to embody
meagre thoughts in exceUent words, to develop long argu
ments from sparse facts. He had a pleasure in writing, and he
had little to say. But when his passions were eager, when his
interest was vivid, when the very dissipation of his life quick
ened his excitability, when the topic of discussion was critically
important to himself — we may well believe his advocacy to
have been effective. He could ever say what he pleased, and
in early life he had much to say which he well knew and for
whieh he much cared.
A blunder of Louis' for several years simplified English
politics. At the death of James II. he acknowledged his son,
the ' Pretender,' as king of England, and he could have done
him no greater harm. The English people were not very sure
of abstract rights, but they were very sure of practical applica
tions. Whether they had a right to choose a king for them
selves might be doubtful, but it was clear that the king of
France had no such right. Whoever might be our king, it
certainly should not be his protege. War with France be
came popular. The king of Spain was dead ; as was feared,
he had left the vast inheritance of Spain to Louis' grandson,

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 1 7'^
and war with France became expedient. It was declared
accordingly. The death of WiUiam simplified politics still further- Bol
ingbroke himself may explain this. ' The alliances,' he tells
us, ' were concluded, the quotas were settled, and the season
for taking the field approached, when King William died. The
event could not fail to occasion some consternation on one side,
and to give some hopes on the other ; for, notwithstanding the
ill success with which he made war generally, he was looked
upon as the sole centre of union that could keep together the
great confederacy then forming ; and how much the French
feared from his life had appeared a few years before, in the
entravagant and indecent joy they expressed on a false report
of his death. A short time showed how vain the fears of some,
and the hopes of others, were. By his death, the Duke of
Marlborough was raised to the head of the army, and indeed
of the confederacy ; where he, a new, a private man, a subject,
¦acquired by merit and by management a more deciding in
fluence than high birth, confirmed authority, and even the
- crown of Great Britain, had given to King William. Not only
all the parts of that vast machine, the grand alliance, were
kept more compact and entire, but a more rapid and vigorous
motion was given to the whole ; and, instead of languishing or
disastrous campaigns, we saw every scene of the war full of
action. All those wherein he appeared, and many of those
wherein he was not then an actor — but abettor, however, of
their action — were crowned with the most triumphant success.
I take with pleasure this opportunity of doing justice to that
great man, whose faults I knew, whose virtues I admired, and
whose memory, as the greatest general and as the greatest
•minister that our country or perhaps any other has produced, I
honour.' The war absorbed England for several years. For
the first time in our history we were the centre of a great
confederacy, and our general was the victorious leader, in great
battles, of miscellaneous armies. It was then that we first

-1 74 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
acquired that great name as a military people, which, notwith
standing our small numbers and small armies, we have since
supported, and that a great foresight, a minute diligence, and
a splendid courage in modern war, were first combined in an
Englishman. Marlborough was in one respect more fortunate
than Wellington. Napoleon must always be the first military
figure of his generation, but throughout the last century the
whole Continent talked of the wars of Marlborough, for he
was the most fascinating as well as the most successful general
in them. During the first eight years of Marlborough's wars, the
English nation was nearly united. A war always unites a
people; the objector to it becomes a kind of traitor to his
country ; he seems to be a favourer of the enemy, even though
he is not. Not only Harley, a moderate Tory, but Bolingbroke,
an extreme Tory, took office in the war ministry. It is true
there was no dereliction of party principle in their doing so,
either as such principle was then understood, or as it is un
derstood now. Marlborough himself had never been a Whig ;
and Godolphin, the head of the treasury and first minister for
the home administration, had ever been a Tory. But though
plain party ties might not be violated by a Tory support of
Marlborough's wars, a sort of sentiment was violated. The
war was a Whig war, and could only be carried on by Whig
support. Ere long Godolphin and Marlborough were compelled
to give the Whigs a large share in the actual administration.
The ministry became a composite one. Though many Tories
remained in it, yet its essence and its spirit were Whig. It
was carrying on the sort of war which one party in the State
had extolled for years, and which the antagonist party had
deprecated for years. It has been called after its cause. It
has been called the Whig Ministry of Godolphin and Marl
borough, the two leading Tories of the age.
The place which Bolingbroke accepted was that of Secre
tary at War, which brought him into contact with the best

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. ' 1 75
business of the time, with that sort of business upon which
most depended. As far as appears, he did it well, and the offi
cial experience he then acquired must have been inestimable
to him afterwards. There is much which no statesman can in
truth know, and much more which he will not be thought to
know, unless he has gone through a certain necessary official
education, and learned to use certain conventional official
expressions. This sort of knowledge Bolingbroke now acquired.
But it was not by success or failure in office desk-work that the
movements of his life were to be regulated.
The Whigs naturally did not quite like the subordinate posi
tion which they occupied in a ministry which was carrying out
a Whig policy. They thought it hard that Tories should be paid
for Whig measures ; that the glory of delivering Europe should
be given, not to Whigs, who had striven to deliver her, but to
Tories, who would have liked not to deliver her. Their support
was necessary to Godolphin and to Marlborough, and they gradu
ally raised the price of that support. Early in 1708 most of the
remaining Tories were turned out, and Bolingbroke among
them. Except the two chiefs, Godolphin and Marlborough, the
ministry became a Whig ministry almost exclusively.
That Bolingbroke did not like to be turned out is probable,
but he professed to like it. He sought refuge in retirement ;
he professed to study philosophy, and passed much of his time
in the country, and in reading. Such professions from a man of
great ambition and lax life were ridiculed. A friend suggested
that he should write this motto over his favourite rural retreat : —
From business and the noisy world retired,
Nor vexed by love, nor by ambition fired,
Gently I wait the call of Charon's boat,
Still drinking like a fish, and amorous like a goat.
«
And Swift says he could hardly bear the jest, for he was a man
rather sensitive to ridicule. And though satirists might laugh
at his meditations and his studies, and though he permitted
them to derange very little his pleasure or his vices, there is no

176 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
doubt but that they were real, and that they were valuable.
Doubtless, too, though he was only twenty-eight, he was a
httle tired of subordinate office. His disposition was very im
patient, and his sense of personal dignity very considerable.
Even so patient a pattern of routine diligence as Sir Robert
Peel rejoiced as a young man to be for a year or so out of
office. His mind, he acknowledged, widened, and his capacity
to think for himself improved. If Peel, who was made to toil
in the furrow, felt this, Bolingbroke, who was made to exult
in the desert, might well feel it. During three years he really
read much and thought much.
But a great change was ^t hand. The war with France.
was still successful and still popular, but it might be doubted if
it was still necessary. We had weakened France so much, that
it might be questionable if she wanted weakening more. Our
victories had destroyed her prestige, and the results of these
victories had weakened her vigour. Sensible men began to
inquire what was to be the time, what the occasion, and what
the terms of peace.
The ministry, indeed, appeared to be firm, but it was firm
in appearance only. The conditions of ministerial continuance
differed in that age in a most material respect from the present
conditions. Now the House of Commons, in almost all cases,
prescribes imperatively not only what measures shall be taken,
but what men shall take them: it chooses both policy and
ministers. In Queen Anne's time Parliament had acquired an
almost complete ascendency in policy ; it could fix precisely
whether there should be war or no war, peace or no peace ; it
had acquired a perfect control upon legislation, and a nearly
perfect control upon internal administration. But it had no
choice, or but little, in the selection of persons. What was to
be done Parliament settled, but who was to do it the Queen
settled. Queen Anne had done so at her accession. Though she
was engaged in a Whig war, she removed the Whig ministers -

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 177
whom she found in office. She appointed as supreme general
issimo over the war abroad, and real prime minister over mat
ters of state at home, the Duke of Marlborough, not because of
his discretion or his acquaintance with business, or his military
genius, but because his wife was her early friend and her special
favourite. As the Duke of Wellington justly observed, the
Duke of Marlborough was the English government ; he was not
liable to be thwarted, or misconstrued, or neglected ; his opera
tions in Flanders were never cramped by the home govern
ment, as the operations of the Duke of Wellington in Spain were
cramped. He appointed the lord high treasurer Godolphin;
he placed the treasury, then even more than now the supreme
internal office, in Godolphin's hands, because he was connected
with him by domestic ties, because they had long acted together,
because he had great confidence in his financial ability. The
Duke of Marlborough was not only great because of his wife,
but absolute because of his wife.
By a kind of compensation the source of his power was the
cause also of his downfall. The Queen and the duchess quar
reUed, as was natural. The duchess was virulent and obtrusive,
and the Queen was sensitive and sullen. The Queen had a
strong sense of personal dignity, which the duchess used to out
rage. The duchess, who was clever, thought the Queen a fool,
and scarcely forbore to look and say so. From early habit the
friendship lasted much longer than could have been thought
likely, but it could not last for ever. As it was breaking up,
a small force produced a large effect. The Queen, Swift says,
had not a ' stock of amity ' for more than one person at a time :
she commonly cared but httle for anybody save one ; but she
- required one. - The duchess had placed at court a poor relative
of her own, a Miss HiU, whom both she and the Queen regarded
as a petty dependant, a real maid, who would be useful and lie
on the floor when peeresses and young ladies of quality were
useless and went to bed. As she was humble and artful, she
acquired influence : she was never in the way and never out
N

178 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.

of the way. She was always pleasant to the Queen, and the
duchess was commonly unpleasant. The consequence was cer
tain. The abject new favourite soon supplanted the querulous
old favourite.
A very curious man took advantage of this. Wits and
satirists have been fond of describing Robert Harley, but
perhaps they have not described him very well. They have
made a heap of incongruities of him. They have told us that,.
being bred a Puritan, and retaining till his death much of the
Puritan phraseology, he yet became the favourite leader of high
churchmen and Tories ; that being a muddle-headed dawdler, he
gained a great reputation for the transaction of business ; that
having an incapacity for intelligible speech, he became an in
fluential orator in Parliament ; that being a puzzle-headed man,
of less than average ability, and less than average activity, he
long ruled a great party, for years ruled the court, and was at
last prime minister of England.
It is very natural that brilliant and vehement men should
depreciate Harley, for he had nothing which they possess, but
had everything which they commonly do not possess." He was
by nature a moderate man. In that age they called such a man
a trimmer, but they called him ill. Such a man does not con
sciously shift or purposely trim his course. He firmly believes
that he is substantially consistent. ' I do not wish in this house,'
he would say in our age, ' to be a party to any extreme course.
Mr. Gladstone brings forward a great many things which I
cannot understand ; I assure you he does. There is more in
that bill of his about tobacco than he thinks ; I am confident
there is. Money is a serious thing, a very serious thing. And
I am sorry to say Mr. Disraeli commits the party very much.
He avows sentiments which are injudicious. I cannot go along
with him, nor can Sir John. He was not taught the Catechism ;
I know he was not. There is a want in him of sound and sober
religion — and Sir John agrees with me — which would keep him
from distressing, the clergy, who are very important. GresJ

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 179

orators are very well ; but, as I said, how is the revenue ? And
the point is, not to be led away and to be moderate, and not
to go to an extreme. As soon as it seems very clear, then I
begin to doubt. I have been many years in parliament, and
that is my experience.' We may laugh at such speeches, but
there have been plenty of them in every English parhament.
A great English divine has been described as always leaving
out the principle upon which his arguments rested ; even if it
was stated to him, he regarded it as far-fetched and extravagant.
Any politician who has this temper of mind will always have
many followers; and he may be nearly sure that all great
measures will be passed more nearly as he wishes them to be
passed than as great orators wish. Harley had this temper,
and he enjoyed its results. He always had a certain influence
over moderate Whigs when he was a Tory, and over moderate
Tories when he was a Whig. Nine-tenths of mankind are
more afraid of violence than of anything else ; and inconsistent
moderation is always popular, because of all qualities it is most
opposite to violence— most likely to preserve the present safe
existence. Harley's moderation, which was influential because it was
unaffected, was assisted by two powers which brilliant people
despise, because in general they do not share them. Harley ex
celled in the forms of business. There is distinct evidence that
official persons preferred his management of the treasury to that
of Lord Godolphin, who preceded him, or Sir R. Walpole, who
succeeded him. In real judgment and substantial knowledge of
affairs, there was doubtless no comparison. Godolphin was the
best financier of his generation, and Walpole was the best not
only of his own but of many which came after him. But the
ultimate issue of business is not the part of it which most im
presses the officials of a department. They understand how
business is conducted better than what comes of it. The states
man who gives them no trp|ble— who coincides with that

r9\
i 4

which they recommend-— wht iflinks of the things which they

1 80 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
think of, is more satisfactory to his mere subordinates than a
real ruler, who has plans which others do not share, and whose
mind is occupied by large considerations, which only a few can
appreciate, and only experience can test. In his own time, both
with the Tory party and with moderate Whigs, Harley's reputa
tion as a man of business was a means of influence which, on
the same scene and in our own day, could hardly be surpassed.
But it was surpassed in his own day. In personal questions,
as we have explained, the Parliament in Queen Anne's time
was only a subordinate power ; the court was the principal and
the determining power. Now the faculty of business is but
secondary in all courts ; the faculty of intrigue is the main
source of real influence. To be able to manage men, to know
with whom to be silent, to know with whom to say how much,
to be able to drop casual observations, to have a sense of that
which others mean, though they do not say — to be aware what
Lady A. is in secret planning, though she says the very oppo
site — to know that Lord B. has no influence, though he seems
most potent— to know that little C. is a wire-puller, and can
get you anything, though he looks mean and though no one
knows ; in a word, to understand, to feel, to be unable to help
feeling, the by-play of life, is the principal necessity for suc
cess in courts. It is the instinct of management which is not to
be shown even in conversation, far less in writing or speculation,
but yet which rules all small societies. Harley possessed it,
and the obscure but potent talents of business also ; and we
need seek no farther explanation why he was one of the most
successful men in his own time.
Harley was some sort of relative to Miss Hill (or Mrs.
Masham, for she married), the rising favourite of Queen
Anne's time. He was the favourite leader of all moderate ~-
Tories ; and, on the whole, though not without grumbUngs from \
extreme men, the most important leader of the Tory party. He
had been turned out when Bcvragbroke was turned out, and he
wished to return. The fly who brought to the spider. Mrs.

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 1 8 1
Masham, the new favourite, asked Harley what counsel she
should give the Queen. He said, ' Turn out the Whigs ; ' and
meant, ' Bring me in.'
The Queen was inert, for that was her nature ; and the
evident popularity and the glorious success of the Whig war
naturally staggered her. But the Whigs made an error.
The high-church and semi-high-church party had enormous
power in the nation ; they had always advocated non-resistance
before the revolution, and though they had taken the oaths to
King William's government, they did not like to think that
they were supporting a government which was conspicuously
rebellious, which began in resistance to legitimate authority.
Of course the fact was so. King WilUam invaded England
with Dutch troops, and was joined by Enghsh rebels ; but the
divine right of princes, and the duty of unconditional obedience,
retained much influence over most of the clergy and over many
of the laity. If the Whigs had been wise, they would have
offended this powerful sentiment as httle as possible. High
churchmen were certainly powerful, but were necessarily inert ;
they had no distinct course to recommend ; they would have
done much, but they could do nothing. They had assented to
the existing government, and though their assent might be un
willing and ungracious, the existing government should have let
them alone. The Whigs adopted the reverse course. A foolish
parson expressed with unusual folly the sentiments of the great
majority of his order. The Commons, at the instigation of the
Whigs, actually impeached him at the bar of the Lords. In
their folly they used against a pious and innocuous fool the
extreme remedy which the constitution provides for the final
punishment of impious and dangerous traitors. The country
was in a ferment ; the Tory party were active ; the moderate
classes were alarmed; the clergy were incensed; the Whigs
became unpopular.
Harley seized the opportunity. He persuaded Mrs. Masham
to persuade the Queen that now was the moment to gratify

182 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.

her new antipathy to her old favourite ; that now she should
punish the Duchess of Marlborough ; that now she should dis
miss the Whig ministry. She did so. He came in himself,
and made Bolingbroke a secretary of state, and the first mem
ber in the House of Commons.
It has been said, and is very likely, that Harley would have
preferred to retain in office the quiet and moderate Whigs, and
not to bring in Bolingbroke, an extreme and unquiet Tory.
The Whig party, however, was compact, and held together ; it
must be expelled as a whole, or retained as a whole. If it had
been wholly retained, Harley could not have come in, and he
was therefore obliged to ally himself with the aggravated Tories
and with Bolingbroke, who had made himself their mouthpiece.
It only completes the mingled character of Bolingbroke to re
peat the legend of the time, that his acceptance of office was
heard with gladness, not only in grave manor-houses, and by
severe high-churchmen, but in more unmentionable places and
by more questionable persons. Some ladies of much beauty and
little virtue, so runs the legend, were heard to say, 'HoUng-
broke is minister. He has six thousand guineas a year. Six
thousand guineas, and all for us.' The auspices of such a
ministry were not good.
The public aspect of affairs was, however, in the most critical
particular very favourable. While the French War lasted,
indeed, the new ministry must be perplexed. They must either
retain the Duke of Marlborough as general-in-chief, which was
not pleasant, as he was the chief of the party opposed to them,
and since probably Mrs. Masham did not wish it ; or they must
dismiss the duke in the midst of victory, and find a new general,
who might be defeated. But this painful alternative was tem
porary only. The English nation had been sated with sieges and
victories, and more than sated with taxes and with debt ; it was
disposed to peace. The new ministry came therefore into the
enjoyment of a great inheritance, the greatest that has ever
fallen to a new ministry. France had been so reduced by

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. .183
Marlborough's victories that she was ready to consent to a peace
which a few years before she would have thought most shameful,
which a few years before we should have thought most honour
able. The new ministry were to make that peace.
The preliminary difficulty soon assumed its worst shape.
It became necessary to dismiss the Duke of Marlborough ; and,
as might be expected, the Duke of Ormond, who succeeded
him, was much less successful. There was happUy no great
defeat, but there were minor disasters, which were magnified
by the contrast with past glories. We had been used to a
great exploit every year, and we were now asked to be thank
ful for not being defeated very much. The contrast was pain
ful, and the necessity of making peace became greater than
ever. Up to this time Bolingbroke had been the most successful
politician of his age, and almost of any age, in England. He
had, it is true, no influence at court. Queen Anne distrusted
him ; she liked decorous men of regulated life. But, though
little over thirty, he was the leader of the House of Commons ;
the first orator there ; the second minister in the cabinet ; the
favourite minister of the most ardent section of his party — a
section just strengthened by an election. The fame of his
oratory filled London, and the fame of his genius filled the
country. Mr. Pitt excepted, no Englishman has risen so high
and so rapidly under our parUamentary system. It was at
this crisis that his eager nature and his life of excitement
began to prepare his downfall, as they had prepared his
rise. The official management of the foreign negotiations was in
the hands of Bolingbroke. Lord Dartmouth, the other secre
tary of state, could speak no French, and Harley, the . prime
minister, could speak but little ; but Bolingbroke spoke it well.
Harley, too, had no directing ability. He had the defects of the
late Lord Aberdeen : he was moderate and useful and judicious.
But he could not upon the spur of the moment strike out a

184 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
distinct policy. Other statesmen must create before he could "
decide on their creations. Bolingbroke was to devise how a
peace should be made.
A plain and strongheaded statesman — such a statesman as
Walpole or as Palmerston — would have had little difficulty.
France was most anxious to make peace, and it mattered but
little for England or for Europe what were the precise conditions
of it. There are occasions when a war itself does its own work,
and does it better than any pacification. The Crimean War was
an instance of this. That war thoroughly destroyed the prestige
of Russia and the pernicious predominance of Russia. At the
end of it, what were to be the conditions of peace was almost
immaterial. The wars of Marlborough had done their work also.
We had gone to war to prevent the acquisition of overbearing
power by Louis XIV. If a grandson who was devoted to him
had succeeded to Spain and the Spanish empire while France
was unexhausted he would have been a despot in Europe ; he
would have been terrible to us as Napoleon was terrible. But
nine years of continuous defeat had exhausted Fiance, and
Louis XIV. was now a vanquished and decayed old man. At
his death the crown of France would pass to Louis XV., who
was an infant ; it was not much to be feared that the policy of
France and the policy of Spain would be dangerously connected
because their kings were second cousins. Possibly, indeed,
Louis XV. might die, and the King of Spain might come to
the throne of France. But this was a remote and contingent
danger ; it would have been unwise in our ancestors to lavish
blood and spend treasure because a prince might have died
young who really lived to be extremely old. The true object
of the war had been accomplished by the war itself, and the
substantial task of making a peace was therefore very easy.
The accessories of the task, too, it would seem, were easy
also. As we had been victorious in a first-rate war, it was
right that we should be dignified in the final pacification. It
was right tbat we should be ready, that we should even be

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 185
anxious, to make peace; but, at any rate, France, who was
vanquished, ought to seem equally anxious. Since, in part,
the war was a war to reduce her influence over the European
imagination, the manner of making peace was at least as mate
rial as the terms of it. We were principal members of a great
league, and we had stirred up a part of Spain to resist the
French king of Spain. We were bound to keep clear faith
with our allies, and bound not to desert brave provinces who
had relied principally on our protection.
Bolingbroke was too eager to perceive these plain considera
tions. He sent a man to Paris to ask for peace ; and the French
minister was so astounded that he would hardly believe the man.
He owned afterwards that, when he was asked the preliminary
question, ' Do you want a peace ? ' it seemed to him like asking
a lingering invalid whether he wanted to recover. He could
hardly bring himself to believe that Bolingbroke's messenger
was duly authorised.
The previous life of that messenger certainly was not such
as to gain him credit. He was a French abbe named Gaultier,
who had been a French spy, and perhaps still was so, in
England. He was an acute, plausible person, very fat, and not
very respectable, and altogether as unlikely a person to be
sent from a victorious nation to a defeated nation as could be
imagined. Nevertheless the Abbe Gaultier was so sent. He said to
Torcy, the French minister, ' Do you want a peace ? I bring
you the means of treating independently of the Dutch, who are
unworthy of his Majesty's kindness and the honour he has done
them in addressing himself to them so many times to restore
peace to Europe.' In an ordinary alliance, such a clandes
tine reconcihation with the enemy, and such a secret desertion
of allies, would have been plainly dishonest. There would
have been little to say for it, and very few would have been
willing to say that little. But the Grand Alhance was not an
ordinary one. Its acute framers had perceived the difficulty

1 86 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
of their task. They had foreseen the difficulty of retaining in
firm cohesion a miscellaneous league of scattered states. They
had adopted the best expedient at their disposal : they had
prohibited the very commencement of exclusive negotiation by
individual states. Their words are as clear as words can be.
They are these : ' Neutri partium fas sit, Bello semel suscepto,
de Pace cum Hoste tractare nisi conjunctim et communicatis
eoncUiis cum altera Parte.' These words expressly forbid such
secret missions as those of Gaultier, and were inserted expressly
to forbid them.
The separate treaty with Holland was even more express :
it said that ' no negotiation shall be set on foot by one of the
allies without the concurrence of the other ; and that each ally
shall continually, and from time to time, impart to the other
everything which passes in the said negotiation.' And yet it
was especially from Holland that BoUngbroke was anxious, by
every secret disguise, and every diplomatic artifice, to conceal
his negotiation. He hoped, by a separate and secret peace, to
obtain commercial advantages for the English, in which the
Dutch should have no share.
Even after the first mission of Gaultier had terminated, there
was an intricate series of secret negotiations, in which he and
Prior were employed for us, and Mesnager for the French.
Prior expressly required on our behalf ' that the secret should
be inviolably kept till allowed by both parties to be divulged ; '
and the French minister wrote to Bolingbroke : ' It wholly de
pends upon the secrecy and good use you will make of the
entire confidence he testifies to the Queen of Great Britain ; and
the King of France extols the firmness of the Queen, and sees
with great pleasure the new marks of resolution she shows.' It
was impossible to desert our allies more absolutely or more
dishonourably. It was impossible to violate an express treaty
more audaciously or more corruptly.
Nor was the secret negotiation a mere crime ; it was also a
miserable blunder. Diplomacy could hardly commit a greater.

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 187
There was a splendid, a nearly unexampled power of compel
ling France to make a good peace. There was a great coalition
against her, which had always been victorious under Eugene
and Marlborough; which had obtained such successes as no
Englishman had imagined ; which had reduced France to a
pitch of shame, degradation, and weakness, that surprised her
most sanguine enemies, and depressed her most sanguine
friends. So long as the coalition was compact, the coalition
was all powerful. But by the mere act of commencing a
separate negotiation, Bolingbroke dissolved the coalition.
There could be no mutual trust after that. The principal
member of the league deserted the league, and its bond was
immediately disunited. We all know what would have been
the consequences if England had acted thus in the great war.
Suppose Lords Grey and Grenville had come in before the
campaign of 181 4 ; suppose that they had sent a secret emissary
to Napoleon ; suppose that they had offered a separate peace
without Spain, or Austria, or Russia. We know that Napoleon
would again have been a principal potentate in Europe, for
the coalition which aione could extirpate him would have been
dissolved. The truth of these remarks is written on the very face of
•the treaty of Utrecht, and is obvious in every part of the nego
tiation of it. A few months before Louis had been willing to
abandon Spain and to abandon his grandson. He had said, ' If
you can take Spain from him, take it ; I will not help him.'
But the allies were not content. They required that Louis
should compel his grandson to resign, and this he considered
dishonourable. But at Utrecht it was not even proposed that
Philip should abandon Spain ; that the House of Bourbon should
possess Spain, was a conceded and admitted principle. We had
dissolved the European confederacy, and we could not hope to
attain its objects.
Nor was the desertion of the other powers combined with
us in the Grand Alliance our only desertion, or our worst. All

1 88 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
these powers were states of some magnitude, and some were
states of great magnitude. They would be able to go on as they
had always gone on — to shift for themselves, as they had
always shifted. But we also deserted others who were not so
independent. We had incited the Catalans in the north-east
of Spain to resist the French king of Spain ; we had promised
them in express terms our support and aid ; for a long time we
had given them that aid. But at the peace of Utrecht we
deserted them. The Catalans made a brave resistance, but a
small province could do nothing against a great nation. The
Catalans were soon overcome, and deprived of all their liberties.
Throughout Europe, and doubtless throughout England also,
there were many murmurs against our policy. We had en
couraged a brave people to rebel ; we had even threatened them
if they did not rebel ; and when they did rebel, we deserted
them. If, at present, France and England were to incite the
Poles to rebel against Russia, they hardly could desert them :
the public opinion of the world is now so powerful ; in Queen
Anne's time public opinion could only murmur, but it did
murmur. The peace of Utrecht, men said, was a base crime as
well as a gross blunder.
But why, it will be asked, did Bolingbroke commit so gross
a blunder ? What reasons could have rendered it plausible to
him. The principal answer is the principal key to his charac
ter. With many splendid gifts, he was exceedingly defective
in cool and plain judgment. He failed where in all ages such
men as Alcibiades have failed. Whether by nature he was
much gifted with judgment we cannot tell ; the probability is
that he was about as well gifted as other men. But his life
was such as to render a cool judgment impossible. ' His fine
imagination,' says Lord Chesterfield, ' was often heated and ex
hausted with his body in celebrating and almost deifying the
prostitute of the night ; and his convivial joys were pushed to
all the extravagancy of frantic bacchanals.' Swift tells graphic
stories of his drinking till his associates could drink no longer,

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 1 89
and his being left at three in the morning calhng for ' t'other
flask.' Many men may lead gross lives and keep cool heads,
but such are not men of Bolingbroke's temperament. A man
like Walpole, or a man like Louis Napoleon, is protected by an
unsensitive nature from inteUectual destruction. But such a
man as Bolingbroke, whose nature is warm and whose imagina
tion is excitable, imbibes the eager poison into the very heart
of his mind. Such is our protection against the possibilities
of an Alcibiades. No one who has not a vivid imagination can
succeed in such a career ; and any man of vivid imagination
that career would burn away and destroy. Cold men may be wild
in life and not wild in mind. But warm and eager men, fit to
be the favourites of society, and fit to be great orators, wUl be
erratic not only in conduct but in judgment. They will see
men ' like trees walking.'
Bolingbroke's excitement did not prevent his working. He
laboured many hours and wrote many letters. He often com
plains of the number of hours he has been at his desk, and of
the labours which were thrown upon him. But his work pro
bably only excited him the more ; for a time vires acquirit eundo
is the law of such wild strength. In the course of the negotia
tions he went to Paris, became the idol of society there, and
used his social advantages efficiently for political purposes. To
dazzle people more, he learned or pretended to learn, the Spanish
language, to read such diplomatic documents as were written
in it. But such minor exceUences could not mend the incur
able badness of a peace commenced by a surrender of the best
we had to surrender, by a dissolution of our alliance. A plain
strong-headed man would have left alone the 'accessory ad
vantages, and succeeded in the main point. Without Spanish
*and without French, Walpole would have made a good peace ;
Bohngbroke could not do so with both.
Bolingbroke, too, had a scheme, as imaginative and excited
men will have. He knew that in relinquishing Spain to the
house of Bourbon, he was giving the opponents of peace a

1 90 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
great argumentative advantage. The mass of mankind, who
judge by visible symbols, considered that a peace by which the
king whom we had opposed should reign in Spain, and by
which the king whom we had proposed did not reign there,
was a gross failure. In sound argument, it was probably right
for us to concede. As we have explained, the war had accom*
plished its own work ; France was excessively weakened, and
there was httle fear of present danger from her. If, by a pos^
sible death, the crown of France should fall to the king of
Spain, it would be time enough then to prevent the same per
son from reigning in the two kingdoms. The treaty of Utrecht
provides that the same prince shall not reign in both; and,
if necessary, we could go to war to enforce the treaty. The
Bourbon king was popular in Spain, and was preferred by the
Spaniards to anyone else. It would have been hard to dis
lodge him. But Bolingbroke did not like to rely on these
plain arguments. He hoped to make the peace popular by an
appeal to our commercial jealousy, by gaining mercantile ad
vantages for ourselves which our rivals the Dutch did not
share. He obtained for us the celebrated Assiento contract,
giving us the right of carrying Negro slaves to the West Indies,
and also certain privileges which would have given our manu
facturers great advantage in the French markets. He hoped
this commercial bribe would silence the national conscience —
that it would induce us to forget our treachery to our allies, our
desertion of the Catalans, and the establishment of the House
of Bourbon in Spain. He hoped it would make the peace
popular. He was disappointed. The reception of that peace by the
nation, and especially by the Tory party, was very like the recep
tion of Mr. Disraeli's great budget of 1852. A great secret had
been long paraded of something which was to please everybody :
it was divulged, and it pleased nobody. Bolingbroke may him
self describe the effect that his work produced on the more
moderate portion ofhis party: — _

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 191
The whimsical or the Hanover Tories continued zealous in ap
pearance with us till the peace was signed. I saw no people so eager
for the conclusion of it. Some of them were in such haste, that
they thought any peace preferable to the least delay, and omitted no
instances to quicken their friends who were actors in it. As soon as
the treaties were perfected and laid before the Parliament, the scheme
of these gentlemen began to disclose itself entirely. Their love of the
peace, like other passions, cooled by enjoyment. They grew nice
about the construction of the articles, could come up to no direct
approbation, and, being let into the secret of what was to happen,
would not preclude themselves from the glorious advantage of rising
on the ruins of their friends and of their party.
Nothing could be more natural than their conduct. The
moderate Tory party, and most sensible men, wished for a satis
factory peace made in a satisfactory manner : they wished for
dignity in diplomacy, and desirable results. They were disap
pointed. After a war which everyone was proud of, we con-
eluded a peace which nobody was proud of, in a manner that
everyone was ashamed of.
The commercial treaties on which Bolingbroke relied, so far
from helping him, were a hindrance to him. The right of taking
slaves to the West Indies was indeed popular : the day for anti-
slavery scruples had not commenced. But, in return for the
privileges which the French gave to our manufacturers, we
had given many privileges to them. We had established an
approximation to free trade, and everyone was aghast. The
English producer clamoured for protection, and he has seldom
clamoured in vain. The commercial treaties required the con
sent of Parhament, and were rejected. If Bolingbroke had
been a free-trader upon principle, his convictions might have
consoled him. But he professed to know nothing of commerce,
and did know nothing. His books are full of nonsense on
such topics : he hated the City because they were Whigs, and
he hated the Dutch because he had deserted them ; and these
were his cardinal sentiments on mercantile affairs. He speaks
of ' matters, such as that of commerce, which the negotiators of

192 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
the peace of Utrecht could not be supposed to understand.'
Certainly he did not understand them. He only directed his
subordinates to get out of the French as much for ourselves,
and as Uttle for the Dutch, as possible.
Instead of gathering strength (says Bolingbroke), either as a
ministry or as a party, we grew weaker every day. The peace had
been judged with reason to be the only solid foundation whereupon
we could erect a Tory system ; and yet when it was made, we found
ourselves at a full stand. Nay, the very work, which ought to have
been the basis of our strength, was in part demolished before our eyes
and we were stoned with the ruins of it.
In our time he would have been reaUy stoned. The fierce
warlike disposition of the English people would not have en
dured such dishonour. We may doubt if it would have endured
any peace. It certainly would not have endured the best peace,
unless it were made with dignity and with honesty. We should
have been wildly elated by Marlborough's victories, and little in
a mood to bear shame and to be guilty of desertion. The Eng
hsh people has been much the same for centuries. In country
manor-houses, where a son had been killed for the cause which
was sacrificed — in alehouses, where men were used to hear of
glorious victories — in large towns, where the wrongs of injured
races like the Catalans were understood — through a whole na
tion, which has ever been proud, brave, and honourable, a mean
• peace, effected by desertion, must have been abhorred. It was
merely endured because it was made, and because in those days,
when communication was slow, public opinion, as in America
now, did not distinctly form itself till the crisis for action was
over. But though for the moment endured, it was long ab
horred. For very many years half our political talk was
coloured by it. It was to the Tories what the coalition between
Lord North and Fox was to the Whigs— a principal operating
cause in excluding them from office during fifty years.
And, what for the time was worse, the Tory ministry of the
moment was disunited. ' Whilst this was doing,' says Boling-

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 193
broke, ' Harley looked on, as if he had not been a party to all
which had passed ; broke now and then a jest, which savoured
of the Inns of Court, and the bad company in which he had been
bred ; and on those occasions where his station obhged him to
speak of business, was absolutely unintelligible.' In reality
Harley dishked his position. He had always been a moderate
man, respected by moderate men ; he had the reputation of a
man of care and judgment, and he had thriven by that reputa
tion. On a sudden he became a party to a disreputable peace,
at which even moderate Whigs were frantic, for which even
moderate Tories could not vote. That the negotiations had
commenced by artifice and deceit did not horrify him much,
for he was a man much given to stratagem. But he knew also
that the negotiation had ended in conspicuous meanness and
unpopular concessions ; he felt that his reputation for judgment
was weakened. All shrewd observers knew that there would
soon be disunion between Harley, the old head of the moderate
Tories, and Bolingbroke, the present head of the extreme Tories.
Swift, who was a very shrewd observer, and who was close at
hand, knew that here was already disunion.
Before the treaties had been discussed by, and the commer
cial part of them rejected in, the House of Commons, Boling
broke made another error. He left the House of Commons.
Harley had been created Earl of Oxford, and he could not en
dure to be inferior to him. There was much delay in conferring
the peerage, and he was very angry at it. He was, Oxford
says, 'in the utmost rage against the Treasurer, Lady Masham,
and without sparing the greatest,' and made 'outrageous
speeches.' A wise friend would have observed to him that no
greater kindness could have been done him than to refuse him
^peerage altogether. The great but gradual revolution which
was consummated in the time of Walpole was then beginning
to be apparent. Before Queen Anne's time our most conspicu
ous statesmen had been, during the most important part of their
lives, members of the House of Lords ; since Queen Anne's
0

1 94 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
time they have at similar periods been usually members of
the House of Commons. There are several causes for this, but
the principle is one on which Bolingbroke has often commented.
From time immemorial the Commons have been the guardians
of the public purse ; and whenever the public purse was to be
touched, they have always been the first body in the State. But
before the revolution they were seldom wanted. They granted
the king, at the commencement of his reign, an estimated reve
nue, which was supposed to be adequate to the estimated expen
diture in time of peace. As our wealth was rapidly increasing,
it was often more than sufficient. In time of war the House of
Commons must be applied to ; new money was needful for new
expenses ; but the ordinary expenditure went on every year
without their being consulted or required. The expense of
William's wars and Queen Anne's wars made a great change :
taxation became larger than it had ever been, though very small
as it seems to us now. Since that time the estimated revenue
which the crown yearly enjoyed, without additional parlia
mentary aid, has scarcely ever been adequate to the estimated
expenditure. There has yearly been a budget, and yearly a re
course to the House of Commons. The position of a minister
in the House of Commons has therefore greatly risen. Nine
years out of ten the nation could at present dispense with a
House of Lords — though a useful it is an auxiliary power ; but
every year we want a House of Commons, for it has to grant
funds of primary necessity. The minister who can manage the
Commons, and extract from them the necessary moneys, has
then become our most necessary minister.
The change was just beginning ; for Walpole, Bolingbroke's
schoolfeUow and parliamentary rival, ruled his generation by
his parliamentary and financial abilities. But Bolingbroke was
too eager and impetuous to foresee the action of this powerful
but obscure cause. The tradition had been, that the Peers were
superior to the Commons, and he adhered to this tradition. He
was angry till he obtained his peerage.

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 195
Nor was he satisfied when he did obtain it. He was made a
Viscount only, and Harley had been made an Earl. He could
not bear to be inferior to him in anything, especiaUy as there
was an extinct earldom in his own family. He was vexed, angry,
and dissatisfied. Once he went out of town, and would attend
to no business for days. He was angry too with the press. The
peace of Utrecht was attacked and assailed, and it was his peace.
It is true that Bolingbroke should have been able to bear
literary comments, even when rather bitter. He was himself
through Ufe an unscrupulous writer, using the press without
reluctance and without cessation. He was then employing
Swift, the most bitter writer of libels, both political and per
sonal, that can be conceived. He lived with Swift in intimacy,
and printed his libels. He gave him political information and
ideas, and praised him when he used them so as most to hurt
his adversaries. He ought to have been able to bear any
thing, yet he could bear nothing. He prosecuted many more
persons than it was usual to prosecute then, and far more than
have been prosecuted since. He thought, with a continental
wit, that ' a press is free when government newspapers are
licentious.' He thought that everything should be said for
him, and that nothing should be said against him. The copyists
of Alcibiades are commonly irritable, for neither their nature
nor their habits teach them forbearance.
But neither Bolingbroke's disunion with his principal col
league, nor the attacks of the press, were his greatest danger.
He was in the worst pohtical position which can be imagined.
As we have explained, the principal question of the age was a
question of dynasty : after the peace with France it was the sole
great question ; it is in the nature of a topic so absorbing to
swallow up every subject of minor interest. There were only
two solutions of the problem possible. The law prescribed one,
and a sort of superstition prescribed another. The Act of Set
tlement said that the House of Hanover was to succeed Queen
Anna; the doctrine of non-resistance said that the Pretender
o 2

196 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
was to succeed her. The Jacobites adhered to the doctrine of
non-resistance. The Whigs adhered to the Act of Parliament.
Both these parties had a definite solution of the principal topic
of the hour. But between these fluctuated the great mass of the
Tory party, who did not like the House of Hanover because it
had no hereditary right, who did not like the Pretender because
he was a Roman Catholic. This party objected to both possible
solutions : they lived in the vague hope that the Pretender
might turn Protestant — that some unforeseen circumstance
would intervene — that Queen Anne would last their time. For
persons in a private station such a state of mind was very pos
sible and very natural. But it was of this very party that
Bolingbroke was the spokesman and the leader, and he was a
minister. He could not weU remain without a distinct policy.
Queen Anne, though not old, was often ill. She was suspected
to be, and we now know she was, very near her death. He
must make a choice.
Yet which king was Bolingbroke to choose ? If he chose
the House of Hanover, he himself ought not to be minister.
This was the Whig candidate, this was the candidate whom his
party disliked — at whom they murmured — whom they declined
to support. A Tory ministry which should bring in the House
of Hanover was like a Derbyite ministry that should propose
free-trade or reform of Parliament. It was a ministry which
tried to maintain its existence by denying its party tenets.
Probably in those times a Tory ministry could not have done
what we have seen them do in our own time. Party spirit ran
much stronger in Queen Anne's time than in ours. The politi
cal contentions of London were like the contests at a borough
election now. At three o'clock on the polling day it is very
difficult to change your politics and keep your character So it
was in London then. A fierce strife raged. Whig society and
Tory society were separated like two hostile camps, and a
deserter from one to the other was sure of contemptuous hatred
from those he left, and of contemptuous patronage from those

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 197
to whom he came. Bolingbroke could not do even once that
which Mr. Disraeli has done twice.
Bolingbroke's enemies have been very anxious to fix on him
a formed design to bring in the Pretender. He would doubt
less have been very glad to do so, if he could have formed a
coherent scheme. But he could not. Oxford was far too
moderate and timid a man to break the law, or to plan to break
it. He had himself supported the Act of Settlement. He
knew that the Hanoverian succession, though not popular to
the imagination of any class, was acceptable to the reason of
the most thinking class. He knew that the aristocracy, the
large towns, and all the cultivated part of the community, were
in favour of it. He knew that, as the aristocratic classes had the
command ofthe House of Lords, of the small boroughs, and of
very many counties, as the great towns were of themselves
favourable, the House of Hanover was sure of a majority in
Parliament. He knew that the general vulgar, and especially
the rural vulgar, who were favourable to the House of Stuart,
though numerically strong, were but weak in parliamentary
representation. He was probably a party to some covert
intrigues, for intrigue was intrinsically agreeable to him ; but,
in reahty, he was too timid to abandon the plain and legal
course for a tortuous and illegal one. Bolingbroke had, on the
other hand, a constitutional predilection for violent courses,
and no particular objection to an illegal course. If he could
have turned out Oxford — if he could have carried his party
with him, he would certainly have contrived some scheme for
proclaiming the Pretender at Queen Anne's death. But even
he was not mad enough to commit himself to a definite plan
before he knew that he should have the power to execute it.
In the meantime ' Tom Harley,' the prime minister's brother,
exactly expressed the position of the ministry. ' We ought,'
he said, ' to be better or worse with Hanover than we are.'
The case, as men saw it then, was simple. The Queen was
daily approaching the grave. The ministry in power were

198 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
Uncertain what to do in the event of her death. They had ' no
settled intention ' of breaking the law, Bolingbroke tells us ;
but he does not venture to contend that they had a settled
intention of obeying it. They were drifting to a crisis without
a plan. Nor was Bolingbroke comfortable while the Queen hved.
She herself did not like him. A smaller person has never
been placed by the caprice of fate amid great affairs than the
' good Queen Anne.' She had not, Swift says, ' a sufficient
gtock of amity ' for more than one person at a time ; she was
always choosing a favourite upon whom to concentrate her
affections exclusively. Her comprehension was as limited as
her affections. She seriously objected, it is said, to one min
ister for appearing before her in a tie-wig instead of a full-
bottom; and even if this anecdote has been exaggerated by
contimial narration, it expresses the sort of objections which
ruled her mind and determined her conduct. She had a strong
objection to all license ; decorum was a sort of morality to her,
as to most great ladies ; she would have been much puzzled to
fix where manners ended and where morals began. Bolingbroke
was license personified ; and therefore she distrusted and dis
liked him. She did not altogether approve, either, of the peace
of Utrecht. She probably did not understand the details, but
she evidently understood that it was a ' perplexing matter,' and
' not the sort of thing to which she had been accustomed under
Lord Marlborough.' The original strength of the Tory minis
try had been in the Queen's predilection for Miss Hill, after
wards Lady Masham ; Harley ruled Miss Hill, and Miss Hill
ruled the Queen. But the Queen was not quite sure about
Miss HiU. One of her tastes was a taste for aristocracy ; and
she was half ashamed of having taken a great liking to a wait
ing-maid who had been placed about her. She had an old pre
dilection also for the Duchess of Somerset, by birth the last of
the Percies, whose husband was a Whig. Swift was never easy
as to the effect of this friendship. He said, the ' Duchess of

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 199

Somerset is a proud woman, but I wiU pull her down ; ' so he
libelled her, which did not make her more propitious to him or
his masters. There was always a danger that the ex-waiting-
maid, on whom all depended, should be discarded, as the
Duchess of Marlborough had been discarded ; that the Duchess
of Somerset might become prime favourite in her stead ; that
the policy of the government, and all the persons of our rulers,
should be again changed by the inexphcable caprice of a quiet
old lady.
And Bolingbroke had another difficulty. The distrust of
him was not confined to Queen Anne. It extended through
his party, and was an inevitable result of his peculiar position.
He was an eloquent man without prejudices, speaking the pre
judices of men who could not speak. But the speechless client
and the eloquent advocate differ in nature so much that they
can never much like or well understand the other. The Tory
party knew that when Bolingbroke expressed their favourable
conviction, he did not himself believe a word of what he was
saying. And they could not tell what he did beheve. And,
being for the most part regular men of middle life from the
agricultural counties, they did not much like to trust as their
leader a young man of loose life about town. After the peace
of Utrecht especially, he could not tell what they would think,
and they could not tell what he would do. They could never
have anticipated his doing anything so mean as that, and he
could never understand what disgrace there was in so obvious a
diplomatic stratagem as breach of faith. In our own time, it is
easy to vex Tories. You have only to ask, ' What is Dizzy's
next move ? ' Such short words would not have suited our for
mal ancestors. But many a courteous Whig, doubtless, asked
many a Tory, 'What is to be my Lord Bolingbroke's next
fine stroke of policy ? ' and the Tory could not have known
what to say. So long as Oxford was at the head of affairs
common men felt that there was still something ordinary about
the government. But if Bolingbroke were to become sole

2o0 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
minister, or chief minister, we should be subjected to the bold
schemes of undiluted genius.
In this difficult position Bohngbroke showed great ability.
He could not, indeed, remove its irremovable defects. He could
not declare for the House of Hanover ; and he could not declare
for the House of Stuart. He could not remove the dislike
which a dull queen, and a dull party, felt for a brilliant man.
But what could be done he did. He showed great parlia
mentary abUity, and was ever ready with wonderful eloquence.
He pleased his party by a schism bill, agreeable to High '
Churchmen, and disagreeable to Dissenters. He obtained the
favour of the waiting-maid, if he could not obtain that of the
Queen, her mistress. Miss Hill (or Lady Masham, as she now
was) was a sort of relation of Oxford's ; and this had first
brought them together. For a long time the union was firm ;
he gave her much counsel and some money, and she gave him
much power. But Oxford had a conscience, or vestiges of a
conscience, in the use of pubhc money. He was not ready to
give Miss Hill, or Miss Hill's brother, all that they wanted.
Swift puts it that he was too careful of the public interest for
the corruption of the time ; or, as we should put it, he would not
bribe without limit against the public interest out of the public
treasury. But Bolingbroke had no scruples : he bid higher ;
he gave Miss HiU and ' Jack Hill ' all he could, and promised
that they should have more if they would make him first min
ister and maintain him as such. He himself may tell the
result: 'The Earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday; the
Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this, and how our
fortune banters us ! ' Such was the close of three years of in
trigue. He had bribed the waiting-maid just when the mis
tress was no more.
Nor at the moment was this the worst. The Queen's dis
trust of Bolingbroke had lasted till her death. The white staff
—the ' magic wand,' as Bolingbroke calls it, long disused in
English politics, but then the symbol ofthe lord high treasurer

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 201
and of the prime minister — had been taken from Oxford, but
it had not been given to anyone. Bolingbroke could not gain
it for himself. It was arranged that the treasury should be put
into commission, as it had been in King William's time, and as
it always now is. Bolingbroke was to continue secretary of
state, and be in fact principal minister ; yet he was not to have
the indefinite power of the lord treasurer^the mystic power of
the white staff/ But on her death-bed Queen Anne felt that
Bolingbroke could not be trusted even so far. She was dying,
and knew that she was dying. She doubtless felt it was her
duty to place the administration in the hands of some one
who would obey the law on her death. She did not like the
family of Hanover ; she had the most keen repugnance to the
presence of any of them in England during her life. She could
not endure to see her successor close at hand, and it probably
never struck her as a matter of duty to save the country from
a possible convulsion of civil war. She was a Very little-
minded woman, but at the same time she was a decorous woman,
and a weU-meaning woman. She would not have planned or
dared or wished to break the law which she had passed. As
death was coming upon her, she knew that the practical pre
miership of Bolingbroke would endanger the security of the
Act of Settlement. Of all statesmen he was least likely to obey
it, and therefore most unfit to be prime minister when it was
of critical importance to obey it. Obscurely, perhaps, but
effectually, Queen Anne felt this. She gave the white staff to
Shrewsbury, and Bohngbroke's three days of premiership were
at an end.
Probably Bohngbroke felt the disaster the more that he was
obliged to seem to assent to it. Shrewsbury had been acting
as confidential adviser to the Queen for some time, to Boling
broke's dismay. He knew, he said, how he stood with Oxford
—that was open war ; but how he stood with Shrewsbury, he
did not know. As soon as the Queen was despaired of, the
privy council was summoned, and by ordinary rule only those

202 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
summoned should attend ; a ministry thus secures a privy
council of chosen friends. But at this meeting two Whig
dukes, the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of Argyle, attended,
though not summoned, and by their influence the council was
induced to ask the Queen to make Shrewsbury high treasurer ;
and Bolingbroke was obliged to assent. Neither in the nation,
nor at the court, had he substantial influence or effectual
power. He had in truth no alternative. A frantic bishop, Atter
bury, bishop of Rochester, wanted him to proclaim the Pre
tender. But Bolingbroke, though a hot-headed statesman, had
a notion of law and a perception of obvious consequences. He
was not a hot-headed divine : he knew that by law George I.
must be proclaimed at once ; he knew that Shrewsbury, who
wielded the white staff, which everyone would obey, would at
once proclaim George I. He knew that he could not himself
command the obedience of a watchman. AU the force of go
vernment had at once passed from him, aud he acquiesced in
the new order of things. He assisted at the- proclamation of
George I.
The law had indicated the steps which should be taken in
case of the Queen's death, and before her successor could be
brought over from Germany. A document was produced by
the Hanoverian minister, naming Lords Justices, who were to
administer the government until the arrival of George I. Of
these Lords Justices, Bolingbroke, of course, was not one.
They were all sound Whigs,' and steady friends to the House
of Hanover. As Bohngbroke had for four years been wielding
the force of government so as to give pain to them, they imme
diately began to exercise it so as to give pain to him. They
appointed Addison as their secretary ; desired all documents to
be addressed to him; and, though Bolingbroke was still in -high
office, and had at the last moment been real prime minister,
they kept him waiting at their door with studied circumstances

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 203
of indignity, which were much remarked on then, and which
much tried his philosophy.
It would, however, have been well for Bohngbroke if mere
indignities like these had been all which was in store for him,
or all which he deserved. When Parliament met, zealous
Whigs naturally began to murmur a good deal as to the past.
Bolingbroke had ruled them hardly during his reign. His
ministry had removed Marlborough from his appointments;
his ministry had expelled Walpole from the House of Commons.
Walpole would most Ukely have said that the Whig ' innings '
had arrived, and that the actions of their predecessors must be
scrutinised. Bohngbroke for a time affected to fear nothing.
Oxford went to and fro in London, and Bohngbroke followed
his example. All at once he changed his policy. He appeared
at the theatre in state, and took pains while there to attract
attention ; went home, changed his dress, and fled to France.
In truth, he was thoroughly frightened. He declared that
' his blood was,' he understood, ' to have been the cement of a
new alliance,' between the moderate Tories and the Whigs.
Some have traced this notion to the hints of Marlborough, but
it was most likely due as much to Bolingbroke's own conscience.
He knew well that the secret negotiations prior to the peace of
Utrecht would not bear even fair scrutiny. He knew that they
were now to be subjected to hostile scrutiny. Even from
impartial judges he could only expect condemnation, and his
case would now be tried by his enemies. His life, indeed, was
in no danger. . Neither the nation, nor the party opposed to him,
were inclined to bloodshed ; but he felt he was in danger of
something. His guilty conscience magnified the possibilities of
punishment ; to escape them, he did exactly what was worst for
his reputation. Though it was as much as pleading guilty, he fled.
He was attainted as a traitor in his absence, and there may
be legal doubt as to whether the attainder was deserved. That
a minister who advises his sovereign to violate a treaty, and
who violates it accordingly, is worthy of severe punishment,

204 Bolingbroke as a Statesman.
will be admitted by everyone ; and that Bolingbroke had done
this is beyond question or dispute. But this offence does not
amount to high treason, and the details of an incidental trans
action as to the town of Tournay had to be pressed into the
service ; and it required much stretching to make these amount
even to a constructive treason. But whatever might be the
legal correctness or the incorrectness of the precise punish
ment inflicted on Bolingbroke is scarcely material now. He
well deserved a bill of ' Pains and Penalties ; ' and whether he
was or was not visited with the very penalty that was most
suitable, does not matter much.
On Bolingbroke's arrival in France, he looked about him for
awhile. He was at once solicited by the emissaries of the
Pretender, but he deliberated for some time, and it would have
been wiser for him to have dehberated longer. He well knew
that, though there was much latent Jacobite sentiment in Eng
land, there was no good material for a Jacobite rebeUion. Many
squires and rectors and peasants would have been glad to see
the legitimate king restored ; but their zeal was not very active ;
it belonged to the region of traditional sentiment and vague
prejudice rather than to that of practical and vigorous life. The
House of Hanover had the force of the government and the
sense of the country in its favour. It was in possession, and
Bolingbroke was aware that the Jacobites could not expel it
from possession. He knew all this well, but his passions were
too strong for his judgment ; from excitability, restlessness,
and rage, he joined the Pretender. He could not help being
busy, and hoped, or half-hoped, to be revenged on his
enemies. He could not, however, long agree with his new associates.
The descent from actual office to imaginary office was too sudden ;
to many men it was pleasing to be secretary of state to a mock
king, but it was very painful to one who had just been secretary
to a real queen. His contempt, too, for the Irish associates of
the Pretender was unbounded. He saw that they were hot-

Bolingbroke as a Statesman. 205
headed and ignorant men — who knew nothing of the country
which they hoped to rule — whom that country would not
endure for a day. He knew that the Roman Catholics in
England were a small and unpopular body, and their aid more
dangerous than their enmity. The genuine Jacobites distrusted
him also. He said that they were untrustworthy because they
were fools, and they said that he was untrustworthy because he
was a traitor. This could not last ; after a brief interval, he left
the Pretender and his court : they began to slander him, and he
began to speak much evil of them.
With his secession from the Jacobites Bolingbroke's active
career ends. He was afterwards only an aspirant for a career.
He was, after several years, permitted to return to England, and
to enjoy his estate though he was an attainted traitor ; but the
attainder was not reversed, and while it was in force he could
not take his seat in the House of Lords, or hold any office what
ever. He wrote much against Walpole, but he did not turn out
Walpole. On one occasion he was much mortified because Pul
teney and the practical opponents of Walpole said that the sup
port of his name rather weakened than strengthened them. He
gave in a long memorial of suggestions to George I. ; but the
King said they were 'bagatelles.' He then fancied that he
should become minister because of the support of Lady Suffolk,
George II.'s mistress ; but Lady Suffolk had no influence, and
Queen Caroline, who had predominant influence, supported
Walpole. He then hoped to be minister under the Prince of
Wales, George II.'s son, and wrote a treatise on a 'Patriot
King ' for that prince's use. But George II. outlived his son ;
and he was saved the mortification of seeing how little that
small prince would have carried out his great ideas. Though
he survived Queen Anne more than thirty years, he never after
her death attained to a day's power in England. Three years
of eager unwise power, and thirty-five of sickly longing and im
potent regret— such, or something hke it, will ever be in this
cold modern world the fate of an Alcibiades.

206

SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS.
[1863.]
Few more curious sights were, not long since, to be seen in Lon
don than that of Sir G. C. Lewis at the War Office. What is now
a melancholy recollection was, when we used to see it, an odd
mixture of amusing anomalies. The accidental and bit-by-
bit way in which all minor business is managed in England
has drifted our public offices into scattered, strange, and miscel
laneous places. It has drifted the war minister into the large
drawing-room of an old mansion, which is splendid enough to
receive fashionable people, and large enough to receive a hun
dred people. In this great and gorgeous apartment sat, a few
months since, a homely scholar in spectacles, whose face bore
traces of sedentary labour, and whose figure was bent into the
student-stoop. Such a plain man looked odd enough in such a
splendid place. But it was much more odd to think that that
man in that place supremely regulated the War Department of
England. The place should have been a pacific drawing-room,
and the man was a pacific student. He looked like a convey
ancer over deeds, hke a scholar among ' treatises, like a jurist
making a code ; he looked like the last man to preside over
martial pomp and military expeditions.
So unique a man as Sir George Lewis has, in truth, rarely
been lost to this country. Most men, most politicians espe
ciaUy, fall easily into some ready-made classification ; belong to
one of the recognised groups of ordinary character. Political
1 A Dialogue on the Rest Form of Government. By the Bight Hon. Sir
G. C. Lewis, Bart. M.P. London, 1863.

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 207
life has gone on so long that we have ascertained the principal
species of statesmen, and have a fixed name ready for each. But
Sir George Lewis, as all who knew him in the least well will tes
tify, did not belong exactly to any received type. People were
puzzled how to classify a man who wrote on the Astronomy of
the Ancients, the Fables of Babrius, and Roman History before
there was history, and who was yet able to fill three difficult
cabinet offices in quick succession. He wrote what most cabi
net ministers would think it too much and too hard to read.
No German professor, from the smoke and study of many silent
years, has ever put forth books more bristling with recondite
references, more exact in every technicality of scholarship, more
rich in matured reflection, than Sir George Lewis found time,
mind, and seholarlike curiosity, to write in the very thick of
eager English hfe. And yet he was never very busy, or never
seemed so. In the extremity of the Trent difficulty, when, as
he was inclined to think, a war with America was impending,
when a war minister might be pardoned for having no time for
general reflection, Sir George Lewis found time, at three o'clock
on a busy parliamentary day, to discuss with the writer of these
lines, for some twenty minutes, the comparative certainty, or
rather iwzoertainty, of the physical and moral sciences. It was
difficult to know what to make of such a man.
The difficulty was the greater because he made no pretence
to be a marvel of versatile ability. When Lord Brougham was
chancellor, he was always doing — his enemies said for display,
his friends said from a certain overflow of miscellaneous activity
— many out-of-the-way matters. According to one legend, he
even wrote a treatise on hydrostatics for the Society of Useful
Knowledge which was so full of blunders that it could not be
pubhshed. Many statesmen have had the vanity of variety.
But if ever there was a plain man, an unpretending man, a man
who in matters of business affected to be par negotiis neque
supra, that man was Sir George Lewis. The objection to him
was that he was too prosaic, too anxiously safe, too suspicious

208 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
of everything showy. It was not possible for an enemy or for
an opponent — for he had no enemies — to hint that Sir George,
Lewis's miscellaneous books were written from a love of dis
play. They were written from a bent of nature — from the born
love of dry truth.
To those, however, who had an opportunity of accurately
observing Sir George Lewis there was no difficulty in making him
out. He was so simple and natural that he explained himself.
His principal quahties were all of a plain and homely species,
and though it may not be possible to give a likeness of them,
yet a brief description may easily give an idea and an approxi
mation. The specialty of his mind was a strong simplicity. He
took a plain, obvious view of every subject which came before
him. Ingenuities, refinements, and specious fallacies might be
suggested around him in any number or in any variety, but his
mind was comphcation-proof. He went steadily through each
new ambiguity, each new distinction, as it presented itself. He
said, in unadorned but apt English, ' The facts are these and
these : the new theory concerning them is so and so : it ac
counts for facts Nos. 1, 2, and. 3, but fails to account for facts
Nos. 4, 5, and 6.' Of course he was not uniformly right. We
shall show that there were some kinds of facts, and some sorts
of events, which he was by mental constitution not able wholly
to appreciate. But his view of every subject, though it might.
not be adequate, though it might be hmited, was always lucid.
His mind was like a registering machine with a patent index.
It took in all the data, specified, enumerated them, and then
indicated with unmistakable precision what their sum-total of
effect precisely was. The index might be wrong, though it
pretty generally was right ; but nobody could ever mistake for
a moment what it meant and where it was.
Few men ever kept apart, in civil matters, so well what, in
medical matters, would be called the diagnosis and the prescrip
tion. Most men mix, even to themselves, their view of what

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 209
is with their suggestion of what should be. You could not
have made Sir George Lewis mix the two. His mind on such
points was almost a tedious formality. He would say, ' The
facts proved are so and so ; from these there are the following
probable inferences. If you wish to alter the present circum
stances and to produce others, you must do so and so.' When
a man came to him with a plan, he asked, ' What is your ob
ject ? ' Until he got a plain answer to that, and a proof that
the object was good, he never looked at the plan. All this in
theory may seem very obvious and very trite. Nothing is so
easy as to be sensible on paper. The only true theory of trans
acting business is a simple matter which has been known for
hundreds of years. Any part of that theory in print looks
stupid, and not worth sayjng. Yet in real life, especially in
political life, how few great actors are there ! In politics the
issues to be determined are for the most part plain and simple ;
but they are exciting, are embedded in rhetoric, and overlaid
with irrelevant matter. A certain strong simplicity sweeps
away all these outside matters. Talking to Sir George Lewis
on a pending political matter was like reading a chapter of
Aristotle's Politics — you might think the view incomplete, but
there were the same pregnant strength and matter-of-fact
simphcity. One great advantage of this sort of mind Sir George Lewis
noted in an article in the ' Edinburgh Review,' which, though
when published anonymous, may now be quoted as his : ' When
Demosthenes was asked what was the first and second and third-
qualification of an orator, he answered, " Delivery ; " in like man
ner, if we were asked what is the first and second and third
qualification of an English statesman, we would answer, " In
telligibility." As in oratory the most eloquent words and the
wisest counsels will avail but little if they are not impressed by
voice and manner upon the minds of an audience : so integrity
and public spirit will fail to command confidence, if the course
p

210 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
adopted is intricate or inextricable.' Sir George Lewis could
not have described his own sort of mind better if he had been
trying to do so ; he could not be intricate or perplexed. On
those rare occasions in politics when it is useful to be ambigu
ous he failed. When he was Home Secretary he could not
diffuse that useful mist over delicate difficulties which was now
and then desirable, and in which Sir George Grey has succeeded.
An unbroken fluency in indefinite half-truths was simply im
possible to Sir George Lewis. He could not be said to fail in
it, for he did not attempt it. His mind was unsuited to.
ambiguity, whether artful or natural. But on those all but-
universal occasions when only a plain intelligible statement of
an important proposition was required, his solid vigour was
appropriate. He could never have appealed to the people by
the felicitous attraction of his words, but he had an even surer
source of popularity in the certain intelligibility of his plans.
The last words of his last book show the sort of grave mode
ration with which he regarded politics, as wise as any of which
be ever made use. They are the judgment in which the reflec
tive man of the world sums up the arguments of the advocates
of different forms of government.
Bach one of you, in to-day's discussion, has been able to show
specious, perhaps strong, grounds in favour of his opinion. Monar-
chicus can say with truth that the testimony of experience is in his
favour ; that the vast majority of nations, now and at all former
periods of time, have been governed by monarchs ; and that a plural
or republican government is an intricate machine, difficult to work, -
• and constantly tending to relapse into monarchy. Aristocraticus
can argue that aristocracy is the government of intelligence and
virtue; and that it is a just medium between the two extremes of
monarchy and democracy ; while Democraticus can dwell upon the
splendid vision of a community bound together by the ties of frater
nity, liberty, and equality, exempt from hereditary privilege, givinw
all things to merit, and presided over by a government in which all the
national interests are faithfully represented. But even if I were to
decide in favour of one of these forms, and against the two others I
should not find myself nearer the solution of the practical problem.

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 2 1 \
A nation does not change the form of its government with the same
facility that a man changes his coat. A nation in general only
changes the form of its government by means of a violent revolution.
This is not a moment when reason is in the ascendent, and when the
claims of force can be safely disregarded. The party which is upper
most in the revolution dictates the form of government, and pays
little attention to abstract theories, unless it be those which coincide
with its own views. The past history of a nation, its present interests,
its present passions and antipathies, the advice of favourite leaders,
the intervention of foreign governments, all exercise a powerful influ
ence at such a crisis in determining the national decision. Such is
the rude process by which one form of 'government is actually con
verted into another ; very unlike the gentle and rational method
which is assumed by the constructors of Utopias. Besides, the
political preferences of a people are in general determined by habit
and mental association ; and though the newly introduced con
stitution may be intrinsically better than its predecessor, yet the
people may dislike it, and refuse it the benefit of a fair trial. It -
may therefore fail, not from its own defectiveness, but through the
ill-will and reluctance of those by whom it is worked.
There are some rare cases in which a nation has profited by a
revolution. Such was the English revolution of 1688, in which the
form of the government underwent no alteration, and the person of
the king was alone changed. It was the very minimum of a revolu
tion ¦ it was remarkable for the absence of those accompaniments
which make a revolution perilous, and which subsequently draw
upon it a vindictive reactionary movement. The late Italian revolu
tion has likewise been successful; by it the Italian people have
gained a better government, and have improved then- political con
dition. It was brought about by foreign intervention ; but its success
has been mainly owing to the moderation of the leaders in whom the
people had the wisdom to confide, and who have steadily refrained
from all revolutionary excesses.
The history of forcible attempts to improve governments is not,
however, cheering. Looking back upon the course of revolutionary
movements, and upon the character of their consequences, the practical
conclusion which I draw is, that it is the part of wisdom and prudence
to acquiesce in any form of government which is tolerably well
administered, and affords tolerable security to person and property.
I would not, indeed, yield to apathetic despair, or acquiesce in the
persuasion that a merely tolerable government is incapable of im-
v 2

212 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
provement. I would form an individual model, suited to the
character, disposition, wants, and circumstances of the country, and
I would make all exertions, whether by action or by writing, within
the limits ofthe existing law, for ameliorating its existing condition,
and bringing it nearer to the model selected for imitation ; but I
should consider the problem of the best form of government as purely
ideal, and as unconnected with practice ; and should abstain from
taking a ticket in the lottery of revolution, unless there was a well-
founded expectation that it would come out a prize.
This sober simplicity is not to the taste of many people.
Many wish to find in politics a sort of excitement. They wish
that public affairs should be managed in a rather theatrical way,
in order that they themselves may have the pleasure of reading
a stimulating series of brilliant events. People who went to
Sir George Lewis for excitement were very likely to be disap
pointed. He was sure to knock the gloss off things. ' People,'
he would observe, ' who know how things are managed, know
that the oftener cabinets meet the better. Ignorant persons
fancy that when cabinets meet often there is something wrong •
but that is a mistake. It is in the long vacation and in the
country that some ministers do something brilliant and extra
ordinary that is much objected to. When ministers get
together, they can agree on something plain and satisfactory.'
He always talked of the cabinet as if it were a homely sort of
committee. At bottom, perhaps, he did not much object to be thought
a little commonplace. ' In my opinion,' he said (and perhaps
there is no harm in adding that it was in reference to the Suez
canal), ' in nine cases out of ten, cure is better than prevention.
If it be ever necessary to hold Egypt, then fight for Egypt.
By looking forward to all possible evils, we waste the strength
that had best be concentrated in curing the one evil which
happens.' Those who wish that the foreign affairs of England
should be managed according to a far-seeing and elaborate
policy will not like such voluntary shortsightedness ; but the

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 213
English people themselves rather like to have the national
course fixed by evident, palpable, and temporary circumstances.
Some people thought Sir George Lewis obstinate, and in one
sense he was so. No one was a better colleague ; no one, after
full discussion, was readier to take a share in the responsibility
for measures of which he did not entirely approve the whole.
But though he gave up his proposals, he did not alter his opinion.
It may be said of him that he could not alter it. Most men's
conclusions are framed upon fluctuating considerations, some of
which are very indistinctly present to their minds, and most of
which it would puzzle them to state shortly. Sir George Lewis
knew exactly what were the facts upon which he grounded his
opinion, and what his inference from those facts. Unless you
gave him new facts, he could not help drawing the same in
ference. This was one of the comforts of dealing with him.
You always knew exactly where you would find his mind.
Unless the data had altered, you might be sure his inference
from the data would be unchanged.
It may be added that his inference was almost sure to be
exactly sound. His data might be limited. As we shall show,
there were some kinds of facts which, from a limitation of
nature, he did not thoroughly appreciate. When such facts
were in question, his conclusion was likely enough to be
wrong ; for he was arguing rightly on incomplete premisses.
But no one could gainsay the correctness of his inference from
what he did see. He was the soundest judge of probability we
have ever known. The facts being admitted to be so aud so,
what will be the consequence of those facts ? Upon this ques
tion few judgments, if any, in England were better than that
of Sir George Lewis.
It is this judgment of probability, which makes the man of
business. The data of life are accessible ; their inference un
certain : a sound judgment on these data is the secret of success
to him who possesses it, and the reason why others trust him.
It is this that men call a sound understanding ; it is this that

214 Si-r George Cornewall Lewis.
Napoleon had in mind when he said that aman should hecarre"
a la base.
To this straightforward simplicity of understanding, Sir
George Lewis added the most complete education perhaps of
any man of his time. He did not believe in what has been called
speciality ; at least he confined it to the lower grades of practical
fife and hterary labour. He has observed : ' The permanent
officers of a department are the depositories ofthe official tradi
tions, they are generally referred to by the pohtical head of the
office for information upon questions of official practice ; and
knowledge of this sort acquired in one department would be
useless in another. If, for example, the chief clerk of the
criminal department of the Home Office were to be transferred
to the Foreign Office or to the Admiralty, the special experience
which he has acquired inthe Home Office, and which is in daily
and hourly requisition for the assistance of the Home Secretary,
would be utterly valueless to the Foreign Secretary or to the
First Lord of the Admiralty  The same person may be
successively at the head of the Home Office, the Foreign Office,
the Colonial Office, and the Admiralty ; he maybe successively
President of the Board of Trade and ChanceUor of the Ex
chequer ; but to transfer an experienced clerk from one office
to another would in general be like transferring a skilful naval
officer to the army, or appointing a military engineer officer to
command a ship of war. A similar distinction may be observed
in other branches of practical life; thus an architect may
direct the execution of different classes of buildings ; he may
give plans for palaces, churches, courts of justice, bridges,
private dwellings ; but the subordinate workmen whom he em
ploys retain their separate functions unchanged — a carpenter
does not become a mason, a painter or glazier does not become
an ironmonger or plasterer.'
He sincerely believed (and perhaps acted to excess on the
belief) that a well-educated man was competent to undertake
any office and to write on any subject. He would have acknow-

Str George Cornewall Lewis. 215
ledged the truth of the saying, that the end of education was
to make a good learner. He was at the day of his death
perhaps the best learner in England; there was no sort of
definite information, whether relating to public business or to
books, which he did not know how to acquire and where to find.
Some public men may know where to find as much political
information ; some scholars may know where to find as much
learned information ; but what other man knows so precisely
the best sources of both kinds of knowledge ?
He had a nearly perfect mastery over the keys of know
ledge. He derived from Eton and Oxford a perfect knowledge
of the classical languages, and he extended it to. the day of his
death. An article published in ' Notes and Queries ' within a
week or two of that time showed that he had read Mr. Freeman's
history — a rather formidable work, relating to the .ZEtolian and
other Greek leagues, which was only then just published,
and which is as much as many busy men read in ten years.
Many English statesmen have been good classical scholars,
and it is happily not difficult for those who have once well
learned the languages of antiquity to retain a familiarity with
its masterpieces. The very business of life, indeed, adds to
these masterpieces an additional charm, for it reveals touches
of discerning thought, and traits of external human know
ledge, which the writers learned from experience, and which
no one can appreciate without it. Mr. Pitt, Mr. Canning,
Lord Grenville, the Marquis Wellesley, and many others of
our conspicuous statesmen, have had this sort of scholarship.
The knowledge of the Classics was to them an inteUectual
luxury. But Sir George Lewis had a far more laborious
scholarship than this. He had read and knew, not only the
classical writers themselves, but also terrific German treatises,
in many volumes and upon the worst paper, about the
Classics, which no inteUectual voluptuary would touch or
look at.
In addition to his Eton and Oxford scholarship, Sir George

2 1 6 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
Lewis was excellently well acquainted with modern languages,
and had a fair knowledge of mathematics. But a mere enumera
tion of this kind does not in the least give a notion of the sort
of knowledge he had — a phrase, not of the purest English,
alone expresses it : it was a knowledge which ' turned up '
everywhere. Hardly a subject could be started on which he
could not throw an unexpected light, and to which he could
not add some new fact. The sort of way in which this
happened is aptly enough illustrated by Lord Stanhope's
'Miscellanies,' pubUshed last year: 'Mr. Windham,' writes
Lord Stanhope, ' in his speech of December 9, 1803, observes
of the Martello towers that they were so called from a place of
that name in Corsica ; and I have quoted that sentence from
him in my "Life of Pitt." Since my own publication,
however, there has been suggested to me, by a very high
authority upon all such subjects, a derivation far more probable
than Mr. Windham's, and certainly, as I conceive, the right
one. S.
Right Eon. Sir George C. Lewis to Harl Stanhope.
[Extract] April 2, 1862.
The origin of Martello towers I believe to have been that when
piracy was common in the Mediterranean, and pirates like the Danes
made plundering descents upon the coasts, the Italians built towers
near the sea in order to keep watch and give warning if a pirate ship
was seen to approach the land. This warning was given by striking
on a bell with a hammer ; and hence these towers were called Torri
da Martello. The same to the same. May 7, 1862.
I think that I have discovered, with the assistance of a friend, the
origin of Windham's statement respecting Martello towers. An
attack was made on the tower of Mortella, in Corsica, by the British
forces both by sea and land, in February 1794. The tower was taken
after an obstinate defence, but the two attacking ships were beaten
off. The circumstance is likely to have given rise to the confusion
between Martello towers generally and this tower of Mortella.'

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 2 1 7

And Lord Stanhope adds some additional facts showing that
the derivation suggested by Sir George C. Lewis was correct.
Again, in p. 40, Lord Stanhope gives an extract from a letter
of Sir George Lewis : —
'Lord Grenville told my father that Pitt had formed a plan for
abolishing all Customs Duties, and that he would have carried it
into effect, if the war of the French Revolution had not broken out,
which defeated all his financial and commercial schemes. Lord
Grenville said that the amount of the public expenditure at that time
rendered such a plan quite feasible.'
These are two instances casually occurring in one little
volume. But anyone who knew Sir George Lewis would know
that miscellaneous odd facts of this sort were accumulated
in his memory, to what seemed an infinite number, and were
at once brought out when they could be useful in illustrating
anything. As a writer this great knowledge, especially when connected
with the strong love of bare truth which led him to acquire
that knowledge, was not advantageous to him. He gave a
mistaken credit to his readers ; he fancied they loved fact and
truth as much as he did. ' Woe to the writer,' goes a wise
saying, 'that exhausts his subject; his readers are exhausted
first.' Sir George Lewis always exhausted his subject if he
could, and you could npt have persuaded him not to do so. In
proposing the dowry of the Princess Royal he amused the
House of Commons by an elaborate reference, not only to the
dowry of George III.'s daughters, who seemed quite far enough
back for an impatient audience that wanted its dinner, but
also to a perfectly forgotten Princess Royal who was George
III.'s aunt. Most of his books are too full of citations and ex
planations ; and to the last he would have been more read and
more influential if he had thought often of Sidney Smith's
precept, ' Now, remember Noah, and be quick.'
But though a tendency to overlay a subject with super
fluous erudition was one of Sir George Lewis's defects, the

2 1 8 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.

possession of that available erudition was one of his greatest
powers. In the present day, the usefulness of a public man is
largely measured by the number of subjects which he can get
up— Sir George Lewis could get up any subject. There was
no probable topic on which he could not form, from the very
best sources, with ease and pleasure, a clear, determinate, and
exact opinion. His memory helped him. It has been com
pared to Macaulay's— not that it was equal to such marvellous
displays, but that it contained as much, or nearly as much,
miscellaneous knowledge. And there was this pecuharity in
it. Macaulay's memory, like Niebuhr's, undoubtedly con
founded not unfrequently inference and fact : it exaggerated ;
it gave, not what was in the book, but what a vivid imagina
tion inferred from the book. Sir George Lewis had none of
this defect : his memory was a dry memory, just as his mind
was a dry hght; if he said a thing was at page 10, you might
be sure it was at page 10. Somebody called him a ' sagacious
dictionary,' and there was felicity in the expression.
Apart from this massive simplicity of understanding, and
this immense accumulation of exact knowledge, there was no
thing very remarkable in Sir George Lewis. It would be the
greatest injustice to his memory, and be the very last thing
which he would have desired, to mar the picturesque outlines
of his character by concealing its limitations. He had, as we
explained, some great qualities in an extraordinary measure,
but in other respects he was no more than an ordinary man,
and in some he was even less than one.
There was a want of brisk enthusiasm about him, both in
appearance and in reality. He looked like a scholar, a thinker,
and a man of business ; he did not look like — he was not— 7a
buoyant ruler or a popular orator. He was quite conscious of
this himself, and would sometimes allude to it. The late Mr.
Wilson — a very vivacious and active man — who was Secretary
of the Treasury when Sir George Lewis was Chancellor of the
Exchequer, used to relate, that when he once was urging some-

Sir George Cornewall Lewis, 219
thing rather strongly, Sir George answered : ' No ; I can't do
it. The fact is, Wilson, you are an animal, and I am a vege
table.' Taken literaUy, this would have been a satire on him
self, but it indicated his main defect. He had always, or nearly
always, sufficient judgment for a great statesman, but he had
not always sufficient impulse.
He was puzzled about the passions of mankind ; he had so
little passion, himself that it seemed to him an unknown force
which might take men to a distance which it was impossible to
foresee, and in a direction that could not be calculated. ' When,'
we have heard him say, ' you know a man will act for his own
interest, you know how to deal with him ; but if he is likely to
be guided by feehng, it is impossible to predict his course.'
Such extreme calmness of mind is not favourable to a states
man ; it is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be
without temptations. It would always have been a difficulty
to Sir George Lewis, -that he did not share the impetuous part
of human nature, whether for good or evil. He was ever liable
to impute to a settled design- and intellectual self-interest what
was in fact owing to an impulse of philanthropy or a gust of
mere passion. He was apt to be thought cynical in opinion,
though good-natured in manner and action — and in some sense
he was so. He took too external a view of human nature,
and ascribed to consistent selfishness what was really pro
duced by mixed motives and a close combination of good and
evil. He was so defective in the more conspicuous sorts of ima
gination, that he was often thought to have no imagination.
But this was an error. He could conceive well the working of
a polity, the operation of a scheme, the details of a plan. His
criticism on the working, say of the American constitution,
would show great power of conceiving distant causes, and of
predicting and analysing strange effects. He had the business
imagination. But he had no other. He could not imagine
great passions, or overwhelming desires, or involved character ;

220 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
he knew that there were such things, hut he had no image of
them in his mind and no picture. He was like a man on the
edge of a volcano, who dreaded an eruption, but had no vision
of the flames. He was thus apt to be out of sympathy with,
and even to be impatient of, some elements in ordinary men's
judgment. He was a little too critical of public opinion, too
critical, that is, for a parliamentary statesman, for one who
should try to sympathise with the master whom he must obey.
Sir George Lewis hated exaggeration as much as he could hate
anything — and popular opinion is always exaggerated. ' There
is,' said Sir Stafford Northcote, 'no quality for which Sir George
Lewis is more remarkable than for a quiet courage, which
emboldens him to give utterance from time to time, and some
times without any apparent necessity for his doing so, to pro
positions of the most, alarmingly unpopular nature.' And such
courage is admirable. In this day it is much to have a states
man who, on any occasion and for any object, will withstand
public opinion. But such opposition should be reserved for
great occasions, and too much must not be expected from the
mass of men. A vague tendency and loose approximation to
what is right is all we can hope for from miscellaneous popular
opinion ; and it is not wise in a statesman to criticise too
nicely, or to attempt to give to the rough practical judgment
of men a fine accuracy which it can never in fact possess. Sir
George Lewis was the antithesis of a demagogue ; he could not
take a test without a qualification ; he was sure to distrust, and
apt to despise, a popular dogma.
A slight survey — and we have only space or powers for a
very slight one — will show that these qualities were as con
spicuous in Sir George Lewis's writings as in his political career.
Indeed, if there ever was a man whose mind was always and
everywhere one and the same, Sir George was that man. He
had not really a versatile mind, though his pursuits were varied.
He was far too modest and wise to aim at what was impossible
to him, and nature had given him sharp limitations. It was

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 221
said by the ' Times ' of Lord Brougham, ' that he might have
been any one of ten first-rate kinds of men, but that he had
tried to be all ten, and had failed.' Sir George Lewis had none
of this flexibility, and none of this vanity. He never tried to
be a great poet or a great orator, or. to be anything else but what
nature made him — a shrewd and solid thinker. He had a great
faculty of research, but his matter is everywhere of the same
sort. It is the same imperturbable homely sense upon finance
in his Budgets, upon the Egyptology of Baron Bunsen in his
Ancient Astronomy.
Sir George Lewis's principal writings may be divided into two
classes, the historical and the speculative ; and it is hardly too
much to say that the whole of the historical are developments
in many forms of one central idea. He always devotes himself
to the refutation of an hypothesis : some previous writer has
elaborated a theory which, Sir George Lewis maintains, rests
on no basis of evidence, and which he wishes to dispel. Some
one has seen a mirage, and related it as a fact ; Sir George
Lewis wishes to dispel the mirage.
His earliest work of this sort was the ' Origin and Forma
tion of the Romance Language.' M. Raynouard, a distinguished
French scholar, had expounded a very curious and remarkable
theory as to the breaking-up of the Latin language. It is cer
tain that good Latin was once spoken at Rome ; it is certain
that the Romans conquered the rest of Italy, France, and Spain;
it is certain that in each of these countries a modern language,
analogous to the Latin, and derived from the Latin, is now
spoken. How, then, did the Latin break up ? How, then, were
the new languages formed? M. Raynouard maintained that
they were formed by means of an intermediate language.
He held that the Romance language, which was purely spoken
in the times of the Troubadours, and which is still corruptly
spoken in Provence, was a language once used in the same form
all over Europe ; that it was the same tongue in France, in
Portugal, in Italy, and in Spain ; and that as a person who

222 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
spoke Latin would have been universally intelligible at one
time, so a person who spoke Romance would have been univer
sally understood at a subsequent time. This idea of a single
diffused Middle Age language Sir George Lewis undertakes to
dispel ; he thinks it a dream and a theory. He says that the
Latin broke up under different circumstances, with different
velocities, and in different modifications, in the different states
of Europe. There was a certain general resemblance, he holds,
in the changes which were in progress, whether in Italy or
Spain, France or Portugal, because those changes in all these
countries were produced by the same causes. The invasion of
the barbarians, the fall of the Roman Empire, and the some
what mysterious movement which tends to break up the old
rhetorical and synthetic languages, and replace them by analytic
and conversational languages, were common causes, operating
alike in all countries where Latin had been spoken. But
though the change in all the languages was in the same general
direction, it was not at the same rate, nor was it identical in
details. There has, according to Sir G, Lewis, never been a
single vernacular language spoken through Europe since Latin
was so spoken. The theory of Raynouard is, according to Sir
George Lewis's characteristic language, an ' unsupported and
imaginary hypothesis.'
This essay on the Romance language was republished by Sir
George within a few months of his death, and is worth reading
as an illustration of his mode of thought and argument. The
burden of proof is upon Raynouard. He says there was a com
mon language at a certain date ; where, then, is that language ?
what were its parts of speech, its verbs, its pronouns and its
substantives ? Let us look at them in the different countries
of Europe at the time in question, and prove that the language
was uniform by the identity of its forms. Accordingly Sir
George Lewis goes through the earliest known forms of the
Italian, Spanish, Provencal, and French languages, and he
shows that at the earliest stage they were not identical. He

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 223
characteristically says, ' The importance and interest of the
philological problem which is treated in the following pages are
much increased by the fact that it lies entirely within the his
torical period ; and that not only the original and the derivative
languages, but also the circumstances attending the transition,
are known by authentic evidence and by an unbroken tradition.
It is therefore a problem which admits of solution by demon
strative arguments, and without recourse to a series of hypo
theses and conjectures, weakening as the chain lengthens.' Sir
George Lewis revels, we may almost say, in the plentifulness
of the evidence. He has lists of the * tenses and inflexions of
Romance nouns,' ' new Romance nouns formed by affixes,' of the
degrees of comparison, pronouns, and numerals, in the Romance
language, with endless similar information. He elaborately
compares the earliest stages of the Italian, Spanish, and French
languages with the earliest form of the Provencal; and he
shows clearly and fully, what was probable enough in itself,
that the earliest forms of these languages differ ; that they
have pursued a different history ; that the Provencal is only
one of the derived languages, with a history of its own ; that
there never was any one derived language generally diffused
through Europe ; that as soon as the use of Latin ended, dis
tinctions of speech began. A very close political observer,
who did not himself easily reUnquish anything, once described
Sir George Lewis as the most pertinacious man he had ever
known : ' He returns,' it was added, ' to the charge again and
again, and he hardly ever fails.' This was said by one who
seldom read anything, who had read very little of Sir George
Lewis's writing, who assuredly had never opened the treatise on
the Romance languages. But if he had studied the treatise, he
could not have described it better. Sir George returns again and
again, with verbs and pronouns, to the charge, and he hardly
ever fails. A student who continued to believe Raynouard's
theory must be impervious to argument and detail-proof.
The largest of all Sir George Lewis's writings, and his

224 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
acutest, strikes with the same tactics at a nobler game upon a
larger field. The reception of Niebuhr's ' History of Rome ' is
one of the most curious of recent literary phenomena. Though
he really is a bold theorist on Roman history, though his narrative
is by admission constructed by the imagination, he has obtained
something like the credit due to an almost contemporary
authority — to a person who had some special information. He
believed he had acquired, by long study and brooding, a special
faeulty, a peculiar divination. He tells us :
' All my faculties were directed to a single object for sixteen months,
without any intermission except now and then for a few days. My
sight grew dim in its passionate efforts to pierce into the obscurity of
the subject, and unless I was to send forth an incomplete work, which
sooner or later would have had to be wholly remodelled, I was com
pelled to wait for what Time might gradually bring forth. Nor has
he been niggardly, but, though slowly, has granted me one discovery
after another. . . . The true accoxmt, it must be owned, is not always
the most probable. But when an inquirer, after gazing for year's
with ever renewed undeviating steadfastness, sees the history of
mistaken, misrepresented, and forgotten events rise out of mists and
darkness, and assume substance and shape, as the scarcely visible
aerial form of the nymph in the Sclavonic tale takes the body of
an earthly maiden beneath the yearning gaze of love — when by un
wearied and conscientious examination he is continually gaining a
clearer insight into the connexion of all its parts, and discerns that
immediate expression of reality which emanates from life — he has a
right to demand that others, who merely throw their looks by the
way on the region where he hves and has taken up his home,
should not deny the correctness of his views, because they perceive -
nothing of the kind. The learned naturalist, who has never left his
native town, will not recognise the animal's track, ,by which the.
hunter is guided : and if any one, on going into Benvenuto's prison,
when his eyes had for months been accustomed to see the objects
around him, had asserted that Benvenuto like himself could not dis
tinguish anything in the darkness, he would surely have been some
what presumptuous.'
It is beautiful to see the heavy care and sluggish diligence
with which Sir George Lewis reckons all this poetry back into
mere prose.

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 225
' The history of Niebuhr (he tells us) ' has thus opened more ques
tions than it has closed, and it has set in motion a large body of
combatants, whose mutual variances are not at present likely to be
settled by deference to a common authority, or by the recognition of
any common principle.
' The main cause of the great multiplicity and wide divergence of
opinions, which characterise the recent researches into early Roman
history, is the defective method, which not only Niebuhr and his
followers, but most of his opponents, have adopted. Instead of
employing those tests of credibility which are consistently applied to
modern history, they attempt to guide their judgment by the indica
tions of internal evidence, and assume that the truth can be discovered
by an occult faculty of historical divination. Hence, the task which
they have undertaken resembles an inquiry into the internal structure
of the earth, or into the question, whether the stars are inhabited.
It is an attempt to solve a problem, for the solution of which no
sufficient data exist.
' The consequence is, that ingenuity and labour can produce
nothing but hypotheses and conjectures, which may be supported by
analogies, and may so retimes appear specious and attractive, but can
never rest on the solid foundation of proof. There will, therefore, be
a series of such conjectural histories ; each successive writer will
reject all or some of the guesses of his predecessors, and will propose
some new hypotheses of his own. But the treatment of early Roman
hi.story, though it will be constantly moving, will not advance ; it
will not be stationary, but neither will it be progressive; it will be
unfixed and changeable, but without receiving any improvement ;
and it will perpetually revolve in the same hopeless circle. Like the
search after the philosopher's stone, or the elixir of life, it will be
constantly varying its aspect, under the treatment of different pro
fessors of the futile science ; but truth and certainty, the aim of all
rational employment of the intellect, will always be equaUy distant.
Each new system of the early Roman constitution will be only (to
use Paley's words) one guess among many ; whereas he alone discovers
who proves. There is indeed no doubt that long habit, combined
with a happy talent, may enable a person to discern the truth where
it is invisible to ordinary minds, possessing no peculiar advantages.
This may be observed, not only in historical researches, but in every
other department of knowledge. In order, however, that the truth
so perceived should recommend itself to the convictions of others,
it is a necessary condition that it should admit of proof which they
Q

226 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
can understand. Newton might have perceived, by a rapid and in
tuitive sagacity, the connexion between the fall of an apple and the
attraction of the earth to the sun ; but unless he could have demon
strated that connexion by arguments which were intelligible and
satisfactory to the scientific- world, his discovery would have been
useless, except as a mere suggestion. In hke manner, we may re
joice that the ingenuity and learning of Niebuhr should have enabled
him to advance many novel hypotheses and conjectures respecting
events in the early history, and respecting the form of the early con
stitution, of Rome. But unless he can support those hypotheses by
sufficient evidence, they are not entitled to our belief. It is not
enough for a historian to claim the possession of a retrospective
second-sight, which is denied to the rest of the world ; of a mysterious
doctrine, revealed only to the initiated. Unless he can prove as
well as guess ; unless he can produce evidence of the fact, after he
has intuitively perceived its existence, his historical system cannot be
received. The oases of truth which he discerns amidst the trackless.
expanses of fiction and legend, may be real ; but until their existence
can be verified by positive testimony, we have no certainty that
these " green spots in memory's waste " may not be mere mirage and
optical delusion. It is an excellence in a historian of antiquity, who
has sufficient data to proceed upon, that he should form a vivid con
ception of the events described ; that he should live as it were among
the persons whose acts he recounts ; and that he should carry
his reader back into the bygone times in which his drama is
placed. On the other hand, it is a fault in the modern writers who
first narrated Roman history that they should have related the events
as if they had never happened. But when there is a want of solid
evidence, we do not render the history true by treating the events as
if they were real.'
Almost the whole of Sir George Lewis's two volumes are an
expansion and development of this passage. He turns Niebuhr's
revelations into fancies, and his divinations into mere guesses.
Since Sir George Lewis's work on Roman history, no English
scholar at least has ventured to defend Niebuhr's essentially
arbitrary treatment of legendary history. A historian, it is now
agreed, cannot accept one legend because it suits a preconceived
hypothesis, and reject another because it is inconsistent with that
hypothesis. He must take both or must reject both. We may

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 227
not, and perhaps have not, attained to a complete and accepted
theory of the value of traditional evidence ; there are many
points on that subject which require much more delicate hand
ling than they have received. But no one will ever revive
Niebuhr's notion of an occult tact. A long acquaintance and a
familiar meditation upon any sort of truth, does indeed give an
instinctive sense with respect to that truth. A constant habit
of comparing accurate truth with legendary versions of the same
truth, would really give a student a verified knowledge, and
even a quick instinctive idea to what sort of inventions popular
tradition is prone. But Niebuhr had studied legends as to
times of which there are only legends ; he had not compared
truth with fiction, but fiction with fiction. He had not acquired
a test of truth by a contact with truth ; but his hot brain had
brooded so long on a favourite subject that he mistook its own
fancies for realities. Sir George Lewis did not mistake them.
It is sometimes said that Sir George Lewis would accept no
fact of which there was not contemporary evidence, and that he
set no value whatever upon any tradition in any case. But this
is a mischievous exaggeration. Sir George Lewis was not the
most exacting of historical critics. He considered Polybius as
too strict and sceptical. Polybius thought that a historian with
out books, and with only oral information, could not be sure of
events more than twenty years before his own birth. Sir George
Lewis held that a sort of memory of leading events, accurate
in substance though probably inaccurate in detail, might be
preserved by tradition for about a hundred years, and that
special events from special circumstances might be remembered
longer ; but that, in such cases, it was only the general outline
- which could be faintly traced, and only events of interest that
wpuld be preserved. After about a hundred years — after the
-period about which a man could hear from his grandfather — he
thought, for the most part, there was no reliable knowledge.
Sir George Lewis's Ancient Astronomy might seem a devia
tion from his general studies. Astronomy is a physical science,
a 2

228 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
and Sir George, though well enough acquainted with such
sciences, did not profess to have made them a special study.
He was often enough heard to say, half in jest but still with a
certain meaning, ' On matters of practical interest the physical
sciences are less certain than the moral: as long as you are
dealing with abstractions, with perfectly elastic beams and a
world without fiction, physical -science is quite certain ; but as
soon as you introduce the actual conditions of life, and talk of
the real world in whieh we live, most physical sciences become
as uncertain as any moral science. Take, for example, physic.
If you wiU question your medical man, you will find that, if he
cures you, it will not be by the goodness of his arguments. A
great deal of what is set down upon that subject in grave trea
tises appears to me to be inconsistent rubbish. And my ex
perience at the War Office shows me that scientific evidence
may be accumulated in almost any quantity for any given inven
tion and against any given invention.' A man who talked in
this spirit was scarcely likely to devote many hours out of the
scanty leisure of English public hfe to the history of physical
science. Nor was Sir George Lewis attracted to the subject by
its abstract scientific interest. He is at great pains to explain
that he makes no pretension to such abstract mathematical
knowledge as was possessed by Delambre and others, his prede
cessors, and that astronomy is conversant with obvious realities
which have always excited human curiosity. In truth, he
encountered ancient astronomy in his investigations of ancient
history. He found many pretensions to ancient scientific
knowledge which it was much in his way to scrutinise and dis
believe; he was in all his inquiries compelled to deal with
ancient chronology, which is not to be understood except with
reference to the astronomical notions of those who framed it.
Such questions as, ' Was there a Roman year of ten months ? '
met him at every step. He was thus led to write a clear, com
pendious, and popular account of the rise of astronomical science
in ancient Greece. It is not exhaustive, as most of his treatises

Str George Cornewall Lewis. 229

are exhaustive ; it is not, like his other treatises, supported by
an available accumulation of all appropriate knowledge, for he
was in some places cramped by the deficiency of his mathe
matics. It is not, therefore, one of the works on which his
fame as a great scholar will hereafter rest. But it is a very
clear, sensible, and interesting account of the interesting subject
to which it relates.
. Bound up with the history of Ancient Astronomy, and
having but a very slender relation to it, are three essays : one
on the Early History and Chronology of the Egyptians ; another
on the Early History and Chronology of the Assyrians ; and a
third on the Navigation of the Phoenicians. Here Sir George •
Lewis is all himself, dealing with the subjects which he liked
best, and dealing with them as he liked best. Anybody who
wishes to know the sort of mind he had may read — and it is not
unamusing reading — his criticism on the Egyptian history of
Baron Bunsen. At the risk of tediousness we wiU condense a
little of it : —
' The principal manipulator ' (says Sir George Lewis) ' ofthe ancient
Egyptian chronology is Baron Bunsen, who, in his recent work on
Egypt, has avowedly applied the method of Niebuhr to Egyptian
antiquity. Now the method with which Niebuhr treated the early
history of Rome, was to reject the historical narrative handed down
by ancient, and generally received by modern writers ; and to sub
stitute for it a new narrative reconstructed on an arbitrary hypothe
tical basis of his own. Everything that is original and peculiar in
Niebuhr's historical method, and in its results, is indeed unsound.
But it possessed advantages, when employed in the transmutation of
Roman antiquity, which are wanting to it when applied to Egyptian
antiquity. The early Roman history, whatever may be its authen
ticity, presents at least a full and continuous narrative, most parts of
which are related in discordant versions by different classical writers.
As, not one of these versions rests on an ascertained foundation, or can
be traced to coeval attestation, great facility is afforded for ingenious
conjecture, for bold and startling combinations, for hypothetical re
construction by means of specious analogies, and for the display of
imposing paradox and dazzling erudition. But the so-called history
of ancient Egypt consists of little more than chronology. It is, for

230 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
the most part, merely a string of royal names. Now this is a most
unattractive field for the hypothetical historian ; he is condemned to
make bricks without straw. Instead of demolishing and rebuilding
constitutions, instead of creating new states of society out of obscure
fragments of lost writers, he is reduced to a mere arithmetical pro
cess. Accordingly, the operations of Bunsen and other modern
critics upon the ancient history of Egypt rather resemble the mani
pulation of the balance-sheet of an insolvent company by a dexterous
accountant (who, by transfers of capital to income, by the suppression
or transposition of items, and by the alteration of bad into good
debts, can convert a deficiency into a surplus), than the conjectures of
a speculative historian who undertakes to transmute legend into
history. ' Egyptology has a historical method of its own. It recognises
none of the ordinary rules of evidence; the extent of its demands upon
our credulity is almost unbounded. Even the writers on ancient
Itahan ethnology are modest and tame in their hypotheses, compared
with the Egyptologists. Under their potent logic aU identity dis
appears ; everything is subject to become anything but itself. Succes
sive dynasties become contemporary dynasties; one king becomes
another king, or several other kings, or a fraction of another king ;
one name becomes another name; one number becomes another
number ; one place becomes another place.
' In order to support and illustrate these remarks, it would be
necessary to analyse Bunsen's reconstruction ofthe scheme of Egyptian
chronology. Such an analysis would be inconsistent with the main
object of the present work : but a few examples will serve to
characterise his method.
' Sesostris is the great name of Egyptian antiquity. Even the
builders of the pyramids and of the labyrinth sink into insignificance
by the side of this mighty conqueror. Nevertheless, his historical'
identity is not proof against the dissolving and recompounding pro
cesses of the Egyptological method. Bunsen distributes him into
portions, and identifies each portion with a different king. Sesostris,
as we have already stated, stands in Manetho's list as third king of
the twelfth dynasty, at 3320 B.C., and a notice is appended to his
name clearly identifying him with the Sesostris of Herodotus.
Bunsen first takes a portion of him, and identifies it with Tosorthrus
(written Sesorthus by Eusebius), the second king ofthe third dynasty,
whose date is 51 19 B.C., being a difference in the dates of 1799 years
—about the same interval as between Augustus Csesar and Napoleon •

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 231'

he then takes another portion, and identifies it with Sesonchosis, a
king of the twelfth dynasty ; a third portion of Sesostris is finally
assigned to himself. It seems that these three fragments make up
the entire Sesostris ; who, in this plural unity, belongs to the
Ancient Empire ; but it is added that the Greeks confound him with
Ramesses, or Ramses, of the New Empire, a king of the nineteenth
dynasty, whose date is 1255 B.C.; who, again, was confounded with
his father, Sethos, which name again was transmuted into Sethosis
and Sesosis.
' Lepsius agrees with Bunsen that Sesostris in the Manethonian
list, who stands in the twelfth dynasty, at 3320 B.C., is not Sesostris ;
but, instead of elevating him to the third dynasty, brings him down
to the nineteenth dynasty, and identifies him with Sethos, 1326 B.C. ;
chiefly on account of a statement of Manetho, preserved by Josephus,
that Sethos first subjugated Cyprus and Phoenicia, and afterwards
Assyria and Media, with other countries further to the east. Lepsius,
moreover, holds that Ramses, the son of Sethos, was, like his father, a -
great conqueror, but that the Greeks confounded both father and son
under the name of Sesostris.
' We therefore see that the two leading Egyptologists, Bunsen and
Lepsius, differing in other respects, agree in thinking that Sesostris id
not Sesostris. The notice appended to his name in Manetho, which
identifies him with the Sesostris of Herodotus, Diodorus, and other
Greek writers, is regarded by Lepsius as spurious. But here their
agreement stops. One assigns Sesostris to what is called the Old, the
other to what is called the New Empire, separating his respective
dates by an interval of 3793 years. What should we think, if a new
school of writers on the history of France, entitling themselves Fran-
cologists, were to arise, in which one of the leading critics were to
deny that Louis XIV. lived in the seventeenth century, and were to
identify him with Hercules, or Romulus, or Cyrus, or Alexander the
Great, or Csesar or Charlemagne; while another leading critic of the
same school, agreeing in the rejection of the received hypothesis as to
his being the successor of Louis XIII., were to identify him with
Napoleon I. and Louis Napoleon ? '
- It is well known that all these conjectures on early Egyptian
history are supported by the recent discovery of the true mean
ing of the long-unintelligible hieroglyphic inscriptions. But
Sir George Lewis does not beheve they have discovered their
meaning. He states the problem certainly with formidable.

232 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
force. It is something like this : ' Here you have inscriptions
composed in a lost language, and written down in a character
which is also lost. Is it to be beheved that the imagination of
man can first guess rightly the system of written symbols, and
then guess the meaning too ? It is the old story ; you have
to interpret the dream without knowing what it is. Even sup
posing that you have found out, as you think, one set of written
symbols, and made a language in these symbols which you can
read, who will assure us that some other person will not find
another set of symbols with another set of meanings in a new
imaginary language ? ' ' The question,' says Sir George Lewis,
' as to the possibUity of interpreting a language whose tradition
has been lost, is further confused by a deceptive analogy derived
from the process of deciphering. A cipher is a contrivance for
disguising the alphabetical writing of a known language by a
conventional change of characters. The explanation of this
conventional change is called the Key. If a document written
in cipher falls into the possession of a stranger ignorant of the
Key, and if he can conjecture with tolerable certainty the lan
guage in which it is written, he can proceed to apply to it the
rules for deciphering, which are founded upon the comparative
frequency of certain letters and certain words in the given
language. This process, if the document be tolerably long, is
almost infallible. It is difficult to devise a cipher, sufficiently
simple for frequent use, which cannot be deciphered by a skilful
and experienced decipherer. But this operation supposes the
language to be understood ; it is a merely alphabetical process ;
it does not determine the meamng of a single word ; it merely
strips the disguise off a word, and reproduces it in its ordinary
orthography. No process similar to deciphering can afford the
smallest assistance towards discovering the signification of an
unknown word, written in known alphabetical characters. The
united ingenuity of the most skilful decipherers in Europe
could not throw any light upon an Etruscan or Lycian inscrip
tion, or interpret a single sentence of the Eugubine Tables.

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 233

In like manner, assuming an Egyptian hieroglyphical text
to be correctly read into alphabetical characters, no process
of deciphering could detect the meaning of the several words.'
It is possible, for example, that Champollion may have dis
covered, by comparison on some proper names, some phonetic
characters, and it is also possible that the ancient Egyptian may
have had some analogy with the modern Coptic — the same sort
of analogy, perhaps, which Italian bears to Latin. But it is very
difficult to be satisfied that any great knowledge could be de
rived from the spelhng of a few letters, and the guessing of a
few words as expressed in these letters. ' Where,' says Sir
George Lewis, ' the tradition of a language is lost, but its affi
nity with a known language is ascertained or presumed, the
attempts to restore the significations of words proceed upon
the hypothesis that the etymology of the word can be deter
mined by its resemblance, more or less close, to a word in the
known language', and that the etymology of the word is a cer
tain guide to its meaning. But although there is a close affi
nity between etymology and meaning, yet etymology alone
cannot be taken as a sure index to meaning. When the signi
fication of a word is ascertained, it is often difficult to determine
the etymology. The Lexilogus of Buttmann, the Romance
Dictionary of Diez — in fact, any good etymological vocabulary
— will furnish ample evidence of this truth. But when the
process is inverted, and it is proposed to determine the signi
fication of the words of an entire language from etymological
guesses, unassisted by any" other knowledge, the process is ne
cessarily uncertain and inconclusive, and can be satisfactory
only to a person who has already made up his mind to accept
some system of interpretation.
' Thus in Itahan the word troja signifies a sow. Diez refers the
origin of this word to the old Latin expression porous Trojawus, which
meant a pig stuffed with other animals and served for the table ; the
name being an allusion to the Trojan horse. He conceives that this
phrase first became porco di troja, and afterwards troja simply, with

234

Sir George Cornewall Lewis.

the signification of a pregnant sow. Assuming this etymology to be
true, what possible ingenuity could have enabled anybody to invert
the process, and to discover the meaning by the etymology, if the
meaning were unknown ? '

The alphabet of Baron Bunsen is very complicated.

He

has four classes and an extra, or later class. He has

more

than 1000 characters altogether:

Ideographics ...... 620

Determinatives . . . . . . 164

Phonetics  130

Mixed  55
Later alphabet . . . . . . 100
1069
And he can read a very large number of words ; but we are
not surprised to hear that ' the system of reading the hiero
glyphic characters as expounded by the Egyptologists, is
flexible and arbitrary. It involves the hypothesis of homo
phones ; that is to say of a plurality of signs for the same
sound. It hkewise involves a mixture of ideographic and
phonetic symbols.'
Altogether, though Sir George Lewis may not be right in
his bold assertion that no early Egyptian history is possible, he
is clearly successful in proving that Baron Bunsen's history is
untrue. As he expelled the conjectures of Niebuhr from
Roman history, so he has expelled the conjectures of Niebuhr's
great pupil from Egyptian history. Nobody who reads Sir
George Lewis can doubt that Bunsen, for the most part, in
dulges in conjecture as to the language, as to the written cha
racter, and as to the history of ancient Egypt. His theories "
in future will not be accepted as facts. A better feat of icono-
clasm has seldom been performed.
These historical works might well have exhausted the leisure
of a man almost always occupied in civil business. But Sir
George Lewis wrote another long series of books on philoso
phical politics also. We have not left ourselves much space to
Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 235
speak of them at length, and we do not think that they
need be spoken of at such great length as his historical works.
We think that they represent less perfectly the best parts of
his mind, and that they bear more marks of his deficiencies.
The earhest and among the most curious is an essay on the
' Use and Abuse of certain Political terms,' published in 1832.
It is curiously characteristic of Sir George Lewis that, at a time
when England was convulsed by the almost revolutionary
struggle of the Reform Bill, when all Europe still gazed with
wonder at the prosperous effect of the most happy of French
revolutions, Sir George Lewis should have sat down to write,
not on the facts of political revolution, but on the words of poli
tical science. After he became a practical statesman he be
came more alive to political passions and less occupied with
political terms ; but to the last he was too apt to wonder at
great conflicts, and to be pleased with verbal inquiries. In
1 833 he was under the mastery of a remarkable teacher. The
late Mr; Austin had little fame in his lifetime, and was so dis
couraged by neglect that he could not nerve himself to com
plete great works, of which he had finished what most men
would consider the difficult part, and had only to add that
which most people would think the easy part. He in this point
resembled Coleridge. That great thinker has left no work
which embodies his philosophy, and yet his philosophy has
permeated his generation. Mr. Austin seized hold, some thirty
years ago, of several strong minds, and by the help of these
great minds he greatly influenced his time. You will find
thoughts distinctly traceable to him far away among people
who never heard of him. His few lectures and his years of
conversation were a peculiar source of nice expression and
accurate thought for more than half a century ; a little bit of
just though almost pedantic thought cropped suddenly up in
our crude and hasty Enghsh life. Thirty years ago Mr. Austin,
at the London University, explained what may be called the
necessary part of political science, and illustrated it by the

236 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
best of all illustrations — Roman law. He analysed not a par
ticular government, but what is common to all governments ;
not one law, but what is common to all laws ; not political
communities in their features of diversity, but political com
munities in their features of necessary resemblance. He gave
politics not an interesting aspect, but a new aspect; for by
giving men a steady view of what political communities must
be, he nipped in the bud many questions as to what they
ought to be, or ought not to be. As a gymnastic of the intel
lect, and as a purifier, Mr. Austin's philosophy is to this day
admirable— even in its imperfect remains ; a young man who
will study it will find that he has gained something which he
wanted, but something which he did not know that he wanted;
he has clarified a part of his mind which he did not know needed
clarifying. Sir George Lewis was deeply penetrated by this
abstract teaching ; to the last day of his life, in the unphiloso-
phical atmosphere of the War Office, he would use the phrases
of, and would like allusions to, this philosophy. One source
of his power as a political thinker was, that he had, under Mr.
Austin's guidance, studied political questions as it were in
their skeleton. Once a jurist, always a jurist. The vast and
easy command of the whole sources of juridical literature which
Sir George Lewis showed in his essay ' On Foreign Jurisdiction,
and the Extradition of Criminals,' and elsewhere, is largely
due to his early studies. Yet it may be doubted whether Mr.
Austin's influence was entirely favourable for him. A certain
school of thinkers magnify the effects of human language.
Calm and simple-minded students, when they see the hasty
world of human beings using inaccurate and vague words, are
apt to ascribe all their errors to those words, and to beheve
that, if you could put human language right, you would set,
the world in order. There is no greater mistake. Men are
mainly deceived by their passions and their interests; they
care but little for abstract truth, and rush forward to small
petty, but concrete, objects. They catch hastily at any sort of

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 237

word that justifies what they wish to do, and if it sounds well,
care little for fallacies and ambiguities. The language is in
accurate, no doubt, but it is a symptom only of a mental dis
ease. You cannot calm the passions of men by defining their
words. Mr. Austin's school was apt to forget this. The early
treatise of Sir George Lewis on the ' Use and Abuse of Political
Terms,' and some of his later treatises too, are not exempt from
this defect, though his strong sense and really practical turn of
mind always kept it in check. A person wishing to watch his
intellectual history, should look carefully at this book ; it is a
series of exercises in Mr. Austin's class-room.
A more serious defect mars the popularity of Sir George
Lewis's writings, and we think Mr. Austin is partly to blame for
that too. Mr. Austin was always talking of the 'formidable com
munity of fools ; ' he had no popularity ; little wish for popu
larity; little respect for popular judgment. This is a great
error. The world is often wiser than any philosopher. ' There
is some one,' said a great man of the world, ' wiser than Vol
taire, and wiser than Napoleon, c'est tout le monde.' Popular
judgment on popular matters is crude and vague, but it is right.
And it is even more certain that a great writer on morals and
politics ought not to adopt a mode of writing which excludes
him from popularity. Mr. Austin's mere style did this for him.
He wrote on the principle that people would be sure to compre
hend what was completely expressed, but could never be trusted
tq supply a hiatus in what was incompletely expressed. His
writings accordingly read like a legal document ; every possible
case is provided for, every ambiguity is guarded against, and —
hardly any one can read them. The ordinary human mind
cannot bear that method of expressing everything ; it is more
puzzled by such elaborate precision than by anything else.
Sir George Lewis did not err in mere language, but he erred in
treatment. Mr. Austin expands all thoughts, new and old, at
just the same length ; and he taught Sir George Lewis to do so
also. In the present state ofthe moral sciences, this is absurd.

238 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
Much of them is very well, though a little vaguely, understood
by the world at large. It is often of great consequence to
reduce them to a principle ; it is often of great importance to
add new truths, and to give a new edge to old truth. But it
is not advisable to begin with a principle and to work steadily
through all its possible applications at the same length. If
you do, the reader will say, ' How this man does prose ! why, I
knew that ; ' and he did know it. Some of the applications of
a principle are new, and should be treated at length ; some are
of pressing importance, and should be treated at length too ;
but all the consequences should not be worked out like a sum.
An atmosphere of commonplace bangs over long moral didac
tics, and an equal expansion of what the world knows and what
it does not know will not be read by the world.
Sir George Lewis did his fame serious harm by neglecting
this maxim. He wrote, for example, ' An Essay on the Influence
of Authority in Matters of Opinion,' which was described by a
hasty thinker as a book to prove that when ' you wanted to
know anything, you asked someone who knew something about
it.' The essay certainly abounds in acute remarks and inter
esting illustrations, and if these remarks and these illustrations
had been printed separately, it would have been a good book.
But the systematic treatment has been fatal to it. The differ
ent kinds and cases of authority are so systematically enumer
ated, that the reader yawns and forgets.
The case is even worse with his great treatise ' On the
Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics,' in two large
volumes. Scarcely any one has read these volumes, and those
who have are sure that their bulk was a mistake. They are
written upon the principle that ' two and two make four ' is as
much unknown to the mass of men as the integral calculus.
Easy things are explained exactly with the same care as diffi- '
cult things, and in consequence very few people read the expla
nations. There are many admirable parts and essays in the
book. It contains an account and criticism of ' political indue-

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 239
tion ' as described by Mr. Mill, and an account and criticism
of jurisprudence as described and understood by Mr. Austin.
Both these discussions are very good, and the speculations of
the two thinkers are well spliced together ; but they are over
laid with long explanations of what requires no explanation,
and discussions of what need never have been discussed.
Charles Fox used to say of a very dull but able speaker, ' I
always listen to that man, and then speak his speech over
again.' A dishonest writer might well do so with Sir George
Lewis's writings. There are many thoughts, and a million facts
in them, which the world would be glad to hear, though it cannot
extract them from the rest. A writer of this sort naturally
did not look for profit from his laborious writings ; few men
have done more gratuitous work. He was disposed to agree
with Mr. Mill, that the notion of ' thinker's giving out doctrines
for bread was a mistake,' and even to hold that speculators
should pay for the opportunity of placing their opinions before
the world.
We own that we. much regret this misconception of the
conditions of modern writing, now that Sir George Lewis's career
has been cut short in the midst. When he had life before him,
it seemed less important that he should throw away fame ; but
now that all is over, we wish he had desired popularity more,
for he would have been remembered better. He really had
considerable powers of pointed writing. The little treatise at
the head of this article shows that when he did not aim at com
pleteness he could write easUy that which would be easily read.
He had not, indeed, the powers of a great literary artist ; it was
not in his way to look at style as an alluring art. He wanted to
express his opinion, and cared for nothing else. He had no
literary vanity; and without the vanity that loves applause, few
indeed cultivate the tact that gains applause. ' If you can do
without the world,' says the cynic, ' the world can do without
$ou ; ' and it is as true to say that few, if any, gain literary
fame who do not long and hunger after it.

240 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
As a sort of compensation, Sir George Lewis rose more rapidly
as a parliamentary statesman than any of his contemporaries.
He was in the first rank of the Liberal party, yet he entered
parliament five years after Mr. Cardwell, fifteen years after
Mr. Gladstone, nineteen years after Sir Charles Wood, and forty
years after Lord Palmerston. It is curious at first sight that
he should have done so. He was not an attractive speaker, he
wanted animal spirits, and detested an approach to anything
theatrical. He had very considerable command of exact lan
guage, but he had no impulse to use it. If it was his duty to
speak, he spoke ; but he did not want to speak when it was not
his duty. Silence was no pain, and oratory no pleasure to him.
If mere speaking were the main qualification for an influence in
Parliament — if, as is often said, parliamentary government be a
synonym for the government of talkers and avocats — Sir George
Lewis would have had no influence, would never have been a
parliamentary ruler. Yet we once heard a close and good ob
server say : ' George Lewis's influence in the House is some
thing wonderful ; whatever he proposes has an excellent chance
of being carried. He excites no opposition, and he commands
great respect, and generally he carries his plan.' The House
of Commons, according to the saying, is wiser than any one in
it. There is an elective affinity for solid sense in a practical
assembly of educated Englishmen which always operates, and
which rarely errs. Sir George Lewis's influence was .great, not
only on his own side of the House, but on the other. He had,
indeed, probably more real weight with moderate Conservatives
than with extreme Liberals. Enterprise neither seemed to be
nor was his forte, and bold men thought him rather tame. His
influence was like that of Lord Palmerston : he was liked by
the moderate members, whether Whigs or Tories, who think
just alike, whatever they call themselves ; and who are likely
nowadays to rule the country, whatever name the party in
power may chance to bear. He was a safe man, a fair man
and an unselfish man. He had a faculty of ' patient labour '

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 241
which, as he himself remarked, ' was as sure to be appreciated
when Englishmen meet together to transact business, as wit or
eloquence ; ' and therefore it was that he had great influence in
the House of Commons ; and therefore it was that he rose rapidly.
He filled three cabinet offices ; the first was that of Chan
cellor of the Exchequer, and this was the one which he liked
best, and for which he conceived himself best qualified. He
had no easy time, however, during his actual tenure of the
office. He had to find money for the Crimean War, the heaviest
draft on the resources of the exchequer since Waterloo ; he had
to break the ' fundamental law of the currency,' as he called it,
Peel's Act, in the unexpected panic of 1857. He gave uni
versal satisfaction as finance minister, and especial satisfaction
in the City, He was clear, considerate, and it was at once felt
that argument would move him if good argument could be
found. He had to borrow much money, and he so managed as
to be able to borrow it without undue charge to the state, and
with that immediate success which sustains the credit of the
state, and secures aprestige in the money-market. It is scarcely
possible to speak of him as finance minister without alluding to
his differences with Mr. Gladstone in the cabinet and out of it.
Yet it is not possible to discuss the subject accurately. Mr.
Gladstone's views of the budget of 1860, we all know; but Sir
George Lewis's views have never been set forth at length, and
it is not wise to base an argument on scraps of oral conversa
tions. It may be as well, however, to point out that, in addition
to their intrinsic and considerable differences of temperament
and character, they approached finance from two different and
even opposite points of view. Mr. Gladstone is the successor,
the legitimate inheritor of the policy of Sir Robert Peel. He
made his reputation as a financier and as a statesman by the
budget of 1853, in which the prominent object is to remove old
taxes that cramp and harass industry. He regards the pubhc
purse as donative, out of which trade may be augmented and
industry developed. Sir Robert Peel used the public purse in
K

242 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
that manner, and Mr. Gladstone has done so also. Sir George
Lewis was led, perhaps from temperament, and certainly from
circumstances, to take a stricter and simpler view of finance.
He came into office on a sudden, during a great war, and he had
to find the resources for that war. He had to consider, not how
taxation could be adjusted so as to help trade, but how the
exchequer could be filled to pay soldiers. On all financial
matters he looked solely at the balance of the account, WiU
there be a deficit, or will there not be ? Forms of account,
and all minor matters, were in his mind of very small import
ance ; he looked to the simple question, How much will there
be in the till at the end of the year ? With two such different
prepossessions as these, it is no wonder that men so intrinsically
different as Sir George Lewis and Mr. Gladstone did not very
well agree upon finance ; it is rather a wonder that they could
act together at all. There is no use, over Sir George Lewis's
grave, in reviving financial controversies ; everybody will now
admit that while he was in office and responsible, he was a
sound and sure Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In the panic of 1857, we have heard, he was even amusing..
His perfect impassivity and collectedness contrasted much with
the excitement of eager men, and in a panic most men are eager.
A deputation of Scotch bankers attended at the Treasury to
ask Sir George to induce the Bank of England to make ad
vances to them in certain possible cases. Sir George said, ' Ah,
gentlemen, if I were to interfere with the discretion of the Bank,
there would be a run upon me much greater than any which
there, has ever been upon you.' He was a man who probably
coidd not lose his head.
At the Home Office, he had the opportunity of displaying
great judicial faculties. The Home Office is the high court of
appeal in cases of criminal justice. When any one is to be hanged,
it is almost always argued before the Home Secretary that he
should not be hanged. If Sir George Lewis had practised at the
bar, for which he studied, he would have been a bad advocate ;

Sir George Cornewall Lewis. 243
his mind was not fertile in ambiguous fallacies, and was incapable
of artificial belief; and a great pleader should excel in these.
One of the greatest judges of our generation, when at the bar,
could only state the point once, and when the court did not
understand him, could only mutter, ' What fools they are ! awful
fools ! infernal fools ! ' Sir George Lewis would not have in
dulged in these epithets, but he would have been nearly as little
able to invent ingenious suggestions and out-of-the-way argu
ments. He probably would have said, ' I have explained the
matter. If the court will not comprehend it, I cannot make
them.' But no man was fitter for a judge than himself. He
would never have shirked labour — which is not unknown even
among judges — and his lucid exposition of substantial reasons
would have been consulted by students for years. At the Home
Office he could not display all these qualities, but he was able
to display some of them.
At the War Office he shone far less. It did not suit his
previous pursuits ; and no other man with such pursuits would
have taken it, or, indeed, would have been asked to take it.
He pushed the notion too far in this case, that an able and
educated man can master any subject, and is fit for any office.
The constitutional habit in England of making a civilian supreme
over military matters, though we beheve a most wise habit, has
its objections, and may easily look absurd. It did look rather
absurd when the most pacific of the pacific, the most erudite oi
the erudite, Sir George Lewis, was placed at the head of the
War Department. In great matters, it cannot be denied, he
did well. When the capture of the Trent made a war with the
Federal States a pressing probabihty, the arrangements were
admitted to be admirable. Much of the credit must belong in
such a case to mihtary and other subordinates — all the details
must be managed by them ; but the superior minister must
have his credit too. He brought to a focus all which was done ;
he summed-up the whole ; he could say distinctly why every
thing which was done was done, and why everything left un
is 2 ,

244 Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
done was left undone. He would have been ready with a plain
intelligible reason on all these matters in Parliament and else
where. And this was not an easy matter for a civilian after a
few months of office. But on minor matters Sir George Lewis
was not so good at the War Department as at the Exchequer or
the Home Office. He had been apprenticed to the Home Office
as Under-Secretary, and to the Exchequer as Financial Secretary
to the Treasury ; but he had never been apprenticed to the
War Office. On matters of detail he was obliged to rely on
others. He held, and justly, that a parliamentary chief of
temporary, perhaps very temporary, tenure of office should be
very cautious not to interfere too much with the minor business
of his department. He should govern, but he should govern
through others. But the due application of this maxim re
quires that the chief minister should know, as it were by intui
tion and instinct, which points are important and which are not
important. And no civilian introduced at once to a new de
partment like that of War can at once tell this. He must be in
the hands of others. In the House of Commons, too, Sir George
Lewis could never answer questions of detail on war matters
in an offhand manner. He had to say, ' I will inquire, and
inform the honourable member.' At the Home Office he could
have answered at once and of himself. It was an act of self-
denial in him to go to the War Office. He felt himself out of
place there, and was sure that his administration of military
matters would not add to his reputation. But he was told it
was for the interest of the Government that he should accept
the office, and he accepted it. Perhaps he was wrong. The
reputation of a first-rate public man is a great public power,
and he should be careful not to diminish it. The weight of the
greatest men is diminished by their being seen to do daily that
which they do not do particularly well. A cold and cynical
wisdom particularly disapproves of most" men's best actions.
Few men were less exposed to the censure of such wisdom than
Sir George Lewis ; but his acceptance of the War Office was a

Str George Cornewall Lewis. 245

sacrifice of himself to the public, which injured him more than
it advantaged the pubhc — which it would have been better not
to have made.
The usefulness of men like Sir George Lewis is not to be
measured by their usefulness in mere office. It is in the cabinet
that they are of most use. Sir George Lewis was made to dis
cuss business with other men. ' If,' we have heard one who
did much business with him say, ' if there is any fault in what
you say, he will find it out.' In eouncil, in the practical dis
cussions of pending questions, a simple masculine intellect like
that of Sir George Lewis finds its greatest pleasure and its best
use. He was made to be a cabinet minister.
The briefest notice of Sir George Lewis should not omit to
mention one of his most agreeable, and not one of his least rare,
peculiarities — his good-natured use of great knowledge. It
would have been easy for a man with such a memory as his, and
such studious habits as his, to become most unpopular by cut
ting up the casual blunders of others. On the contrary, he was
a most popular man, for he used his knowledge with a view to
amend the ignorance of others, and not with a view to expose
it. His conversation was superior either to his speeches or his
writings. It had — what is perhaps rarer among parliamentary
statesmen than among most people — the flavour of exact thought.
It is hardly possible for men to pass their lives in oratorical
efforts without losing some part of the taste for close-fitting
words. Well-sounding words which are not specially apt, which
are not very precise, are as good or better for a popular assembly.
Sir George Lewis's words in political conversation were as good
as words could be ; they might have gone to the press at once.
We have compared it to hearing a chapter in Aristotle's Poli
tics, and perhaps that may give an idea that it was dull. But
pointed thought on great matters is a very pleasant thing to
hear, though, after many ages and changes, it is sometimes a
hard thing to read. The conversation of the ' Dialogue ' at the
end of his treatise on the ' Best Form of Government,' has been

246 Sir George Cornewall Lewis. -
admired, but it is very inferior to the conversation of the writer.
There was a delicate flavour of satire lurking in the precise
thought which could not be written down, and which is now
gone and irrecoverable.
'When,' says Lord Brougham, commenting on the death
of a statesman once celebrated and now forgotten — ' when a
subject presented itself so large and shapeless, and dry and
thorny, that few men's fortitude could face, and no one's
patience could grapple with it ; or an emergency occurred
demanding on the sudden, access to stores of learning, the collec
tion of many long years, but arranged so as to be made available
at the shortest notice— then it was men asked where Lawrence
was.' And now, not only when information is wanted, but
when counsel is needed — when parties are confused — when
few public men are trusted — when wisdom, always rare, is rarer
even than usual — many may ask, in no long time, ' Where is
Lewis now ? ' '
1 I have giyen in the Addenda (page 330) a shorter article, written in the
Economist newspaper by Mr. Bagehot, on occasion of the unveiling of the memorial
to Sir George Lewis at Hereford in the antumn of 1864. This article, which
appeared on the 10th September in that year, seems to me either supplementary
to, 01 a very interestipg expansion and illustration of, the lorger'paper.— Editoks.

-247

ADAM SMITH AS A PERSON.
[1876.]
Of Adam Smith's Political Economy almost an infinite quantity
has been said, but very little has been said as to Adam Smith
himself. And yet not only was he one of the most curious of
human beings, but his books can hardly be understood without
having some notion of what manner of man he was. There
certainly are economical treatises that go straight on, and that
might have been written by a calculating machine. But the
' Wealth of Nations ' is not one of these. Anyone who would
explain what is in it, and what is n°t in it, must apply the
' historical method,' and state what was the experience of its
author and how he worked up that experience. Perhaps, there
fore, now that there is a sort of centenary of Adam Smith, it
may not be amiss to give a slight sketch of him and of his
life, and especially of the peculiar points in them that led him
to write the book which still in its effects, even more than in its
theory, occupies mankind.
The Founder of the science of business was one of the most
unbusinesslike of mankind. He was an awkward Scotch pro
fessor, apparently choked with books and absorbed in abstrac
tions. He was never engaged in any sort of trade, and would
probably never have made sixpence by any if he had been. His
absence of mind was amazing. On one occasion, having to sign
his name to an official document, he produced not his own sig
nature, but an elaborate imitation of the signature of the person
who signed before him ; on another, a sentinel on duty having
saluted him in military fashion, he astounded and offended the
man by acknowledging it with a, copy — a very clumsy copy no
dm^t — of the same gestures. And Lord Brougham preserves

248 Adam Smith as a Person.
other similar traditions. ' It is related,' he says, ' by old people
in Edinburgh that while he moved through the Fishmarket in
his accustomed attitude — that is with his hands behind his back,
and his head in the air — a female of the trade exclaimed, taking
him for an idiot broken loose, " Hechj sirs, to see the like o' him
to be aboot. And yet he is weel eneugh put on " (dressed). It
was often so too in society. Once, during a dinner at Dalkeith,
he broke out into a lecture on some politics of the day, and was.
bestowing a variety of severe epithets on a statesman, when he
suddenly perceived the nearest relative of the politician he
was criticizing, sitting opposite, and stopped ; but he was heard
to go on muttering, " Deil care, Deil eare, it's all true/' ' And
these are only specimens of a crowd of anecdotes.
The wonder that such a man should have composed the
' Wealth of Nations,' which shows so profound a knowledge ofthe
real occupations of mankind, is enhanced by the mode in which
it was written. It was not the exclusive product of a lifelong
study, such as an absent man might, while in seeming abstrac
tion, be really making of the affairs of the world. On the
contrary, it Was in the mind of its author only one of many
books, or rather a single part of a great book, Which he intended
to write. A vast scheme floated before him much like the dream
of the late Mr. Buckle as to a ' History of Civilisation,' and he
spent his life accordingly, in studying the origin and progress
of the sciences, the laws, the pohtics, and all the other aids and
forces which have raised man from the savage to the civilised
state. The plan of Adam Smith was indeed more comprehen
sive even than this. He wanted to trace not only the progress
of the race, but also of the individual ; he wanted to show how
each man being born (as he thought) with few faculties, came
to attain to many and great faculties. He wanted to answer
the question, how did man — race or individual — come to be
what he is ? These immense dreams are among the commonest
phenomena of literary history ; and, as a rule, the vaster the
intention, the less the result. The musings of the author are

Adam Smith as a Person. 249

too 'miscellaneous, his studies too scattered, his attempts too
incoherent, for him to think out anything valuable, or to pro
duce anything connected. But in Adam Smith's case the very
contrary is true ; he produced an enduring particular result in
consequence of a comprehensive and diffused ambition. He
discovered the laws of wealth in looking for ' the natural pro
gress of opulence ; ' and he investigated the progress of opulence
as part of the growth and progress of all things.
The best Way to get a distinct notion of Adam Smith's
scheme is to look at the other works which he published
besides the * Wealth of Nations.' The greatest, and the one
which made his original reputation, was the ' Theory of Moral
¦Sgntiments,' in which he builds up the whole moral nature of
man out of a single primitive emotion— -sympathy, and in which
he gives e£ history of ethical philosophy besides. With this are
commonly bound up some * Considerations concerning the first
Formation of Languages,' which discuss how ' two savages who
had neVef been taught to speak, but had been bred up remote
from the society of man, would naturally begin their converse.'
Then there is a* very curious ' History of Astronomy,' left im
perfect ; and another fragment on the ' History of Ancient
Physics,' which is a kind of sequel to that part of the ' History
of Astronomy' which relates to the ancient astronomy; then a
similar essay on * Ancient Logic and Metaphysics ; ' then another
on the nature and development of the Fine, or, as he calls them,
'The Imitative Arts, Painting, Poetry, and Music,' in which was
meant to have been included a history of the Theatre — all
forming part, his executors tell us, 'of a plan he had once
formed for giving a connected history of the hberal and elegant
arts.' And he destroyed before his death the remains of the
book, ' Lectures on Justice,' ' in which,' we are told by a student
Who heard them, ' he followed Montesquieu in endeavouring to
trace the gradual progress of jurisprudence, both public and
private, from the rudest to* the most refined ages, and to point
out the effects of those arts which contribute to subsistence

250 Adam Smith as a Person.
and to the accumulation of property in producing correspondent
alterations in law and government ;' or, as he himself announces
it at the conclusion of the ' Moral Sentiments,' ' another dis
course ' in which he designs ' to endeavour to give an account
of the general principles of law and government, and of the
different revolutions they have undergone in the different ages
and periods of society, not. only in what concerns justice, but in
what concerns pohce, revenue, and arms, and whatever else is
the subject of law.' Scarcely any philosopher has imagined a
vaster dream.
Undoubtedly it is a great literary marvel that so huge a
scheme, on so many abstract subjects, should have produced
anything valuable, and still more so that it should have pro
duced what has been for a whole century a fundamental book
on trade and money — at first sight, the least fit for a secluded
man to treat at all, and which, if he did treat of them, would
seem more than any other to require from him an absorbed and
exclusive attention. A little study of the life of Adam Smith,
however, in some degree lessens the wonder ; because it shows
how in the course of his universal studies he came to meet
with this particular train of thought, and how he came to be
able to pursue it effectually.
Adam Smith was born early in the first half of the eigh
teenth century, at Kirkcaldy in Scotland, on June 5, 1713.
His father died before he was born ; but his mother, who is
said to have been a woman of unusual energy and ability, lived
to be very old, and to see her son at the height of his reputa
tion as a philosopher. He was educated at school in the
usual Scotch way, and at the University of Glasgow ; and at
both he is said, doubtless truly, to have shown an unusual
facility of acquisition, and an unusual interest in books and
Study. As we should also expect, a very strong memory, which
he retained till the last, showed itself very early. Nothing,
however, is known with precision as to the amount of know
ledge he acquired in Scotland, nor as to his place among his

Adam Smith as a Person. 251

^contemporaries. The examination system, which nowadays in
England discriminates both so accurately, has in Scotland never
been equally developed, and in Adam Smith's time had never
been heard of there at all.
His exceptional training begins at the next stage. There
is at the University of Glasgow a certain endowment called the
Snell exhibition, after the name of its founder, which enables
the students selected for it to study for some years at the Uni
versity of Oxford. Of these exhibitioners Adam Smith became
one, and as such studied at Oxford for as many as seven years.
As might be expected, he gives the worst account of the state
of the university at that time. In the sketch of the history
of education whieh forms so odd an episode in the ' Wealth of
Nations,' he shows perpetually that he thought the system
which he had seen at Oxford exceedingly bad, and its govern
ment excessively corrupt. ' If,' he says, ' the authority to
which a teacher is subject resides in the body corporate of the
college or university of whieh he is himself a member, and in
which the greater part of the other members are, like himself,
persons who either are or ought to be teachers, they are likely
to make a common cause, to be all very indulgent to one
another, and every man to consent that his neighbour may
neglect his duty, provided he is himself allowed to neglect his
own. In the University of Oxford the .greater part of the
public professors have for these many years given up altogether
even the pretence of teaching.' And he adds, ' In England,
the pubhc schools are much less corrupted than the universi
ties. In the schools, the youth are taught, or at least may be
taught, Greek and Latin. That is everything which the
masters pretend to teach, or which it is expected they should
teach. In the universities, the youth neither are taught, nor
can always find the means of being taught, the sciences which
it is the business of these incorporated bodies to teach.' And
he retained through life a fixed belief that endowments for
education tended only to the ' ease ' of the teacher, and not to

252 Adam Smith as a Person.
the advantage of the learner. But though he says he had the
means of learning little at Oxford, he certainly, in fact, learnt
much. 'Greek,' as Sydney Smith says, 'never- crossed the
Tweed in any force ; ' but Adam Smith incessantly shows a real
familiarity with Greek books and a sound accumulation of
Greek learning. Very likely his erudition would not bear
much comparison with what is now carried away from Balliol.
If we compare him with a more recent Snell exhibitioner, Sir
William Hamilton, we shall see that Greek teaching has
enormously advanced in the time between them ; but, on the
other hand, if we compare Adam Smith with Scotch philoso
phers, or purely Scotch education, say with Reid or Hume, we
cannot help seeing that his acquaintance with Greek things
belongs, both in quantity and in quality, to an order altogether
Superior to theirs.
For the vast works which Adam Smith contemplated, a
sound knowledge of Greek was, as he must have felt, far more
necessary than any other kind of knowledge. The beginnings
of nine-tenths of all philosophy are to be found there, and the
rudiments of many other things. But for the purpose of the
great task which he actually performed, Adam Smith learned
at Oxford something much more valuable than Greek. He ac- .
quired there a kind of knowledge and sympathy with England, in
Which the other eminent Scotchmen— especially literary Scotch
men— of his time were often very deficient. At that time the
recollection of the old rivalry between the two countries had by
no means died away ; there was still a separate Scotch philo
sophy and a separate literature ; and when it happened, as it
perpetually did, that Scotch writers were not thought so much
of in England as they thought they ought to be, they were apt
to impute their discredit to English prejudice, and to appeal to
France and Paris to correct the error. Half Hume's mind, or
more than half, was distorted by his hatred of England and his
love of France. He often could not speak of English things
with tolerable temper, and he always viewed French ones with

Adam Smith as a Person. 253
extravagant admiration. Whether Adam Smith altogether
liked this country may perhaps be doubted — Enghshmen then
hated Scotchmen so much — but he had no kind of antagonism
to her, and quite understood that in most economical respects
she was then exceedingly superior to France, And this ex
ceptional sympathy and knowledge we may fairly ascribe to a
long and pleasant residence in England. For his great work
no qualification was more necessary ; the ' Wealth of Nations '
would have been utterly spoiled if he had tried (as Hume
incessantly would have tried) to show that, in industrial re
spects, England might not be better than France, or at any rate
was not so very much better.
The Snell foundation at Oxford has often been an avenue
to the English Church, and it seems to have been intended that
Adam Smith should use it as such. The only anecdote which
remains of his college hfe may be a clue to his reasons for not
doing so. He is said to have been found by his tutor in the
act of reading Hume's ' Philosophical Essays,' then lately pub
lished, and to have been reproved for it. And it is certain that
anyone who at all sympathised with Hume's teaching in that
book would have felt exceedingly little sympathy with the
formularies of the Church of England, even as they were
understood in the very Broad Church of that age. At any
rate, for some reason or other, Adam Smith disappointed the
wishes of his friends, gave up all idea of entering the Church of
England, and returned to Scotland without fixed outlook or
employment. He resided, we are told, two years with his
mother, studying no doubt, but earning nothing, and visibly
employed in nothing. In England such a career would pror-
bably have ended in his ' writing for the booksellers,' a fate of
^which he speaks in the ' Wealth of Nations ' with contempt.
But in Scotland there was a much better opening for plnlor
sophers. The Scotch universities had then, as now, several
professorships very fairly paid, and very fairly distributed.
The educated world in Scotland was probably stronger a cen-

254 Adam Smith as a Person.
tury ago than it ever was before or since. The Union with
England had removed the aristocracy of birth which over
shadowed it before, and commerce had not yet created the,
aristocracy of wealth which overshadows it now. Philosophical
merit had therefore then in Scotland an excellent chance of
being far better rewarded than it usually is in the world.
There were educated people who cared for philosophy, and
these people had prizes to give away. One of those prizes
Adam Smith soon obtained. He read lectures, we are told,
under the patronage of Lord Karnes, an eminent lawyer who
wrote books on philosophy that are still quoted, and who was
no doubt deeply interested in Adam Smith's plans of books on
the origin and growth of all arts and sciences, as these were
the topics which he himself studied and handled. Contrary to
what might have been expected, these lectures were very
successful. Though silent and awkward in social life, Adam
Smith possessed in considerable perfection the peculiarly
Scotch gift of abstract oratory. Even in common conversation,
when once moved, he expounded bis favourite ideas very
admirably. As a teacher in public he did even better; he
wrote almost nothing, and though at the beginning of a lecture
he often hesitated, we are told, and seemed ' not to be suffi
ciently possessed of the subject,' yet in a minute or two he
became fluent, and poured out an interesting series of animated
.arguments. Commonly, indeed, the silent man, whose brain
, is loaded with unexpressed ideas, is more likely to be a success
ful public speaker than the brilliant talker who daily exhausts
| himself in sharp sayings. Adam Smith acquired great reputa
tion as a lecturer, and in consequence obtained two of the best
prizes then given to philosophers in Scotland — first the pro
fessorship of logic, and then that of moral philosophy, in the
University of Glasgow.
The rules, or at any rate the practice, of the Scotch univer
sities, seem at tbat time to have allowed a professor in either of
these chairs great latitude in the choice of his subject. Adam

Adam Smith as a Person. 255

Smith during his first year lectured on rhetoric and belles lettres
' instead of on logic,' and in the chair of moral philosophy he
expounded, besides the theory of duty, a great scheme of social
evolution. The beginnings of the ' Wealth of Nations ' made
part of the course, but only as a fragment of the immense
design of showing the origin and development of, cultivation
and law ; or, as we may perhaps put it, not inappropriately, of
saying how, from being a savage, man rose to be a Scotchman.
This course of lectures seems to have been especially successful.
So high, we are told, was his reputation as a professor, ' that a
multitude of students from a great distance resorted to the
university merely upon his account. Those branches of
science which he taught became fashionable ' in the city, ' and
his opinions were the chief topics of discussion in clubs and
literary societies. Even the small peculiarities of his pronun
ciation and manner of speaking became frequently the objects
of imitation.' This is the partial recollection of an attached
pupil in distant years ; — it may be over-coloured a little — but
even after a fair abatement it is certainly the record of a great
temporary triumph and local success.
That the greater part of the lectures can have been of much
intrinsic merit it is not easy now to believe. An historical
account ' of the general principles of law and government, and
of the different revolutions which they have undergone in the
different ages and periods of society,' would be too great a task
for a great scholar of the ripest years and with all the accumu
lated materials of the present time, and it was altogether
beyond the strength of a young man a century ago; — not
to say that he combined it with an account of the origin of the
moral faculties, a theory of belles lettres, and other matters.
The delivery of that part of the course which was concerned
with wealth and revenue may have been useful to him, because
it compeUed him to bring his ideas on those subjects into a
distinct form. Otherwise, being a bookish man, he might have
been too absorbed in bookish matters, and neglected what can

256 Adam Smith as a Person.
only be taught by life for that which is already to be learned
from literature. But at the time this was only a minor merit ;
— the main design of the lectures was only an impossible aim
at an unbounded task.
So complex, however, is life, that this Scotch professorship,
though in a superficial view wasteful, and likely to exhaust and
hurt his mind by demanding the constant efflux of inferior
matter, was, nevertheless, on the whole exceedingly useful.
It not only induced him to study as a part of his vast scheme
the particular phenomena of wealth, but it gave him an excel
lent opportunity of seeing those phenomena and of learning
how to explain them. It was situated at Glasgow, and Glasgow,
though a petty place in comparison with its present magnitude,
was nevertheless a considerable mercantile place according to the
notions of those times. The Union with England had opened
to it the trade with our West Indian colonies, as well as with the
rest of the English empire, and it had in consequence grown
rapidly and made large profits. That its size was small, as we
should think now, was to a learner rather an aid than a dis
advantage. A small commerce is more easily seen than an
immense one ; that of Liverpool or London now is so vast that
it terrifies more than excites the imagination. And a small
commerce, if varied, has almost as much to teach as a large
one ; the elements are the same though the figures are smaller
and the less the figures the easier are they to combine. An
inspection of Liverpool now would not teach much more than
an inspection of Glasgow a hundred years ago, and the lessons
, of modern Liverpool would be much more difficult to learn
But the mere sight of the phenomena of Glasgow commerce was
but a small part of the advantage to Adam Smith of a residence
at Glasgow. The most characteristic and most valuable tenets
of Adam Smith are, when examined, by no means of a very
abstract and recondite sort. We are, indeed, in this genera
tion not fully able to appreciate the difficulty of arriving at
them. We have been bred up upon them ; our disposition is

Adam Smith as a Person. 257
more to wonder how anyone could help seeing them, than to
appreciate the effort of discovering them. Experience shows
that many of them— the doctrine of free trade for example — are
very uncongenial to the untaught human mind. On political
economy the English-speaking race is undoubtedly the best
instructed part of mankind ; and, nevertheless, in the United
States and in every English-speaking colony, protection is the
firm creed of the ruling classes, and free trade is but a heresy.
We must not fancy that any of the main doctrines of Adam
Smith were very easily arrived at by him because they seem
very obvious to us. But, on the other hand, although such
doctrines as his are too opposed to many interests and to many
first impressions to establish themselves easily as a dominant
creed, they are quite within the reach and quite congenial to
•the taste of an intelhgent dissenting minority. There was a
whole race of mercantile freetraders long before Adam Smith
was born ; in his time the doctrine was in the air ; it was not
accepted or established ; — on the contrary, it was a tenet against
which a respectable parent would probably caution his son; —
still it was known as a tempting heresy, and one against which
a warning was needed. In Glasgow there were doubtless many
heretics. Probably in consequence of the firm belief in a rigid
theology, and of the incessant discussion of its technical tenets,
there has long been, and there is still, in the south of Scotland,
a strong tendency to abstract argument quite unknown in
England. Englishmen have been sometimes laughing at it,
and sometimes gravely criticising it for several generations:
Mr. Buckle wrote half a volume on it : Sydney Smith alleged
that he heard a Scotch girl answer in a quadrille, ' But, my
lord, as to what ye were saying as to love in the abstract,' and
so on. Yet, in spite both of ridicule and argument, the
passion for doctrine is still strong in southern Scotland, and it
will take many years more to root it out. At Glasgow in Adam
Smith's time it had no doubt very great influence ; a certain
number of hard-headed merchants were believers in free trade
s

258 Adam Smith as a Person.
and kindred tenets. One of these is still by chance known to
us. Dr. Carlyle, whom Mr. Gladstone not unhappily described
as a ' gentleman clergyman ' of the Church of Scotland, tells us
of a certain Provost Cochrane, to whom Adam Smith always
acknowledged his obligations, and who was the founder and
. leading member of a club ' in which the express design was to
inquire into the nature and principles of trade in all its branches,
and to communicate their knowledge on that subject to each
other.' From this club Adam Smith not only learned much
which he would never have found in any book, but also in part
perhaps acquired the influential and so to say practical way of
explaining things which so much distinguishes the ' Wealth of
Nations.' Mr. Mill says he learned from his intercourse with
East India directors the habit of looking for, and the art of
discovering, ' the mode of putting a thought which gives it
easiest admittance into minds not prepared for it by habit ; '
and Adam Smith probably gained something of this sort by
hving with the Glasgow merchants, for no other book written
by a learned professor shows anything like the same power of
expressing and illustrating arguments in a way likely to influ
ence minds like theirs. And it is mainly by his systematic <
cultivation of this borderland between theory and practice that
Adam Smith attaine'd his pre-eminent place and influence.
But this usefulness of his Scotch professorship was only in
the distant future. It was something for posterity to detect,
but it could not have been known at the time. The only pages
of his professorial work which Adam Smith then gave to the
public were his lectures on Moral Philosophy, in what an
Englishman would consider its more legitimate sense. These
formed the once celebrated ' Theory of Moral Sentiments,' which,
though we should now think them rather pompous, were then
much praised and much read. For a great part, indeed, of
Adam Smith's life they constituted his main title to reputation.
The ' Wealth of Nations ' was not published till seventeen years
later ; he wrote nothing else of any importance in the interval ;

Adam Smith as a Person. 259
and it is now curious to find that when the ' Wealth of Nations '
was published, many good judges thought it not so good as the
' Theory of Moral Sentiments,' and that the author himself was
by no means certain that they were not right.
The ' Theory of Moral Sentiments ' was, indeed, for many
years, exceedingly praised. One sect of philosophers praised
. it, as it seems to me, because they were glad of a celebrated
ally, and another because they were glad of a celebrated oppo
nent : the first said, ' see that so great an authority as Adam
Smith concurs with us ; ' and the second replied, ' but see how
very weak his arguments are ; if so able an arguer as Adam
Smith can say so little for your doctrines, how destitute of
argumentative grounds those doctrines must be.' Several
works in the history of philosophy have had a similar fate.
But a mere student of philosophy who cares for no sect, and
wants only to know the truth, will nowadays, I think, find
little to interest him in this celebrated book. In Adam Smith's
mind, as I have said before, it was part of a whole ; he wanted
to begin with the origin of the faculties of each man, and then
build up that man — just as he wished to arrive at the origin of
human society, and then build up society. His 'Theory of
Moral Sentiments ' builds them all out of one source, sympathy,
and in this way he has obtained praise' from friends and
enemies. His friends are the school of ' moral sense ' thinkers,
-because he is on their side, and believes in a special moral
-faculty, which he laboriously constructs from sympathy; his
enemies are the Utilitarian school, who believe in no such
special faculty, and who set themselves to show that his labour
has been in vain, and that no such faculty has been so built up.
One party says the book is good to gain authority for the con
clusion, and the other that you may gain credit by refuting its
arguments. For unquestionably its arguments are very weak,
and attractive to refutation. If the intuitive school had had no
better grounds than these, the Utilitarians would have van-
- quished them ages since. There is a fundamental difficulty in
s 2

260 Adam Smith as a Person.
founding morals on sympathy; an obvious confusion of two
familiar sentiments. We often sympathise where we cannot
approve, and approve where we cannot sympathise. The special
vice of party spirit is that it effaces the distinction between the
two ; we sympathise with our party, till we approve its actions.
There is a story of a Radical wit in the last century who was
standing for Parliament, and his opponent,, of course a Tory,
objected that he was always against the king whether right or
wrong, upon which the wit retorted that on his own showing the
Tory was exposed to equal objection, since he was always for the
king whether right or wrong. And so it will always be. Even
the wisest party men more or less sympathise with the errors of
their own side ; they would be powerless if they did not do so ;
they would gain no influence if they were not of like passions
with those near them. Adam Smith could not help being
aware of this obvious objection ; he was far too able a reasoner
to elaborate a theory without foreseeing what would be said
against it. But the way in which he tries to meet the objec
tion only shows that the objection is invincible. He sets up
a supplementary theory — a httle epicycle — that the sympathy
which is to test good morals must be the sympathy cf an
' impartial spectator.' But, then, who is to watch the watch
man ? Who is to say when the spectator is impartial, and when
he is not ? If he sympathises with one side, the other will
always say that he is partial. As a moralist, the supposed
spectator must warmly approve good actions and warmly dis
approve bad actions ; as an impartial person he must never do
either the one or the other. He is a fiction of inconsistent
halves ; if he sympathises he is not impartial, and if he is
impartial he does not sympathise. The radical vice of the
theory is shown by its requiring this accessory invention of a
being both hot and cold, because the essence of the theory is to
identify the passion which loves with the sentiment which
approves. But although we may now beheve the 'Theory of Moral

Adam Smith as a Person. 261

Sentiments ' to be of inconsiderable philosophical value, and
though it would at first sight seem very little likely to contribute
to the production of the ' Wealth of Nations,' yet it was, in fact,
in a curious way most useful to it. The education of young
noblemen has always been a difficulty in the world, and many
schemes have been invented ^o meet it. In Scotland, a hun
dred years ago, the most fashionable way was to send them to
travel in Europe, and to send with them some scholar of repute
to look after their morals and to superintend their general
education. The guardians of the great border nobleman, the
Duke of Buccleugh, were in want of such a tutor to take him
such a tour, and it seems to have struck them that Adam
Smith was the very person adapted for the purpose. To all
appearance an odder selection could hardly have been made.
Adam Smith was, as we have seen, the most absent of men, and
an awkward Scotch professor, and he was utterly unacquainted
with the Continent. He had never crossed the English Channel
in his life, and if he had been left to himself would probably
never have done so. But one of the guardians was Charles
Townshend, who had married the young duke's mother. He
was not much unlike^ Mr. Disraeli in character, and had great
influence at that time. He read the ' Theory of Moral Senti
ments,' and Hume writes to Adam Smith : ' Charles Townshend,
who passes for the cleverest fellow in England, is so taken with
the performance, that he said to Oswald he would put the duke
under the author's care and would make it worth his while to
accept of that charge. As soon as I heard this, I called on him
twice with a view of talking with him about the matter, and of
convincing him of the propriety of sending that young noble
man to Glasgow ; for 1 could not hope that he could offer you
any terms which would tempt you to renounce your professor
ship. But I missed him. Mr. Townshend passes for being a
httle uncertain in his resolutions, so perhaps you need not
build much on this sally.' Mr. Townshend was, however, this
time in earnest, and the offer was made to Adam Smith. In

262 Adam Smith as a Person.
our time there would have been an insuperable difficulty. He
was a professor of great repute, they were asking him to give
up a life-professorship that yielded a considerable income, and
they would have hardly been able to offer him anything equally
permanent. But in the eighteenth century there was a way of
facilitating such arrangements that we do not now possess.
The family of Buccleugh had great pohtical influence, and
Charles Townshend, the duke's step-father, at times possessed
more ; and accordingly the guardians of the young duke
agreed that they should pay Adam Smith 200L a year till
they should get him an equal office of profit under the Crown.
A person apparently more unfit for the public service could
not easily have been found ; but in that age of sinecures and
pensions it was probably never expected that he should perform
any service ; — an arrangement more characteristic of the old
world, and more unhke our present world, could hardly have
been made. The friends of the young duke might, not unna
turally, have had some fears about it ; but, in fact, for his
interests, it turned out very weU. Long afterwards, when Adam
Smith was dead, the duke wrote: — 'In October, 1766, we
returned to London, after having spent near three years toge
ther without the slightest disagreement or coolness ; on my part
with every advantage that could be expected from the society of
such a man. We continued to live in friendship till the hour
of his death ; and I shall always remain with the impression of
having lost a friend whom I loved and respected, not only for his
great talents, but for every private virtue.' Very few of Charles
Townshend's caprices were as successful. Through life there
was about Adam Smith a sort of lumbering bonhomie which
amused and endeared him to those around him.
To Adam Smith the result was even better. If it had not
been for this odd consequence of the ' Theory of Moral Senti-r
ments,' he might have passed all his life in Scotland, delivering
similar lectures and clothing very questionable theories in
rather pompous words. He said in after life that there was no

Adam Smith as a Person. 263

better way of compelling a man to master a science than by
setting him to teach it. And this may be true of the definite
sciences. But nothing can be conceived worse for a man of
inventive originality, than to set him to roam over huge sub
jects like law, morals, pohtics, and civilisation, particularly at a
time when few good data for sound theories on such subjects
are at hand for him to use. In such a position the cleverer
the man, the worse are likely to be the consequences : the wider
his curiosity and the more fertile his mind, the surer he is to
pour out a series of gigantic conjectures of little use to himself
or to anyone. A one-eyed man with a taste for one subject,
even at this disadvantage, may produce something good. The
limitation of his mind may save him from being destroyed by
his position ; but a man of large interests will fail utterly. As
Adam Smith had peculiarly wide interests, and as he was the
very reverse of a one-eyed man, he was in special danger ; and
the mere removal from his professorship was to him a gain of
the first magnitude. It was of cardinal importance to him to be
dehvered from the production of incessant words and to be
brought into contact with facts and the world. And as it turned
out, the caprice of Charles Townshend had a singular further
felicity. It not only brought him into contact with facts and
the world ; but with the most suitable sort of facts, and, for his
purpose, the best part ofthe world.
The greater part of his three years abroad was naturally
spent in France. France was then by far the greatest country
on the Continent. Germany was divided and had not yet risen ;
Spain had fallen; Italy was of little account. In one respect,
indeed, France was relatively greater than even at the time of
her greatest elevation, the time of the first Napoleon. The
•political power of the first empire was almost unbounded, but
it had no inteUectual power ; under it Paris had ceased to be an
important focus of thought and literature. The vehement rule
which created the soldiers also stamped out the ideas. But
under the mild government of the old regime, Paris was the

264 Adam Smith as a Person.
principal centre of European authorship. The deficiency of the
old regime in eminent soldiers and statesmen only added to the
eminence of its hterary men. Paris was then queen of two
worlds : of that of politics by a tradition from the past, and of
literature by a force and life vigorously evidenced in the present.
France therefore thus attracted the main attention of all
travellers who cared for the existing life of the time ; Adam
Smith and his pupil spent the greater part of their stay abroad
there. And as a preparation for writing the ' Wealth of Nations '
he could nowhere else have been placed so well. Macaulay says
that ' ancient abuses and new theories ' flourished together in
France just before the meeting of the States-General in greater
vigour than they had been seen to be combined before or since.
And the description is quite as true economically as politi
cally ; on all economical matters the France of that time was
a sort of museum stocked with the most important errors.
By nature then, as now, France was fitted to be a great
agricultural country, a great producer and exporter of corn and
wine; but her legislators for several generations had endeavoured
to counteract the aim of nature, and had tried to make her a
manufacturing country and an exporter of her manufactures.
Like most persons in those times, they had been prodigiously
impressed by the high position which the maritime powers, as
they were then called (the comparatively little powers of England
and Holland), were able to take in the politics of Europe. They
saw that this influence came from wealth, that this wealth was
made in trade and manufacture, and therefore they determined
that France should not be behindhand, but should have as much
trade and manufacture as possible. Accordingly, they imposed
prohibitive or deterring duties on the importation of foreign
manufactures ; they gave bounties to the -corresponding home
manufactures. They tried, in opposition to the home-keeping
bent of the French character, to found colonies abroad. These
colonies were, according to the maxim then everywhere received
to be markets for the trade and nurseries for the commerce of

Adam Smith as a Person. 265
the mother country; — they were mostly forbidden to manu
facture for themselves, and were compelled to import all the
manufactures and luxuries they required from Europe exclu
sively in French ships. Meanwhile, at home, agriculture was
neglected. There was not even a free passage for goods from
one part of the country to another. As Adam Smith himself
describes it : —
' In France, the different revenue laws which take place in the
different provinces require a multitude of revenue-officers to sur
round, not only the frontiers of the kingdom, but those of almost
each particular province, in order either to' prevent the importation
of certain goods or to subject it to the payment of certain duties,
to the no small interruption of the interior commerce of the country.
Some provinces are allowed to compound for the gabelle or salt-tax.
Others are exempted from it altogether. Some provinces are ex
empted from the exclusive sale of tobacco, which the farmers-general
enjoy through the greater part of the kingdom. The Aides, which
correspond to the excise in England, are very different in different
provinces. Some provinces are exempted from them, and pay a com
position or equivalent. In those in which they take place and are in
farm, there are many local duties which do not extend beyond a par
ticular town or district. The Traites, which correspond to our
customs, divide the kingdom into three great parts: first, the provinces
subject to the tariff of 1664, which are called the provinces of the
five great farms, and under which are comprehended Picardy,
Normandy, and the greater part of the interior provinces of the king
dom; secondly, the provinces subject to the tariff of 1667, which are
called the provinces reckoned foreign, and under which are compre
hended the greater part of the frontier provinces ; and, thirdly, those
provinces which are said tp be treated as foreign, or which because
they are allowed a free commerce with foreign countries are in their
commerce with the other provinces of France subjected to the same
duties as other foreign countries. These are Alsace, the three bishop
rics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and the three cities of Dunkirk,
Bayonne, and Marseilles. Both in the provinces of the five great
farms (called so on account of an ancient division of the duties of
customs into five great branches, each of which was originally the
subject of a particular farm, though they are now all united into one),
and in those which are said to be reckoned foreign, there are many

266 Adam Smith as a Person;
local duties which do not extend beyond a particular town or district.
There are some such even in the provinces which are said to be treated
as foreign, particularly in the city of Marseilles. It is unnecessary
to observe how much both the restraints upon the interior commerce
of the country and the number of the revenue officers must be multi
plied, in order to guard the frontiers of those different provinces and
districts which are subject to such different systems of taxation.'
And there were numerous attendant errors, such as gener
ally accompany a great protective legislation, but which need
not be specified in detail.
In consequence, the people were exceedingly miserable.
The system of taxation was often enough by itself to cause
great misery. ' In the provinces,' says Adam Smith, ' where
the personal taille on the farmer is imposed, the farmer is
afraid to have a good team of horses or oxen, but endeavours
to cultivate with the meanest and most wretched instru
ments of husbandry that he can.' The numerous imposts
on the land due from the peasantry to the nobles had the
same effect even then — most of the country was practically
held in a kind of double ownership ; the peasant cultivator had
usually, by habit if not by law, a fixed hold upon the soil, but
he was subject in the cultivation of it to innumerable exactions
of varying kinds, which the lord could change pretty much as
he chose. ' In France,' continues Adam Smith, so oddly con
trary to everything which we should say now, 'the inferior
ranks of the people must suffer patiently the usage which their
superiors choose to inflict on them.' The country in Europe
where there is now, perhaps, the most of social equality was
then the one in which there was, perhaps, the least.
And side by side with this museum of economical errors
there was a most vigorous political economy which exposed
them. The doctrines of Free Trade had been before several
times suggested by isolated thinkers, but by far the most
powerful combined school of philosophers who incessantly
inculcated them were the French Eiconomistes. They delighted
in proving that the whole structure of the French laws

Adam Smith as a Person. 267
upon industry was utterly wrong; that prohibitions ought
not to be imposed on the import of foreign manufactures ;
¦ that bounties ought not to be given to native ones ; that
the exportation of corn ought to be free ; that the whole
country ought to be a fiscal unit; that there should be no
duty between any province; an#l so on in other cases. No
one could state the abstract doctrines on which they rested
everything more clearly. ' Acheter, c'est vendre,' said
Quesnay, the founder of the school, 'vendre, c'est acheter.'
You cannot better express the doctrine of modern political
economy that 'trade is barter.' 'Do not attempt,' Quesnay
continues, ' to fix the price of your products, goods, or services ;
they will escape your rules. Competition alone can regulate
prices with equity; it alone restricts them fo a moderation
which varies little ; it alone attracts with certainty provisions
where they are wanted or labour where it is required.' ' That
which we call dearness is the only remedy of dearness : dear
ness causes plenty.' Any quantity of sensible remarks to this
effect might be disinterred from these writers. They were not
always equally wise.
As the prime maxim of the ruling policy was to encourage
commerce and neglect agriculture, this sect set up a doctrine
that agriculture was the only source of wealth, and that trade
and commerce contributed nothing to it. The labour of arti
ficers and merchants was sterile ; that of agriculturists was
alone truly productive. The way in which they arrived at
this strange idea was, if I understand it, something like this :
they took the whole agricultural produce of a country, worth
say 5,000,000?. as it stood in the. hands of the farmer, and ap
plied it thus : —
* First, as we should say, in repayment of capital spent
in wages, &c  3,000,000J.
Secondly, in payment of profit by way of hire of capital,
say, or as subsistence to himself . . . 500,000£.
Total outlay . . 3,500,000/.

268 Adam Smith as a Person.
But that outlay of 3,500,000?. has produced a value of
5,000,000?. ; there is therefore an overplus over and above the
outlay of 1,500,000?. ; and this overplus, or produit net as
the Economistes call it, goes to the landlord for rent, as we
should call it. But no other employment yields any similar
produit net. A cotton spinner only replaces his own capital,
and obtains his profit on it ; like the farmer (as they said), he
pays the outlay, and he gains a profit or subsistence for himself.
But he does no more. There is no extra overplus in farming;
no balance, after paying wages and hiring capital ; nothing to
go to any landlord. In the same way commerce is, according
to this system, transfer only — the expense of distribution is
paid ; the necessary number of capitalists and of labourers are
maintained, but that is all ; there is nothing beyond the wages
and beyond the profit. In agriculture only is there a third ele
ment — a produit net.
From this doctrine the Economistes drew two inferences —
one very agreeable to agriculturists, the other very disagree
able ; but both exactly opposite to the practice of their govern- '
ment. First, they said, as agriculture was the exclusive source
of all wealth, it was absurd to depress it or neglect it, or to en
courage commerce and manufacture in place of it. They had
no toleration for the system of finance and commercial legisla
tion which they saw around them, of which the one object was
to make France a trading and manufacturing country, when
nature meant it to be an agricultural one. Secondly, they
inferred that most, if not all, the existing taxes in France were
wrong in principle. ' If,' they argued, ' agriculture is the only
source of wealth, and if, as we know, wealth only can pay taxes,
then all taxes should be imposed on agriculture.' They rea
soned : ' In manufactures there is only a necessary hire of
labour, and a similar hire of capital, at a cost which cannot be
diminished ; there is in them no available surplus for taxation.
If you attempt to impose taxes on them, and if in name you
make them pay such taxes, they will charge higher for their

Adam Smith as a Person. 269
necessary work. They will in a roundabout way throw the
burden of those taxes on agriculture. The produit net of the
latter is the one real purse of the state ; no other pursuit can
truly pay anything, for it has no purse. And therefore,' they
summed up, ' all taxes, save a single one on the produit net,
were absurd. They only attempted to make those pay who
could not pay ; to extract money from fancied funds, in which
there was no money.' All the then existing taxes in France,
therefore, they proposed to abolish, and to replace them by a
single tax on agriculture only.
As this system was so opposed to the practice of the govern
ment, one would have expected that it should have been dis
countenanced, if not persecuted, by the government. But, in
fact, it was rather favoured by it. Quesnay, the founder of the
system, had a place at Court, and was under the special pro
tection of the king's mistress, who was then the king's govern
ment. M. de Lavergne has quoted a graphic description of
him. ' Quesnay, writes Marmontel, well lodged in a small
appartement in the entresol of Madame de Pompadour, only
occupied himself from morning till night with political and
agricultural economy. He beheved that he had reduced the
system to calculation, and to axioms of irresistible evidence ;
and as he was collecting a school, he gave himself the trouble
to explain to me his new doctrine, in order to make me one of
his proselytes. I applied all my force of comprehension to
understand those truths which he told me were self-evident ;
but Iibund in them only vagueness and obscurity. To make
him believe that I understood that which I really did not un
derstand was beyond my power ; but I hstened with patient
docility, and left him the hope that in the end he would en
lighten me and make me believe his doctrine. I did more ; I
applauded his work, which I really thought very useful, for he
tried to recommend agriculture in a country where it was too
much disdained, and to turn many excellent understandings
towards the study of it. While political storms were forming

270 Adam Smith as a Person.
and dissolving above the entresol of Quesnay, he perfected his
calculations and his axioms of rural economy, as tranquil and as
indifferent to the movements of the Court, as if he had been a
hundred leagues off. Below, in the salon of Madame de Pom
padour, they deliberated on peace or war — on the choice of
generals — on the recall of ministers ; while we in the entresol
were reasoning on agriculture, calculating the produit net, or
sometimes were dining gaily with Diderot, D'Alembert, Duclos,
Helvetius, Turgot, Buffon ; and Madame de Pompadour, not
being able to induce this troop of philosophers to come down
to her salon, came herself to see them at table and to chat
with them.' An opposition philosophy has rarely been so
petted and well treated. Much as the reign of Louis XVI.
differed in most respects from that of Louis XV., it was hke it
in this patronage of the Economistes. Turgot was made
Minister of Finance, to reform France by applying their
doctrines. The reason of this favour to the Economistes from the
government was, that on the question in which the govern
ment took far the most interest the Economistes were on its
side. The daily want of the French government was more
power ; though nominally a despotism, it was feeble in reality.
But the Economistes were above all things anxious for a very
strong government ; they held to the maxim, everything for
the people — nothing by them ; they had a horror of checks and
counterpoises and resistances ; they wished to do everything by
the fiat of the sovereign. They had, in fact, the natural wish
of eager speculators, to have an irresistible despotism behind
them and supporting them; and with the simplicity which
marks so much of the political speculation of the eighteenth
century, but which now seems so childlike, they never seemed
to think how they were to get their despot, or how they were to
ensure that he should be on their side. The painful experience
of a hundred years has taught us that influential despotisms are
not easy to make, and that good ones are still less so. But in

Adam Smith as a Person. 271
their own time nothing could be more advantageous to the
Economistes than to have an eager zeal for a perfect despotism ;
in consequence they were patronised by the greatest existing
authority, instead of being discountenanced by it.
This account of the Economistes may seem to a reader
who looks at Adam Smith exclusively by the light of modern
pohtical economy to be too long for their relation to him. But
he would not have thought so himself. He so well knew how-
much his mind had been affected by them and by their teach
ing, tbat he at one time thought of dedicating the ' Wealth of
Nations ' to Quesnay, their founder ; and though he relinquished
that intention, he always speaks of him with the gravest respect.
If, indeed, we consider what Glasgow is now, still more what
it must have been a hundred years ago, we shall comprehend
the degree to which this French experience — this sight of a
country so managed, and with such a pohtical economy — must
have excited the mind of Adam Smith. It was the passage
from a world where there was no spectacle to one in which there
was the best which the world has ever seen, and simultaneously
the passage from the most Scotch of ideas to others the most
un-Scotch. A feeble head would have been upset in the transit,
but Adam Smith kept his.
From France he went home to Scotland, and stayed quietly
with his mother at his native town of Kirkcaldy for a whole
ten years. He lived on the annuity from the Duke of Buc-
cleugh, and occupied himself in study only. What he was
studying, if we considered the ' Wealth of Nations ' as a book of
political economy only, we might be somewhat puzzled to say.
But the contents of that book are, as has been said, most mis
cellaneous, and in its author's mind it was but a fragment of an
immensely larger whole. Much more than ten years' study
would have been necessary for the entire book which he con
templated. At last, in 1776, the 'Wealth of Nations' was published, and
was, on the whole, well received. Dr. Carlyle, indeed, preserves

272 Adam Smith as a Person.
an impression that, in point of style, it was inferior to the
' Theory of Moral Sentiments.' But all competent readers were
agreed as to the great value of the substance. And almost
everybody will probably now think, in spite of Dr. Carlyle, that
the style is very much better than that of the ' Moral Senti
ments.' There is about the latter a certain showiness and an
'air of the professor trying to be fascinating,' which are not
very agreeable ; and, after all, there is a ponderous weight in
the words which seems to bear down the rather flimsy matter.
But the style of the ' Wealth of Nations ' is entirely plain and
manly. The author had, in the interval, seen at least a little
of the living world and of society, and had learnt' that the
greatest mistake is the trying to be more agreeable than you
can be, and that the surest way to spoil an important book is
to try to attract the attention of, to ' write down ' to, a class of
readers too low to take a serious interest in the subject. A
really great style, indeed, Adam Smith's certainly is not. Lord
Mansfield is said to have told Boswell that he did not feel, in
reading either Hume or Adam Smith, that he was reading
English at all ; and it was very natural that it should be so.
Enghsh was not the mother tongue of either. Adam Smith
had, no doubt, spoken somewhat broad Scotch for the first
fourteen or fifteen years of his life ; probably he never spoke
anything that could quite be called English till he went to
Oxford. And nothing so much hampers the free use of the
pen in any language as the incessant remembrance of a kin
dred but different one ; you are never sure the idioms nature
prompts are those of the tongue you would speak, or of the
tongue you would reject. Hume and Adam Smith exemplify
the difficulty in opposite ways. Hume is always idiomatic, but
his idioms are constantly wrong ; many of his best passages are,
on that account, curiously grating and puzzling ; you feel that
they are very like what an Englishman would say, but yet
that, after all, somehow or other, they are what he never
would say ; — there is a minute seasoning of imperceptible dif-

Adam Smith as a Person. 273
ference which distracts your attention, and which you are for
ever stopping to analyse. Adam Smith's habit was very dif
ferent. His style is not colloquial in the least. He adheres to
the heavy ' book ' English which he had found in the works of
others, and was sure that he could repeat in his own. And in
that sort of style he has eminent merit. No one ever has to
read him twice to gather his meaning ; no one can bring much,
valid objection to his way of expressing that meaning ; there is
even a sort of appropriateness, though often a clumsy sort, in
his way of saying it. But the style has no intrinsic happiness ;
no one would read it for its own sake ; the words do not cleave
to the meaning, so that you cannot think of them without it,
or of it without them. This is only given to those who write in
the speech of their childhood, and only to the very few of those
— the five or six in every generation — who have from nature the
best grace, who think by inborn feeling in words at once charm
ing and accurate.
Of the ' Wealth of Nations ' as an economical treatise, I have
nothing to say now ; but it is not useless to say that it is a
very amusing book about old times. As it is dropping out of
immediate use from change of times, it is well to observe that
this very change brings it a new sort of interest of its own.
There are few books from which there may be gathered more
curious particulars of the old world. I cull at random almost
that ' a broad wheel waggon, attended by two men, and drawn
by eight horses,' then ' in about six weeks' time carried and
brought trade between London and Edinburgh ; ' — that in
Adam Smith's opinion, if there were such an effectual demand
for grain as would require a million tons of shipping to import
it, the ' navy of England,' the mercantile navy of course, would
not be sufficient for it ;— that ' Holland was the great emporium
of European goods ; ' that she was, in proportion to the land
and the number of inhabitants, by far the richest country in
Europe ; that she- had the greatest share of the ocean-carrying
trade ; that her citizens possessed 40,000,000?. in the French

274 Adam Smith as a Person.

and English funds; — that in Sheffield no master cutler can
have more than one apprentice, by a by-law of the corporation,
and in Norfolk and Norwich no weaver more than two ; — that,, if
Adam Smith's eyes served him right, 'the common people in
Scotland, who are fed with oatmeal, are in general neither so
strong nor so handsome as the same class of people in England, -
who are fed with wheaten bread, and that they do not look or
work as well ' ; that— and this is odder still — ' the porters and
coal-heavers in London, and those unfortunate women who
live by prostitution — the strongest men and the most beautiful
women, perhaps, in the British dominions — are from the lowest
rank of people in Ireland, and fed with the potato'; — that 1,000?.
share in India stock ' gave a share not in the plunder, but in
the appointment ofthe plunderers of India * ; — that ' the expense
of the establishment of Massachussetts Bay, before the com
mencement of the late disturbances,' that is, the American
war, 'used to be about 18,000?. a year, and that of New York,
4,500?. ;' that all the civil establishments in America did not
at the same date cost 67,000?. a year ; — that ' in consequence
of the monopoly of the American colonial market,' the commerce
of England, ' instead of running in a great number of small
channels, has been taught to run principally in one great
channel ; ' — that ' the territorial acquisitions of the East India
Company, the undoubted right of the Crown,' 'might be
rendered another source of revenue more abundant, perhaps,
than all ' others from which much addition could be expected ;
— that Great Britain is, perhaps, since ' the world began, the
only state which has extended its empire ' ' without augment-
ing the area of its resources ; '—that, and this is the final
sentence of the book, < If any of the provinces of the British
empire cannot be made to contribute towards the support of the
whole empire, it is surely time that Great Britain should free
herself from the expense of defending those provinces in time
of war, and of supporting any part of their civil or military
establishments in time of peace, and endeavour to accommodate

Adam Smith as a Person. 275
her future views and designs to the real mediocrity of her
circumstances.' A strange passage, considering all that has
happened since, and all the provinces which we have since
taken. No one can justly estimate the ' Wealth of Nations '
who thinks of it as a book of mere political economy, such as
Quesnay had then written, or as Ricardo afterwards wrote. It is
really fuU both of the most various kinds of facts and of thoughts
often as curious on the most various kinds of subjects.
The effect of the publication of the ' Wealth of Nations ' on
the fortunes of its author was very remarkable. It gave the
Duke of Buccleugh the power of reheving himself of his annuity,
by performing the equivalent clause in the bargain ; he obtained
for Adam Smith a commissionership of customs for Scotland —
an appointment of which we do not know the precise income,
but which was clearly, according to the notions of those times,
a very good one indeed. A person less fitted to fill it could not
indeed easily have been found. Adam Smith had, as we have
seen, never been used to pecuniary business of any kind ; he
had never even taken part in any sort of action Out of such
business ; he was an absent and meditative student. It was
indeed during his tenure of this office that, as I have said, he
startled a subordinate-, who asked for his signature, by imitating
the signature of the last commissioner, instead of giving his
0Wn — of course in pure absence of mind-. He was no doubt
better acquainted with the theory of taxation than any other
man of his time ; he could have given a minister in the capital
better advice than anyone else as to what taxes he should, or
should not, impose. But a commissioner of customs, in a pro-
"vincial city, has nothing to do with the imposition of taxes, or
with giving advice about them. His business simply is to see
that those which already exist are regularly collected and
methodically transmitted, which involves an infinity of transac
tions requiring a trained man of detail. But a man of detail
Adam Smith certainly was not — at least of detail in business.
Nature had probably not well fitted him for it, and his mode of
t 2

276 Adam Smith as a Person.

life had completed the result, and utterly unfitted him. The
appointment that was given him was one in which the great
abilities which he possessed were useless, and in which much
smaller ones, which he had not, would have been of extreme
value. But in another respect this appointment has been more
blamed than I think is just. However small may be the value
of Adam Smith's work at the Custom House, the effect of
performing it and the time which it occupied prevented him
from writing anything more. And it has been thought that
posterity has in consequence suffered much. But I own that I
doubt this exceedingly. Adam Smith had no doubt made a
vast accumulation of miscellaneous materials for his great
design. But these materials were probably of very second-rate
value. Neither for the history of law, nor of science, nor of art,
had the preliminary work been finished, which is necessary
before such a mind as Adam Smith's can usefully be applied to
them. Before the theorising philosopher must come the accurate
historian. To write the history either of law or science or art
is enough for the hfe of any single man : neither have as yet
been written with the least approach to completeness. The
best of the fragments on these subjects, which we now have,
did not exist in Adam Smith's time. There was, therefore, but
little use in his thinking or writing at large about them. If he
had set down for us some account of his residence in France,
and the society which he saw there, posterity would have been
most grateful to him. But this he had no idea of doing ; and
nobody would now much care for a series of elaborate theories,
founded upou facts insufficiently collected.
Adam Smith lived for fourteen years after the publication
of the ' Wealth of Nations,' but he wrote nothing, and scarcely
studied anything. The duties of his office, though of an easy
and routine character, which would probably have enabled a
man bred to business to spend much of his time and almost all
his mind on other things, were, we are told, enough ' to waste

Adam Smith as a Person. 277
his spirits and dissipate his attention.' And not unnaturally,
for those who have ever been used to give all their days to
literary work, rarely seem able to do that work when they are
even in a slight degree struck and knocked against the world :
only those who have scarcely ever known what it is to have
unbroken calm are able to accomplish much without that calm.
During these years Adam Smith's life passed easily and
pleasantly in the Edinburgh society of that time — a very suit
able one, for it was one to which professors and lawyers gave
the tone, and of which intellectual exertion was the life and
being. Adam Smith was, it is true, no easy talker — was full
neither of ready replies nor of prepared replies. He rather
liked to listen, but if he talked — and traps it is said were laid
to make him do so — he could expound admirably on the subjects
which he knew, and also (which is quite as characteristic of the
man as we see him in his works) could run up rapid theories
on such data as occurred to him, when, as Dugald Stewart tells
us in his dignified dialect, ' he gave a loose to his genius upon
the very few branches of knowledge of which he only possessed
the outlines.'
He died calmly ^and quietly, leaving directions about his
manuscripts and such other literary things, and saying, in a
¦melancholy way, ' I meant to have done more.' The sort of
fame which the ' Wealth of Nations 'has obtained, and its special
influence, did not begin in his lifetime, and he had no notion of
it. Nor would he perhaps have quite appreciated it, if he had.
His mind was full of his great scheme of the origin and history
of all cultivation. As happens to so many men, though scarcely
ever on so great a seale, aiming at one sort of reputation, he
attained another. To use Lord Bacon's perpetual illustration,
ljke Saul, he ' went in search of his father's asses, and he found
a kingdom.' Adam Smith has been said to belong to the Macaulay type
of Scotchmen, and the saying has been thought a paradox,
particularly by those who, having misread Macaulay, think him

2 78 Adam Smith as a Person.
a showy rhetorician, and not having at all read Adam Smith,
think of him as a dry and dull political economist. But the
saying is true, nevertheless. Macaulay is anything but a mere
rhetorical writer — there is a very hard kernel of business in him ;
and Adam Smith is not dry at all — the objection to him is that
he is not enough so, and that the real truth in several parts' of
his subject cannot be made so interesting as his mode of treat
ment implies. And there is this fundamental likeness between
Macaulay and Adam Smith, that they can both describe practical
matters in such a way as to fasten them on the imagination,
and not only get what they say read, but get it remembered -
and make it part of the substance of the reader's mind ever
afterwards. Abstract theorists may say that such a style as
that of Adam Smith is not suitable to an abstract science ; but -
then Adam Smith has carried political economy far beyond the
bounds of those who care for abstract science, or who under
stand exactly what it means. He has popularised it in the
only sense in which it can be popularised without being spoiled ;
that is, he has put certain broad conclusions into the minds of
hard-headed men, which are all which they need know, and all
which they for the most part will ever care for, and he has put
those conclusions there ineradicably. This, too, is what
Macaulay does for us in history, at least what he does best ; he
engraves indelibly the main outlines and the rough common
sense of the matter. Other more refining, and perhaps in some
respects more delicate, minds may add the nicer details, and
explain those wavering, flickering, inconstant facts of human
nature which are either above common sense or below it.
Both these great Scotchmen excelled in the ' osteology of their
subject,' a term invented by Dr. Chalmers, a third great Scotch
man who excelled in it himself: perhaps, indeed, it is an idio
syncrasy of their race.
Like many other great Scotchmen — Macaulay is one of
them — Adam Smith was so much repelled by the dominant
Calvinism in which he was born, that he never voluntarily wrote

Adam Smith as a Person. 279

of rehgious subjects, nor, as far as we know, spoke of them.
Nothing, indeed, can repel a man more from such things than
what Macaulay called the ' bray of Exeter HaU.' What can be
worse for people than to hear, in their youth arguments, alike
clamorous and endless, founded on ignorant interpretations of
inconclusive words ? As soon as they come to years of discre
tion, all instructed persons cease to take part in such discussions,
and often say nothing at all on the great problems of human
life and destiny. Sometimes the effect goes farther ; those
subjected to this training become not only silent but careless.
There is nothing like Calvinism for generating indifference.
The saying goes that Scotchmen are those who believe most or
least ; and it is most natural that it should be so, for they have
been so hurt and pestered with religious stimulants, that it is
natural they should find total abstinence from them both plea
sant and healthy. How far this indifference went in Adam
Smith's case we do not exactly know ; but there is no reason to
think it extended to all religion. On the contrary, there are
many traces of the complacent optimism of the eighteenth cep-
tury — a doctrine the more agreeable to him perhaps, because
it is the exact opposite of Calvinism — and one which was very
popular in an easy-going age, though the storms, and calamities of
a later time dispelled it, and have made it seem to us thin and
. unreal. The only occasion when Adam Smith ever came near
to theological discussion was in a letter on Hume's death, in
which he said that Hume, one of his oldest friends, was the
best man he had ever known — praise which perhaps was scarcely
meant to be taken too literally, but which naturally caused a
great storm. The obvious thing to say about it is, that it does
not indicate any very lofty moral standard, for there certainly
was no sublime excellence in Hume, who, as Carlyle long ago
said, ' aU his life through did not so much morally live, as criti
cally investigate.' But though the bigots of his time misunder
stood him, Adam Smith did not by so saying mean to identify
himself with irreligion or even with scepticism.

280 Adam Smith as a Person.
Adam Smith's life, however, was not like Macaulay's — ' a
life without a lady.' There are vestiges of an early love affair,
though but vague ones. Dugald Stewart, an estimable man in
his way, but one of the most detestable of biographers, for he'
seems always thinking much more of his own words than of the
facts he has to relate, says : ' In the early part of Mr. Smith's
life, it is well known to his friends that he was for several years
attached to a young lady of great beauty and accomplishment.
But he does not tell us who she. was, and ' has not been able to
learn ' ' how far his addresses were favourably received,' or, in
fact, anything about the matter. It seems, however, that the
lady died unmarried, and in that case the unsentimental French
novehsts say that the gentleman is not often continuously in
earnest, for that ' a lady cannot be always saying No ! ' But
whether such was the case with Adam Smith or not, we cannot
tell. He was a lonely, bookish man, but that may tell both
ways. The books may be opposed to the lady, but the solitude
will preserve her remembrance.
If Adam Smith did abandon sentiment and devote himself
to study, he has at least the excuse of having succeeded.
Scarcely any writer's work has had so much visible fruit. He
has, at least, annexed his name to a great practical movement
which is still in progress through the world. Free trade has
become in the popular mind almost as much his subject as the
war of Troy was Homer's: only curious inquirers think of
teachers before the one anymore than of poets before the other.
If all the speeches made at our Anti-Corn Law League were
examined, I doubt if any reference could be found to any pre
ceding writer, though the name of Adam Smith was always on
men's lips. And in other countries it is the same. Smith-ism
is a name of reproach with all who reject such doctrines, and of
respect with those who believe them ; no other name is used
equally or comparably by either. So long as the doctrines of
protection exist— and they seem likely to do so, as human
interests are what they are and human nature is what it is 

Adam Smith as a Person. 281

Adam Smith will always be quoted as the great authority of
Anti-Protectionism — as the man who first told the world the
truth so that the world could learn and believe it.
And besides this great practical movement, Adam Smith
started a great theoretical one also. On one side his teaching
created Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, on another it rendered
possible Ricardo and Mr. Mill. He is the founder of that
analysis of the ' great commerce ' which in England we now call
political economy, and which, dry, imperfect, and unfinished as
it is, wfil be thought by posterity one of the most valuable and
pecuhar creations of English thought. As far as accuracy goes,
Ricardo no doubt began this science ; but his whole train of
thought was suggested by Adam Smith, and he could not have
written without him. So much theory and so much practice
have rarely, perhaps never, sprung from a single mind.
Fortunate in many things, Adam Smith was above all things
fortunate in his age. Commerce had become far larger, far
more striking, far more world-wide than it ever was before, and
it needed an effectual explainer. A vigorous Scotchman, with
the hard-headedness and the abstractions of his country,
trained in England and familiar with France, was the species
of man best fitted to explain it, and such a man was Adam
Smith.

>82

LORD ALTHORP AND THE REFORM ACT OF 1832.1
[1877.]
' Althorp carried the Bill,' such is the tradition of our fathers : _
' the Bill,' of course, being the Bill to them — the great Reform
Act of 1832, which was like a little revolution in that genera
tion — which really changed so much, and which seemed to
change so much more. To have been mainly concerned in
passing so great a measure seems to many of the survivors of
that, generation, who remember the struggles of their youth
and recall the enthusiasm of that time, almost the acme of
fame. And in sober history such men will always be respect
fully and gravely mentioned, but all romance has died away.
The Bill is to us hardly more than other Bills ; it is one of a
great many Acts of Parliament wbich in this day, partly for
good and partly for evil, have altered the ever-varying constitu
tion of England. The special charm, the charm which to the
last you may see that Macaulay always felt about it, is all
gone. The very history of it is forgotten. Which of the younger
generation can say what was General Gascoigne's amendment,
or who were the ' waverers,' or even how many Reform ' Bills '
in those years there were ? The events for which one genera
tion cares most, are often those of which the next knows least.
They are too old to be matters of personal recollection, and they
are too new to be subjects of study: they have passed out of
memory, and they have not got into the books. Of the well-
informed young people about us, there are very many who
scarcely know who Lord Althorp was.
1 Memoir of John Charles, Viscount Althorp, tliird Ea/i-l Spencer. By the
late Sir Denis Le Marchant, Bart. London : Richard Bentley & Son, 1876.

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 283
And in another respect this biography has been unfortunate.
It has been kept back too long. The Reform Act of 1867 has
shed a painful light on the Reform Act of 1832, and has exhibited
in real life what philosophers said were its characteristic defects.
While these lingered in the books they were matters of dull
teaching, and no one cared for them ; but now Mr. Disraeli has
embodied them, and they are living among us. The traditional
sing-song of mere eulogy is broken by a sharp question.
Those who study that time say, ' Althorp, you tell us, passed
the Bill. It was his frankness and his high character and the
rest of his great qualities whfeh did it. But was it good that
he should have passed it ? Would it not have been better if
he had not possessed those fine qualities? Was not some
higher solution possible? Knowing this Bill by its fruits,
largely good, but also largely evil, might we not have had a
better Bill ? At any rate, if it could not be so, show why it
could not be so. Prove that the grave defects in the Act of
1832 were necessary defects. Explain how it was that Althorp
had no choice, and then we will admire him as you wish us.'
But to this biographer — a man of that time, then in the House
of Commons on the Whig side, and almost, as it were, on the
skirts of the Bill — such questions would have seemed impos
sible. To him, the Act of 1832 is still wonderful and perfect —
the great measure which we carried in my youth ; and as for
explaining defects in it, he would have as soon thought of ex
plaining defects in a revelation.
But if ever Lord Althorp's life is well written, it will, I think,
go far to explain not only why the Reform Bill was carried, but
why that BiU is what it was. He embodies all the characteristic
virtues which enable Enghshmen to effect well and easily
mgreat changes in politics : their essential fairness, their ' large
roundabout common sense,' their- courage, and their disposition
rather to give up something than to take the uttermost farthing.
"But on the other hand also he has all the characteristic Enghsh
defects: their want of intellectual and guiding principle, their

284 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832.
even completer want of the culture which would give that
principle, their absorption in the present difficulty, and their
hand-to-mouth readiness to take what solves it without thinking
of other consequences. And I am afraid the moral of those
times is that these English qualities as a whole — merits and
defects together — are better suited to an early age of politics
than to a later. As long as materials are deficient, these qualities
are most successful in hitting off simple expedients, in adapt
ing old things to new uses, and in extending ancient customs ;
they are fit for instantaneous little creations, and admirable at
bit-by-bit growth. But when, by the incessant application of
centuries, these qualities have created an accumulated mass of
complex institutions, they are apt to fail, unless aided by others
very different. The instantaneous origination of obvious ex
pedients is of no use when the field is already covered with the
heterogeneous growth of complex past expedients ; bit-by-bit
development is out of place unless you are sure which bit should,
and which bit should not, be developed ; the extension of cus
toms may easily inislead when there are so many customs ; no
immense and involved subject can be set right except by facul
ties which can grasp what is immense and scrutinise what is
involved. But mere common sense is here matched with more
than it can comprehend, like a schoolboy in the differential cal
culus ; — and absorption in the present difficulty is an evil, not
a good, for what is wanted is that you should be able to see
many things at once, and take in their bearing, not fasten your
self on one thing. The characteristic danger of great nations,
hke the Romans, or the Enghsh, which have a long history of
continuous creation, is that they may at last fail from not
comprehending the great institutions which they have created.
No doubt it would be a great exaggeration to say that this
calamity happened in its fulness in the year 1832, and ft would
be most unfair to Lord Althorp to cite him as a complete
example of the characteristics which may cause it ; but there
was something in him of those qualities, and some trace in 1832

Lord A Ithorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 285
of that calamity — enough in both cases to be a warning. Only
a complete history of the time can prove this ; but perhaps in
a few pages I may a little explain and illustrate it.
Let us first get, both as more instructive and as less tedious
than analysis, a picture of the man as he stood in the principal
event of his life. A good drawer has thus painted him. Lord
Jeffrey, the great Edinburgh Reviewer, who was an able lawyer
and practical man of business in his day, though his criticism
on party has not stood the test of time, was Lord Advocate in
the Reform Ministry of 1830, and he is never tired of describ
ing Lord Althorp. ' There is something,' he writes, ' to me
quite delightful in his calm, clumsy, courageous, immutable
probity, and it seems to have a charm for everybody.' ' I went
to Althorp,' he writes, ' again, and had a characteristic scene
with that most honest, frank, true, and stout-hearted of God's
creatures. He had not come downstairs, and I was led up to
his dressing-room, with his arms (very rough and hairy) bare
above the elbows, and his beard half shaved and half staring
through the lather, with a desperate razor in one hand, and a
great soap-brush in the other. He gave me the loose finger of
his brush hand, and with the usual twinkle of his bright eye
and radiant smile, he said, " You need not be anxious about
your Scotch Bills to-night, for we are no longer his Majesty's
ministers." ' And soon after he writes again, at a later stage
of the ministerial crisis, ' When they came to summon Lord
Althorp to a council on the Duke's giving in, he was found in
a shed with a groom, busy oiling the locks of his fowling-pieces,
and lamenting the decay into whieh they had fallen during his
ministry.' And on another occasion he adds what may serve as
an intellectual accompaniment to these descriptions : ' Althorp,
-with his usual frankness, gave us a pretended confession of his
pohtical faith, and a sort of creed of his political morality, and
showed that though it was a very shocking doctrine to promul
gate, he must say that he had never sacrificed his own inclina
tions to a sense of duty without repenting it, and always found

286 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of \ 832.
himself more substantially unhappy for having employed him
self for the public good.' And someone else at the time said,
' The Government cannot be going out, for Althorp looks so
very dismal.' He was made (as we learn from this volume) a
principal minister, contrary to his expectation and in opposition
to his wish. He was always wanting to resign ; he was always
uncomfortable, if not wretched ; and the instant he could do so,
he abandoned politics, ahd would never touch them again,
though he lived for many years. And this, though in appearance
he was most successful, and was almost idolized by his followers
and friends;
At first this seems an exception to one of Nature's most
usual rules. Almost always, if she gives a great faculty she
gives also an enjoyment in the use of it. But here Nature had
given a remarkable power of ruhng and influencing men — one
of the most remarkable (good observers seem to say) given to
any Englishman of that generation ; and yet the possessor did
not like, but, on the contrary, much disliked to use it. The
explanation, however, is, that not only had Nature bestowed on
Lord Althorp this happy and great gift of directing and guid
ing men, but, as if by some subtle compensation, had added
what was> under the circumstances, a great pain to it. She had
given hhh a most sluggish intellect— only moving with effort,
and almost with suffering— generally moving clumsily, and
usually following, not suggesting. If you put a man with a mind
like this —especiaUy a sensitive, conscientious man such as Lord
Althorp was — to guide men quickly through complex problems
of legislation and involved matters of science, no wonder that
he will be restive and wish to give up. No doubt the multitude
wish to follow him ; but where is he to tell the multitude to go ?
His mind suggests nothing, and there is a pain and puzzle in
his brain.
Fortune and education had combined in Lord' Althorp's
case to develop his defects. His father and mother were both
persons of great cultivation, but they were also busy people of

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 287
the world, and so they left their son to pick up his education as
he eould. A Swiss footman, who did not know English very
well, taught him to read, and ' was his sole instructor and most
intimate associate till he went to Harrow.' His father, too, being
a great fox-hunter, the son clearly cared more for, and was more
occupied with hounds and animals, as a young boy, than with
anything else ; and he lived mainly with servants and people
also so occupied, from which-, as might be expected, he contracted
a shyness and awkwardness which stayed with him through life.
When he went to Harrow, the previous deficiencies of his educa
tion were, of course, against him, and he seems to have shown
no particular disposition to repair them. As far as can now be
learnt, he was an ordinary strong-headed and strong-willed
English boy, equal to necessary lessons, but not caring for
them, and only distinguished from the rest by a certain sup
pressed sensibility and tenderness, which he also retained in
after years, which softened a manliness that would otherwise
have been rugged, and which saved him from being unrefined:
At Cambridge his mother, as it appears, suddenly, and for
the first timej took an interest in his studies, and told him she
should expect him to be high at his first college examination.
And this seems to have awakened him to industry. The
examination was in mathematics, which suited him much better
than the Harrow classics, and he really came out high in it.
The second year it was the same, though he had good com
petitors. But there his studies ended. His being a nobleman
at that time excluded him from the university examinations,
and he was far too apathetic to work at mathematics, except for
something of the sort, and his tutor seems to have discouraged
his doing so. Then, as since, the bane of Cambridge has been
a certain incomplete and rather mean way of treating great
studies, which teaches imphcitly, if not plainly, that it was as
absurd to learn the differential calculus in and for itself as it
would be to keep a ledger for its own sake. On such a mind
as Lord Althorp's, which required as much as possible to be

288 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832.
awakened and kept awake to the interest of high studies, no
external surroundings could have been more fatal. He threw
up his reading and took to hounds, betting, and Newmarket,
and to all which was then, even if not since, thought to be most
natural, if not most proper, in a young nobleman.
As far as classical studies are concerned he probably lost
nothing. He was through life very opaque to literary interests,
and in his letters and speeches always used language in the
clumsiest way. But he had — perhaps from his childish field
sports — a keen taste for animals and natural history, which now-
a-days would have been developed into a serious pursuit. And
as it was, he had an odd craving for figures, which might have
been made something of in mathematics. ' He kept,' we are
told, ' an account of every shot he fired in the course of a year;
whether he missed or killed, and made up the book periodically.'
He would not pass the accounts of the Agricultural Society
without hunting for a missing threepence ; and when ChanceUor
of the Exchequer he used, it is said, ' to do all his calculations,
however complicated, alone in his closet,' which his biographer
thinks very admirable, and contrasts with the habit of Mr. Pitt,
' who used to take a Treasury clerk into his confidence,' but
which was really very absurd, lt is not by such mechanical work
that great budgets are framed ; and a great minister ought to
know what not to do himself, and how to use, for everything
possible, the minds of others. StUl there is much straight
forward strength in this, if also some comic dulness.
If Lord Althorp's relatives did not give him a very good
education, they did not make up for it by teaching him light
accomplishments. They sent him the ' grand tour,' as it was
then called ; but he was shy and awkward, seems to have had
no previous preparation for foreign society, would not go into
it, and returned boasting that he could not speak French. His
mother — a woman of great fashion and high culture — must have
sighed very much over so uncourtly and so ' English ' an eldest
son.

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act 0/1832. 289

Then, in the easy way of those times — it was in 1804 — he
was brought into Parliament for Okehampton, a nomination
borough, some ' Mr. Strange,' a barrister, retiring in his favour,
and his interest being strong, he was made a Lord of the
Treasury. But the same apathy to intellectual interests which
showed itself at college clung to him here also. He showed
energy, but it was not the energy of a man of business. He
passed, we are told, ' the greatest part of his time in the country,
and when he attended at the Treasury, which was very rarely,
and only on particular occasions to make up a Board, he returned
home immediately afterwards. Indeed, he used to have horses
posted on the road from London to Althorp^ and often rode
down at night,- as soon as the House had risen, in order that he
might hunt with the Pytchley the next morning.' ' On these
occasions,' says another account, ' he had no sleep, and often the
hacks which he rode would faU down on the road.' And years
afterwards the old clerks of the office used to tell of the rarity
and brevity of his visits to the department, and of the difficulty
of getting him to stay ; — all which shows force and character,
but still not the sort of character which would fit a man to be
Chancellor of the Exchequer. But though he had much of the
want of culture, Lord- Althorp had none of the unfeelingness
which also the modern world is getting somehow to attach to
the character of the systematic sportsman. On the contrary,
he was one of the many instances which prove that this charac
ter may be combined with an extreme sensibility to the suffer
ings of animals and man. He belonged to the class of men in
whom such feelings are' far keener than usual, and his inner
character approached to the 'Arnold type,' 'for to hear of
cruelty or injustice pained him ' almost ' like a blow.'
* He, it seems, kept a hunting journal, which tells how his
hounds found a fox at Parson's Hill, and ' ran over old Naseby
field to Althorp in fifty minutes, and then, after a slight check,
over the finest part of Leicestershire ; ' and all that sort of
thing. But probably it does not tell one the very natural conse-
u

290 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832.
quence which happened to him from such a life. Being a some
what uncouth person, addicted to dogs and horses — a ' man's
man,' as Thaokeray used to call if>^he did not probably go much
into ladies' society, and was not very aggressive when he was
there. But men who do not make advances to women are apt
to become victims to women who make advances to them ; and
so it was with Lord Althorp. He married a Miss Acklom, a
' Diana Vernon ' sort of person, ' rather stout, and without pre
tension to regular beauty ; ' but nevertheless, it is said, ' with
something prepossessing about her — clever, well read, with a
quick insight into the character of others, and with much self-
dependence.' And this self-dependence and thought she showed
to her great advantage in the principal affair of her life. Lord
Althorp's biographer is sure, but does not say how, that the
first declaration of love was made by the lady ; he was, it seems,
too shy to think of such a thing. As a rule, marriages in which
a young nobleman is actively captured by an aggressive lady
are not domestically happy, though they may be socially useful,
but in this case the happiness seems to have been exceptionally
great ; and when she died, after a few years, he suffered a very
unusual grief. ' He went-,' we are told, ' at once to Winton, the 3
place where he had lived with her, and passed several months in
complete retirement, finding his chief occupation in reading the
Bible,' in which he found, at first, many grave difficulties, such
as the mention of the constellation ' Orion ' by the propliet
Amos, and the high place (an equality with Job and David), -
given by Ezekiel to the prophet Daniel when still a young man,
' and before he had proved himself to be a man of so great a
calibre as he certainly did afterwards.'. On these questions, he
adds, ' I have consulted a Mr. Shepherd, the clergyman here
but his answers are not satisfactory.' Happily, however such a
man is not at the mercy of clergymen's answers, nor dependent
on the petty details of ancient prophets. The same sensibility
which made him keenly alive to justice and injustice in things
of th is world, went further, and told him of a, moral government

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1 832. 291
in things not of this world. No man of or near the Arnold species
was ever a sceptic as to, far less an unbeliever in, ultimate
religion. New philosophies are not wanted or appreciated by
such men, nor are book arguments of any real use, though these
men often plod over them as if they were ; for in truth an inner
teaching supersedes everything, and for good or evil closes the
controversy ; no discussion is of any effect or force ; the court
of appeal,, fixed by nature in such minds, is peremptory in
belief, and will not hear of any doubt. And so it was in this
case. Through life Lord Althorp continued to be a man strong,
though perhaps a little crude, in religious belief; and thus
gained at the back of his mind a solid seriousness which went
well with all the rest of it. And his grief for his wife was
almost equally durable. He gave up not only society, which
perhaps was no great trial, but also hunting — -not because he
believed it to be wrong, but because he did not think it seemly
or suitable that a man after such a loss should be so very happy
as he knew that hunting would make him.
Soon after his marriage he had begun to take an interest
in politics, especiaUy. on their moral side, and of course the
increased seriousness of his character greatly augmented it.
Without this change, though he might have thought himself
likely to be occasionally useful in outlying pohtical questions,
probably he would have had no grave political career, and his
hfe never would have been written. But the sort of interest
which he took in politics requires some explanation, for though
his time was not very long ago, the change of feeling since then
is vast. ' If any person,' said Sir Samuel Romilly, the best of judges,
for he lived through the times and was mixed up, heart and
soul, in the matters he speaks of, — ' if any person be desirous of
having an adequate idea of the mischievous effects whieh have
been produced in this country by the French Revolution and
all its attendant horrors, he should attempt some reforms on
humane and liberal principles. He will then find not only
u 2

292 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832.

what a stupid spirit of conservation, but what a savage spirit, it
has infused into, the minds of his countrymen.' And very ,
naturally, for nothing is so cruel as fear. A whole generation
in England, and. indeed in Europe, was so frightened by the
Reign, of Terror, that they thought it could only be prevented
by another Reign of Terror. The Holy Alliances, as they were
then called, meant this and worked for this. Though we had
not in name such an alliance in England, we had a state of
opinion which did the work of one without one. Nine-tenths
of the English people were above all things determined to put
down ' French principles ; ' and unhappily ' French principles '
included what we should all now consider obvious improvements
and rational reforms. They would not allow the most cruel penal
code which any nation ever had to be mitigated ; they did not
wish justice to be questioned; they would, not let the mass of
the people be educated, or at least only so that it came to
nothing ; they would not alter anything which came down from
their ancestors, for in their terror they did not know but there
might be some charmed value even in the most insignificant
thing ; and after what they had seen happen in France, they
feared that if they changed a single iota all else would collapse.
Upon this generation, too, came the war passion. They
waged, and in the main — though with many errors — waged with
power and spirit, the war with Napoleon ; and they connected
this with their horror of liberal principles in a way which is
now very strange to us, but which was very powerful then. We
know now that Napoleon was the head of a conservative reaction,
a bitter and unfeeling reaction, just like that of the contempo
rary Enghsh ; but the contemporary English did not know this.
To the masses of them he was Robespierre a cheval, as some
one called him— a sort of Jacobin waging war, in some occult
way, for liberty and revolution, though he called himself
Emperor. Of course, the educated few gradually got more or
less to know that Napoleon hated Jacobins and revolution, and
liberty too, as much as it is possible to hate them ; but the

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 293
ordinary multitude, up to the end of the struggle, never
dreamed of it. Thus, in an odd way, the war passion of the
time strengthened its conservative feeling1; and in a much
more usual way it did so too, for it absorbed men's minds in the
story of battles and the glory of victories, and left no unoccupied
thought for gradual improvement and dull reform at home. A
war time, also, is naturally a harsh time ; for the tale of con
flicts which sometimes raises men above pain, also tends to make
men indifferent to it : the familiarity of the idea ennobles but
also hardens.
This savageness of spirit was the more important because,
from deep and powerful economical agencies, there was an
incessant distress running through society, sometimes less and
sometimes more, but always, as we should now reckon, very
great. The greatest oause of this was that we were -carrying
on, or trying to carry on, a system of free trade under a re
strictive tariff: we would not take foreign products, and yet
we wished to sell foreigners ours. And our home market was
incessantly disordered. First the war, and then the corn-laws
confined us chiefly to our own soil for our food ; but that soil
was of course liable ,to fail in particular years, and then the
price of food rose rapidly, which threw all other markets into
confusion — for people must live first, and can only spend the
surplus, after paying the cost of living, upon anything else.
The fluctuations in the demand for our manufactures at home
were ruinously great, though we were doing all we could to
keep them out of foreign markets, and the combined effect was
terrible. And the next great cause was that we were daily extend
ing an unprecedented system of credit without providing a basis
for it, and without knowing how to manage it. There was no
Glear notion that credit, being a promise to pay cash, must be sup
ported by proportionate reserves of cash held in store ; and that
as bullion is the international cash, all international credit must
be sustained by a store of bullion. In consequence, all changes
for .the worse in trade, whether brought on by law or nature,

294 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832.
caused a destruction of confidence, and diffused an uneasy moral
feeling which made them far worse than they would have been
otherwise. The immense fluctuations in our commerce, caused
by protection, were aggravated by immense fluctuations in our
credit, and the combined result was unspeakably disastrous.
During the French war these causes were not so much felt.
Trade was better, because we were creating a foreign market
for ourselves. Just as lately, by lending to a miscellaneous
mass of foreign countries, we enabled those countries to buy of
us, so in the great war, by large subsidies and huge foreign
expenditure, we created a ' purchasing power ' which was
ultimately settled by our manufactures. We had nothing else
to settle it with ; if we did not send them direct, we must use
them to buy the bullion, or whatever else it might be which we
did send indirectly. This ' war demand,' of which so much is
said in the economical literature of those years, of course ceased
at the peace ; and as we declined to take foreign products in
exchange for ours, no substitute for it could be found, and
trade languished in oonsequence. Agriculture, too, was worse
after the peace, for the natural protection given by the war was
far more effective than the artificial protection given by the
corn-laws. The war kept out corn almost equally whatever was
the price, but the corn-laws were based on the ' sliding scale,'
which let in the corn when it became dear; Our farmers,
therefore, were encouraged to grow more corn than was enough
for the country in good years, which they could not sell ; and
they did not get a full price in bad years, for the foreign corn
came in more and more as the price rose • and rose. Though
the protection availed to hurt the manufacturer, it was not
effectual in helping the farmer. And the constant adversity of
other interests, by a reflex action, also hurt him. Committees)
on agricultural distress, and motions as to the relief of tradingr
distress, alternate in the parliamentary debates of those years!/
Our credit system, too, was in greater momentary danger after
the peace than before ; for during the war it was aided by a

Lord A Ithorp, and the Reform Act oj r 1 8 3 2 . 295

currency of inconvertible paper, whioh absolved us from the
necessity of paying our promises, in solid cash, though at very
heavy cost in other ways, both at the instant and afterwards.
These fluctuations in trade and agriculture of course told on
the condition of the working classes. They were constantly
suffering, and then the ' savage spirit ' of which Sir Samuel has,
spoken showed itself at its worsL Suffering, as usual, caused
complaint, and this complaint was called sedition. The Habeas
Corpus Act was suspended, harsh laws were passed, and a
harsher administration incited to, put it down. It could not be
put down. It incessantly smouldered and incessantly broke out,
and for years England was filled with the fear of violence, first
by the breakers of the law and then by the enforcers of it,
Resistance to such a policy as this was most congenial to a
nature half unhinged by misfortune, and always in itself most
sensitive and opposed to injustice, Even before his wife's
death, Lord Althorp had begun to exert himself against it,,
and afterwards he threw the whole vigour not only of his mind
but of his body into it. So far from running away perpetuaUy
to hunt, as in old times, he was so constant in his, attendance, in
Parliament that tradition says hardly anyone, except the clerks
at the table, was more constantly to be, seen there. He opposed
all the Acts by wh^ch the Tory Government of the day tried
to put down disaffection instead of curing it, and his manly
energy soon made him a sort of power in Parliament. He.
was always there, always saying what was clear, stropg, and
manly ; and therefore the loosely-knit opposition of that day
was. often guided by him ; and the ministers, though strong
in numerical majority, feared him, for he said things that the
best of that majority understood in a rugged English way, which
.changed feelings, even if it did not alter votes, He was a man,
whom everyone in the House respected, and who therefore
spoke to prepossessed hearers. No doubt, too, the peculiar
tinge which grief had given to his character added to his
influence. He took no share in the pleasures of other men,

296 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of '1832.
Though a nobleman of the highest place, still young, as we
should now reckon (he was only thirty-six when Lady Althorp
died ), he stood aloof from society, which courted him, and lived
for pubhc business only ; and therefore he had great weight in
it, for the Enghsh very much value obviously conscientious
service, and the sobered foxhunter was a somewhat interesting
character. He had not indeed any clear ideas of the cause of the diffi
culties of the time, or of the remedies for them. He did no
doubt attend much to economical questions ; and his taste for
figures, shown before in calculating the ratio of his good shots
to his bad, made statistical tables even pleasing to him. His
strong sense, though without culture and without originality,
struggled dimly and sluggishly with the necessary problems.
But considering that he lived in the days of Huskisson and
Ricardo, his commercial ideas are crude and heavy. He got as
far as the notion that the substitution of direct taxes for the
bad tariff of those days would be ' a good measure ; ' but when
he came to apply the principle he failed from inability to work
it out. Nor did years of discussion effectually teach him. In
his great budget of 1832 — the first which the Whigs had made
for many years, and at which therefore everyone looked with
unusual expectation — he proposed to take off a duty on tobacco.
and to replace it by a tax on the transfer of real and funded
property, together with a tax on the import of raw cotton ; and
it was the necessity of having to withdraw the larger part of
this plan, that more than anything else first gave the Whigs
that character for financial incapacity which clung to them so
long. A crude good sense goes no way in such problems, and
it is useless to apply it to them. The other economical pro
blem of the time, how to lay a satisfactory basis for our credit
Lord Althorp was still less able to solve, and excusably so;
for the experience which has since taught us so much did not
exist, and the best theories then known were very imperfect.
The whole subject was then encumbered with what was called

Lvrd Althorp and the Reform Act of 1 832. 297

the 'currency question,' and on this Lord Althorp's views
were fairly sensible, but no more.
I have said what may seem too much of the distresses of
the country fifty or sixty years ago, not only because the mode
in which he dealt with them is the best possible illustration of
Lord Althorp's oharaeter, but also because some knowledge of
them is necessary to an understanding of 'parliamentary
reform,' as it was in his time, on account of which alone any
one now cares for him. The ' bill,' if I may say so, for these
miseries of the eountry was sent in to the old system of par
liamentary representation ; and very naturaUy. The defenders
of that system of necessity conceded that it was anomalous,
complex, and such as it would have been impossible to set up
de novo. But -they argued that it was practically successful,
worked well, and promoted the happiness of the people better
than any other probably would. And to this the inevitable*
rejoinder at the time was : ' The system does not work well ;
the country is not happy; if your system is as you say to be
judged by its fruits, that system is a bad system, for its fruits
are bad, and the consequences everywhere to be seen in the
misery around us.' Upon many English minds which would
have cared nothing for an apparent work of theoretical com
pleteness, this 'practical' way of arguing, as it was called,
pressed .with irresistible strength. ^
The unpopularity was greater because a new generation
was growing up with ' other thoughts ' and ' other minds ' than
that which had preceded it. Between 1828 and 1830 a new
race came to influence public affairs, who did not remember
the horrors of the French Revolution, and who had been teased
to death by hearing their parents talk about them. The harsh
and cruel spirit which those horrors had awakened in their-
contemporaries became itself, by the natural law of reaction, an
object of disgust and almost of horror to the next generation.
When it was said that the old structure of Parliament worked
well, this new race looked not only at the evident evils amid

298 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of '1832.

which they lived, but at the oppressive laws and administration
by which their fathers had tried to cure those evils ; and they
' debited ' both to the account of the old Parliament. It was
made responsible for the mistaken treatment as well as for the
deep-rooted disease, and so the gravest clouds hung over it.
The Duke of Wellington, too (the most unsuccessful of
premiers as well as the most successful- of generals), broke the
Tory party — the natural party to support this system— into
fragments. With a wise renunciation both of his old prin
ciples and of his fixed prejudices he had granted ' Catholic
Emancipation,' and so offended the older and stricter part of
his followers. They accused him of treachery, and hated him
with a hatred of which in this quiet age, when political passion
is feeble, we can hardly form an idea. And he then quarrelled,
also, with the best of the moderate right-^-Mr, Huskisson and
the Canningites. He had disliked Mr. Canning personally
when alive, he hated still more the liberal principles which he
had begun to introduce into our foreign policy, and he was an
eager, despotic man, who disliked, difference of opinion ; so
just when he had, broken with the most irrational section of
his party, he broke with fts most rational members too, and
left himself very weak. No one so much, though without
meaning it, aided the caus.e of parliamentary change, for" -he
divided and enfeebled the supporters of the old system ; he
took away the question of Catholic Emancipation which before"
filled the public mind ; and he intensified the unpopularity of
all he touched by the idea of a ' military premier,' for which
we should not care now, but which was odious and terrible
then, when men still feared oppression from the Government.
Upon minds thus predisposed, the French Revolution of
1830 broke with magical power. To the young generation it
seemed like the fulfilment of their dreams.
The meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute took at once
The attraction of a country in Romance,

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 2,99
And lively thought that they might be
Called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secluded island, heaven knows where,
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,
And even to soberer persons this new revolution seemed to
prove that change, even great change, was not so mischievous
as had been said— that the good of 1789 might be gained with
out the evil, and that it was absurd not to try reform when
the unreformed world contained so much which was miserable
and so much which was difficult to bear. Even a strong Tory
ministry might have been overthrown, so great was the force
of this sudden sentiment : the feeble ministry of the Duke of
Wellington fell at once before it, and the Whigs were called
to power.
. . Their first act was to frame a plan of parliamentary reform,
and that which they constructed was many times larger than
anything which anyone expected from them. All those who
remember those times say that when they heard what was
proposed they could hardly believe their ears. And when it
was explained to the House of Commons, the confusion, the
perplexity, and the consternation were very great. Reform
naturally was much less popular in the assembly to be reformed
than it was elsewhere. The gen eral opinion was that if Sir , Robert
Peel had risen at once and denounced the Bill as destructive
and revolutionary he might have prevented its being brought
in. Another common opinion in the House was that the
' Whigs would go out next morning.' But the Bill had been
framed by one who, with whatever other shortcomings and
Refects, has ever had a shrewd eye for the probable, course of
public opinion. ' I told Lord Grey,' says Lord Russell, ' that
none but a large measure would be a safe measure.' And
accordingly, as soon as its provisions came to be comprehended
by the country, there was perhaps the greatest burst of ent-hu-

300 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1 83 2 .
siasm whieh England has ever seen (certainly the greatest
enthusiasn for a law, though that for a favourite person may
sometimes have risen as high or higher). A later satirist has
spoken of it as the ' Great Bill for giving everybody everything,*
and everybody almost seems to have been as much in favour
of it as if they were to gain everything by it. Agricultural\
counties were as eager as manufacturing towns ; men who had
always been Tories before were as warm as Liberals. The
country would have ' the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but;
the Bill.' '
But this enthusiasm did not of itself secure the passing of
the Bill. There were many obstacles in the way which it
took months to overcome, and which often made many de
spair. First, the Bill was not one of which the pohtical world
itself strongly approved ; on the contrary, if left to itself, that
world would probably have altogether rejected it. It was
imposed by the uninitiated on the initiated, by the many on the
few ; and inevitably those who were compelled to take it did
not like it. Then, the vast proposals of the ministry deeply
affected many private interests. In 1'858 I heard an able
politician say, ' The best way for a Government to turn itself
out is to bring in a Reform Bill ; the number of persons whom
every such BiU must offend is very great, and they are sure to
combine together, not on Reform, but on something else, and
so turn out the Government.' And if there was serious danger
to a ministry which ventured to propose such petty reforms as
were thought of in 1858, we can imagine the magnitude of the
danger which the ministry of 1832 incurred from the great
measure they then brought in. One member, indeed, rose and
said, ' I am the proprietor of Ludgershall, I am the memberN
for Ludgershall, I am the constituency of Ludgershall, and in
all three capacities I assent to the disfranchisement of Ludger
shall.' But the number of persons who were so disinterested^
was rare. The Bill of 1832 affected the franchise of every
constituency, and, therefore, the seat of every member.; it

Lord A Ithorp and the Reform Act of 1 8 32. 301
abohshed the seats of many, and destroyed the right of nomi
nation to seats also possessed by many; and nothing could
be more repugnant to the inclinations of most. A House of
Commons with such a Bill before it was inevitably captious,
unruly, and difficult to guide. And even if there had been or
could have been a House of Commons which at heart liked the
Bill, there would still have been the difficulty that many other
people then most influential did not much hke it. A great
many members of the Cabinet which proposed it, though they
believed it to be necessary, did not think it to be desirable.
The country would have some such measure, and therefore they
proposed this. 'Lord Palmerston and Mr. Grant,' says Lord
Russell, ' had followed Mr. Canning in his opposition to Par
liamentary Reform. Lord Lansdowne and Lord Holland had
never been very eager on the subject.? Lord. Brougham did
not approve of the disfranchisement of nearly so many boroughs,
and others of the Cabinet were much of the same mind. Their
opinion was always dubious, their action often reluctant, and,
according to Mr. Greville, some of the most influential of them,
being very sensitive to the public opinion of select political
society, were soon ' heartily ashamed of the whole thing.'
The House of Lords, too, was adverse, not only as an
assembly of men mostly rich and past middle age is ever
adverse to great pohtical change, or as a privileged assembly is
always hostile to any movement which may destroy it, but for
a reason peculiar to itself. The Enghsh House of Lords, as we
all know, is not a rigid body of fixed number like the upper
chambers of book constitutions, but an elastic body of unfixed
number.. The Crown can add to its members when it pleases
and as it pleases. And in various ways which I need not
enumerate now, this elasticity of structure has been of much
use, but in one way it does much harm. The Crown for this
purpose means the ministry ; the ministry is appointed by a
party, and is the agent of that party, and therefore it makes
peers from its own friends all but exclusively. Under a Tory

302 Lord Althorp and the. Reform Act of 1 832.
Government more than nine-tenths of the new peers will be
Tory ; under a Whig Government more than nine- tenths will
be Whig ; and if for a long course of years either party has
been continuously, or nearly so, in power, the House of Lords
will be filled with new members belonging to it. And this is a
serious inconvenience, because the longer any party has been
thus in power, the more likely it is to have to go out and lose
power; and the new ministry which comes in, and the new
mode of thought which that ministry embodies-, finds itself face
to face with a House of Peers embodying an antagonistic mode of
thought, and one formed by its enemies. In 1831 this was so,.
for the Tories had been ih office almost without a break since
1784, had created peers profusely, who were all Tories, and
added the Irish elective peers, who, from the mode of election,
were aU Tories too. In consequence, the reform movement of
1831 and 1832 found itself obstinately opposed to a hostile
House of Lords, Whose antagonism aided the reluctance diffused
through the House of Commons, ahd fostered the fainthearted
ness common ih the Cabinet. The King, too, who had begun
by being much in favour of reform, graduaUy grew frightened.
His correspondence with Lord Grey gives a vivid picture of a
well-meaning, but irresolute man, who is much in the power
of the last speaker, who at last can be securely relied on by no
one, and who gives inoesSant (and as it seems unnecessary).
trouble to those about him. The rising republicanism of the
day will find in these letters much to serve it ; for, however
convinced one may be^ on general grounds, that English
royalty was necessary to English freedom at that time, it is
impossible not to be impatient at seeing how, month after
month in a great crisis, when there Was so much else to cause
anxiety and create confusion, one stupid old man should have
been able to add so much to both.
And all through the struggle the two effects of the new
French Revolution were contending with one another. Just as
it aroused in young and sanguine minds (and the majority of

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 303
the country was just then disposed to be sanguine) the warmest
hopes, in minds oppositely predisposed it aroused every kind of
fear. Old and timid people thought we should soon have in
England ' Robespierre and the guillotine.' Indeed, in a way
that it is rather amusing now to consider the French horrors
of 1793 are turned into a kind of intellectual shuttlecock by
two disputants. One says, ' See what comes Of making rash
changes, how many crimes they engender, and how many lives
they lose ! ' ' No,' replies the other ; ' see what domes of not
making changes till too late, for it was delay of change, and
resistance to change, which caused those crimes and horrors.'
Nor were these unreal words of mere rhetoric. They told
much on many minds, for what France had done and wOuld do
then naturally filled an immense space in men's attention, as
for so many years not long since, Europe had been divided into
France and anti-France.
With all these obstacles in its way, the ministry of 1831
had the greatest difficulty in carrying the Reform Bill; I have
not space to narrate, even in the briefest way, the troubled
history of their doing so. Parhamentary debates are generally
dull in the narration ; but so great was the Excitement, ahd so
many were the relieving circumstances, that an accomplished
historian Will be able to make posterity take some sort of
exceptional interest in these. The credit of the victory, such
as it is, must be divided between many persons; Lord Grey
managed the King, and stood first in the eye of the country ;
Lord Russell contributed the first sketch of the Bill, containing
all its essential features, both good and bad-, and he introduced
the first Bill into the House of Commons ; the late LOrd Derby
then first showed his powers as a great debater. But the best
«b servers say that Lord Althorp carried the BiU : he was
leader of the Hotlse at the time, and the main strain of ruling
one of the most troubled of Parliaments was on him. His
biographer, Sir Denis Le Marchant, who was present at the
debates, says : —

304 Lord Althorp -and the Reform Act of 1832.
' Lord Althorp's capacity as a leader had been severely tested
throughout this tremendous struggle, and it extorted the praise even
of his political opponents. I recollect Sir Henry Hardinge saying,
" It was Althorpe carried the Bill. His fine temper did it. And in
answer to a most able and argumentative speech of Crocker, he rose
and merely said ' that ho' had made some calculations which he con
sidered as entirely conclusive in refutation of the right honourable
gentleman's arguments which he had mislaid, but if the House would
be guided by his advice they would reject the amendment ' — which
they accordingly did. There is no standing against such influence as
this. The Whigs ascribed' Lord Althorp's influence not to his
temper alone, but to the confidence felt by the House in his integrity
and sound judgment, an- opinion so universal that Lord Grey was
induced by it to press upon him a peerage, that he might take charge
of the Bill in the committee of the Lords; and the design was
abandoned not from any hesitation or unwillingness on the part of
Lord Althorp, but from the difficulty of finding a successor to him
in the Commons." So bad a speaker, with so slow a mind, has
never received so great a compliment in a scene where quickness and
oratory seem at first sight to be the most absolutely requisite of
qualities.' But it is no doubt a great mistake to imagine that these
qualities are the true essentials to success of this kind. A very'
shrewd living judge says, after careful reflection, that they
are even hurtful. 'A man,' says Mr. Massey in his history,
' who speaks seldom,. and who speaks Ul, is the best leader of
the House of Commons.? And no doubt the slow-speeched
English gentlemen rather sympathize with slow speech in
others. Besides-, a quick and brilliant leader is apt to be
always speaking, whereas a leader should interfere only when
necessary, and be therefore felt as a higher force when he does
so. His mind ought to be like a reserve fund — not invested
in showy securities, but sure to be come at when wanted and
always of staple value. And this Lord Althorp's mind was •
there was not an epigram in the whole of it ; everything was
solid and ordinary. Men seem to have trusted him much as
they trust a faithful animal, entirely believing that he would
not deceive if he could, and that he could not if he would.

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of J 832. 305
And what, then, was this great ' Bill ' — which it was so great
an achievement to pass ? Unfortunately this is not an easy
question to answer shortly. The ' Bill ' destroyed many old
things and altered many old things, and we cannot understand
its effects except in so far as we know what these old things
were. ' A variety of rights of suffrage,' said Sir James Mackintosh,
' is the principle of the Enghsh representation.' How that
variety began is not at all to the present purpose ; it grew, as
all English things grow — by day-by-day alterations from small
beginnings ; and the final product was very different from the
first beginning, as well as from any design which ever at any
one time entered anyone's mind. There always was a great
contrast between the mode of representation in boroughs and in
counties, because there was a great contrast in social structure
between them. The 'knight of the shire' was differently
chosen from the ' burgess of the town,' because the ' shire ' was
a different sort of place from the town, and the same people
could not have chosen for the two— the same people not
existing in the two. The borough representations of England,
too, ' struggled up ' — there is hardly any other word to describe
it — in a most irregular manner. The number of towns which
sent representatives is scarcely ever the same in any two of our
oldest Parliaments. The. sheriff had a certain discretion, for
the writ only told him to convene ' de quolibet burgo duos bur-
genses,' and did not name any towns in particular. Most towns
then dishked the duty and evaded it, if possible, which seems
to have augmented the sheriff's power, for he could permit or
prevent the evasion as much as he chose. And at a very early
period great differences grew up between the ways of election
in the towns which were always represented. There seems to
have been a kind of ' natural selection ; ' the most powerful
class in each borough chose if it could at each election, and if
any class long continued the most powerful, it then acquired
customary rights of election which came to be unalterable.
x

306 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832.

Nor was there any good deciding authority to regulate this con
fusion. The judge of elections was the ' House of Commons '
itself, and it often decided not according to law or evidence,
but as political or personal influence dictated. And rights of
election thus capriciously recognised became binding on the
borough for ever. As might be expected, the total result was
excessively misceUaneous. The following are the franchises of
the boroughs in two counties as legislators of 1832 found
them. SoMEESETSHIRE.
Bristol . . . Freeholders of 40s., and free burgesses.
Bath .... Mayor, aldermen, and common councilmen only.
Wells .... Mayor, masters, burgesses, and freemen of the
seven trading companies of the said city.
Taunton . . . Potwallers not receiving alms or charity.
Beidgewater . Mayor, aldermen, and twenty-four capital burgesses
of the borough paying scot and lot.
Ilchester . . Alleged to be the inhabitants of the said town pay
ing scot and lot, which the town called potwallers.
Mineheau . . The parishioners of Dunster and Minehead, being
housekeepers in the borough of Minehead, and not
receiving alms.
Milboen Poet . The capital bailiffs and their deputies, the number
of bailiffs being nine, and their deputies being two ;
in the commonalty, stewards, their number being
two ; and the inhabitants thereof paying scot and
lot.

Lancaster
Wigan .
Clitheroe
Liverpool Preston .

Lancashire.
Freemen only
Free burgesses.
Freeholders resident and nonresident.
Mayor, bailiffs, and freemen not receiving alms.
AU the inhabitants.

Nothing could be more certain than that a system which
was constructed in this manner must sooner or later need great
alteration. Institutions which have grown from the beginning
by adaptation may last as long as any, if they continue to possess

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 307
the power of adaptation. The force which created them still
exists to preserve them. But in this case the power of adapta
tion, was gone. A system of representation made without
design was fixed as eternal upon a changing nation, and some
how or other it was sure to become unsuitable. Nothing
could be more false in essence than the old anti-reform argu
ments as far as they affected the ' wisdom of our ancestors ; '
for the characteristic method of our ancestors had been departed
from. Our ancestors changed what they wanted bit by bit, just
when and just as they wanted. But their descendants were
forbidden to do so ; they were asked to be content not only
with old clothes, but with much-patched old clothes, which they
were denied the power to patch again, And this sooner or later
they were sure to refuse.
In 1832 a grave necessity existed for changing it. The
rude principle of natural selection by which it had been made,
insured that, at least approximately, the classes most influential
in the nation would have a proportionate power in the legisla
tion ; no great class was likely to be denied anything approach
ing to its just weight. But now that a system framed in one
age was to be made to continue unchanged through after ages,
there was no such security. On the contrary, the longer the
.system went on without change the more sure it was to need
change. Some new class was sure in course of time to grow up
for which the fixed system provided no adequate representa
tives ; and the longer that system continued fixed, the surer
was this to happen, and the stronger was it likely that this
class would be. In 1832, such a class had arisen of the first
magnitude. The trading wealth of the country had created a
new world which had no voice in Parliament comparable to
that which it had in the country. Not only were some of the
greatest towns, like Birmingham and Manchester, left without
any members at all, but in most other towns the best of the
middle class felt that they had no adequate power ; they were
x 2

308 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832.
either extinguished by a franchise too exclusive, or swamped by
one too diffused ; either way, they were powerless.
There was equal reason to believe that, by the same inevit
able course of events, some class would come to have more power
in Parliament than it should. The influences which gave the
various classes their authority at the time in which the machi
nery of our representation was framed, would be sure in time to
ebb away, wholly or in part, from some of them. And in
matter of fact they did so. The richer nobility and the richer
commoners had come to have much more power than they
ought. The process of letting the most influential people in a
borough choose its members, amounted in time to letting the
great nobleman or great commoner to whom the property of
the town belonged, choose them. And many counties had
fallen into the direction of the same hands also, so that it was
calculated, if not with truth, at any rate with an approach to it,
^that one hundred and seventy-seven lords and gentlemen chose
as many as three hundred and fifty-five English members of
"Parliament. The parhamentary power of these few rich peers
and squires was much too great when compared with their
share in the life of the nation, just as that of the trading class
was too weak ; the excess of the one made the deficiency of the
other additionally difficult to bear ; and the contrast was more,
than ever galling in the years from 1830 to 1832, because just
then the new French Revolution had revived the feud between
the privileged classes and the non-privileged. The excessive
parliamentary power of these few persons had before been a
yoke daily becoming heavier and heavier, and now it could be
endured no longer.
The ' Reform Bill ' amended all this. It abolished a multi
tude of nomination boroughs, gave members to large towns and
cities, and changed the franchise, so that in all boroughs, at any
rate, the middle classes obtained predominant power. And no
one can deny that the good so done was immense; indeed no
one does now deny it, for the generation of Tories that did so

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act 0/1832. 309

has passed away. No doubt the Reform Act did not produce
of itself at once the new heaven and new earth which its more
ardent supporters expected of it. It did nothing to remove the
worst evils from which the country suffered, for those evils were
not political but economical ; and the classes whom it enfranA
chised were not more economically instructed than those whom J
they superseded. The doctrine of protection then reigned all
through the nation, and while it did so no real cure for those
evils was possible. But this Act, coming as it did when a new
pohtical generation was prepared to make use of it, got rid
entirely of the ' cruel spirit ' by which our distresses had been
repressed before, and whicb was as great an evil as those dis
tresses themselves, introduced many improvements — municipal
reform, tithe reform, and such like — in which the business-like
habit of mind due to the greater power of the working classes
mainly helped and diffused a sweeter and better spirit through
society. But these benefits were purchased at a price of the first
magnitude, though, from the nature of it, its payment was
; long deferred. The reformers of 1832 dealt with the evils of
their time, as they would have said, in an English way, and
without much thinking of anything else. And exactly in that
English way, as they had under their hands a most curious
.political machine which had grown without design, and which
produced many very valuable, though not very visible effects,
they, without thought, injured and destroyed some of the best
parts of it.
First, the old system of representation, as we have seen,
was based on a variety of franchises. But, in order to augment
the influence of the middle class, the reformers of 1832 de-
* stroyed that variety ; they introduced into every borough the
101. household franchise, and with a slight exception, which we
need not take account of, made that franchise the only one in
all boroughs. They raised the standard in the boroughs in
which it was lower than 1 Ol., and lowered it in those where it

3 1 o Lord A Ithorp and the Reform Act of 183^.
was higher ; and in this way they changed the cardinal prin
ciple of the system which they found established for uniformity
as the rule instead of variety.
And this worked well enough at first, for there was not for
some years after 1832 much wish for any more change in our
constituencies. " But in our own time we have seen the harm of
it. If you estabhsh any uniform franchise in a country, then
it at once becomes a question, What sort of franchise is it to
be? Those under it will say that they are most unjustly
excluded; they will deny that there is any real difference
between themselves and those above ; they will show without
difficulty that some whom the chosen line leaves out, are even
better than those whom it takes in. And they will raise the
cry so famUiar in our ears— the cry of class legislation. They
will say, Who are these ten-pound householders, these arbitrarily
chosen middle-class men, that they should be sole electors ?
Why should they be alone enfranchised and all others practically
disfranchised, either by being swamped by their more numerous
votes or by not having votes at all ? The case is the stronger
because one of the most ancient functions of Parliament, and
especially the Commons House of Parhament, is the reforma
tion of grievances. This suited very well with the old system
of variety ; in that miscellaneous collection of constituencies
every class was sure to have some members who represented it.
There were then working-class constituencies sending members
to speak for them — ' men,' says Mackintosh, ' of popular talents,
principles, and feelings ; quick in suspecting oppression, bold
in resisting it, not thinking favourably of the powerful ; listen
ing almost with credulity to the complaints of the humble
and the feeble, and impelled by ambition when they are not
prompted by generosity to be defenders of the defenceless.'
And in cases of popular excitement, especially of erroneous
excitement, this plan insured that it should have adequate
expression, and so soon made it calm. But the legislation of
1832 destroyed these working-men's constituencies; 'they put

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act qf 1832. 311
the country,' as it was said afterwards, ' under ten-pounders
only.' And in consequence there are in our boroughs now
nothing but working-class constituencies ; there are no longer
any ten-pound householders at all. There is throughout our
boroughs a uniform sort of franchise, and that .the worst sort —
a franchise which gives the predominance to the most ignorant
and the least competent, if they choose to use it. The middle
classes have as little power as they had before 1832, and the
only difference is, that before 1832 they were ruled by those
who were richer than themselves, and now they are ruled
by those who are poorer.
No doubt there is still an inequality in the franchise between
counties and boroughs — the sole remnant of the variety of our
ancient system. But that inequahty is much more difficult to
defend now when it stands alone, than it was in old times when
it was one of many. And the ' ugly rush ' of the lower orders,
which has effaced the ' hard and fast' hne established in 1832,
threatens to destroy this remnant of variety. In a few years
probably there will be but one sort of franchise throughout all
England, and the characteristic work of 1 832 will be completely
undone; the middle classes, whose intelligence Macaulay
praised, and to whom he helped to give so much power, will
have bad all that power taken away from them.
No doubt, too, there is still a real inequality of influence,
though there is a legal equality of franchise. The difference of
size between different boroughs gives more power to those in
the small boroughs than to those in the large. And this is very
valuable, for elections for large boroughs are costly, and entail
much labour that is most disagreeable. But here, again, the
vicious precedent of establishing uniformity set in 1832 is
« becoming excessively dangerous. Being so much used to it
people expect to see it everywhere. There is much risk that
• before long there may be only one sort of vote and only one
size of constituency all over England, and then the reign of
monotony will be complete.

312 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832.
And, secondly, the reformers of 1832 committed an almost
worse error in destroying one kind of select constituency with
out creating an intellectual equivalent. We are not used now-
a-days to think of nomination boroughs as select constituencies,
but such, in truth, they were, and such they proved themselves
to be at, perhaps, the most critical period of Enghsh history.
Lord Russell, no favourable judge, tells us ' that it enabled Sir
Robert Walpole to consolidate the throne 'of the House of
Hanover amid external and internal dangers.' No democratic
suffrage would then have been relied on for that purpose, for
the mass of Englishmen were then more or less attached to
their hereditary king, and they might easUy have been induced
to restore him. They had not, indeed, a fanatical passion of
loyalty towards him, nor any sentiment which would make
them brave many dangers on his behalf; but there was much
sluggish and sullen prejudice which might have been easily
aroused to see that he had his rights, and there were many
relics of ancient loyal zeal which might have combined with -
that prejudice and ennobled it. Nor did the people of that day
much care for what we should now call parliamentary govern
ment. The educated opinion of that day was strongly in favour
of the House of Hanover ; but the numerical majority of the
nation was not equally so ; perhaps it would have preferred the
House of Stuart. But the higher nobility and the richer
gentry possessed a great power over the opinions of Parliament
because many boroughs were subject to their control, and by
exerting that power they, in conjunction with the trading
classes, who were then much too weak to have moved by them
selves, fixed the House of Hanover on the throne, and so settled
the freedom of England. These boroughs at that time, for
this purpose being select constituencies, were of inestimable
value, because they enabled the most competent opinion in
England to rule without dispute, when, under any system of
diffused suffrage^ that opinion would either have been out-voted
or almost so.

Lord A Ithorp and the Reform Act of 1832. 313
And to the last these boroughs retained much of this pe
culiar merit. They were an organ for what may be called
specialized political thought, for trained intelligence busy with
public affairs. Not only did they bring into parliament men
of genius and ability, but they kept together a higher political
world capable of appreciating that genius and ability when
young, and of learning from it when old. The Whig party \
such as it was in those days especially, rested on this parlia
mentary power. In them was a combination of more or less
intelligent noblemen of liberal ideas and aims, who chose
such men as Burke, and Brougham, and Hume, and at last
Macaulay, to develop those ideas and to help to attain those
aims. If they had not possessed this peculiar power, they
would have had no such intellectual influence ;_ they would
have simply been gentlemen of what we now think good ideas,
with no special means of advancing them. And they would not
have been so closely combined together as they were ; they
would have been scattered persons of political intelligence.
But having this power they combined together, hved together,
thought together ; and the society thus formed was enriched
and educated by the men of genius whom it selected as instru
ments, and in whom in fact it found teachers. And there was ,
something like it on the Government side, though the long
possession of power, and perhaps the nature of Toryism, some
what modified, its characteristics.
The effect is to be read in the parliamentary debates of those
times. Probably they are absolutely better than our own.
They are intrinsically a better discussion of the subjects of their
day than ours are of our subjects. But however this may be,
they are beyond question relatively better. General knowledge
#of politics has greatly improved in the last fifty years, and the
best pohtical thought of the present day is much superior to
any which there was then. So that, even if our present, par
liamentary debates retained the level of their former excellence
they would still not bear the same relation to the best thought

3 1 4 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of i 832.
of the present, that the old ones bear to the best thought of the
past. And if the debates have really fallen off much (as I am
sure they have), this conclusion will be stronger and more
certain. Nor is this to be wondered at. If you lessen the cause you
will lessen the effect too. Not only are the men whom these
select constituencies brought into Parliament not now to be
found there, but the society which formed those constituencies,
and which chose those men, no longer exists. The old parties
were combinations partly aristocratic, partly intellectual,
cemented by the common possession and the common use of
political power. But now that the power is gone the combina
tions are dissolved. The place which once knew them knows
them no more. Anyone who looks for them in our present
London and our present politics will scarcely find much that is
like them.
This society sought for those whom it thought would be
useful to it in all quarters. There was a regular connection
between the ' Unions '¦ — the great debating societies of Oxford
and Cambridge — and Parliament. Young men who seemed
promising had even a chance of being competed for by both
parties. We all know the line which the wit of Brookes's made
upon Mr. Canning —
The turning of coats so common is grown,
That no one would think to attack it ;
But no case until now was so flagrantly known
Of a schoolboy's turning his jacket.
This meant that it having been said and believed that Mr.
Canning, who had just left Oxford, was to be brought into
Parliament by the Whig Opposition, he went over to Mr. Pitt,
and was brought in by the Tory ministry. The Oxford Liberals
of our generation are quite exempt from similar temptations.
So far from their support in Parliament being craved by both
sides, they cannot enter Parliament at all. When many of

Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1 83 2. 315
"these tried to enter Parliament in the autumn of 1867, their
egregious failure was one of the most striking events of that
remarkable time.
There was a connection, too, then between the two parts of
the public service now most completely divided — the permanent
and the parliamentary civil services. Now, as we all know, the
chief clerks in the Treasury and permanent heads of depart
ments never think of going into Parliament; they regard
the parliamentary statesmen who are set to rule over them
much as the Bengalees regard the English- — as persons who are
less intelligent and less instructed than themselves, but who
nevertheless are to be obeyed. They never think of changing
places any more than a Hindoo thinks of becoming an Enghsh
man. But in old times, men like Lord Liverpool, Sir George
Rose, and Mr. Huskisson were found eminent in the public
offices, and in consequence of that eminence were brought into
Parliament. The party in office were then, as now, anxious
to obtain competent help in passing measures of finance and
detail, and they then obtained it thus, whereas now their suc
cessors do not obtain it at all.
There was then, too, a sort of romantic element in the lives
of clever young men which is wholly wanting now. Some one
said that Macaulay's was like a life in a fairy tale ; — he opens a
letter which looks like any other letter, and finds that it con
tains a seat in Parliament. Gibbon says that just as he was
destroying an army of barbarians, Sir Gilbert Elliot called and
offered him a seat for Liskeard. Great historians will never
probably again be similarly interrupted. The effect of all this
was to raise the intellectual tone of Parliament. At present
the political conversation of members of Parliament ; — a few of
$ie greatest excepted — is less able and less striking than that
of other persons of fair capacity. There is a certain kind of
ideas which you hardly ever hear from any other educated
person, but which they have to talk to their constituents, and
which, if you will let them, they will talk to you too. Some of

3 1 6 v Lord Althorp and the Refornl Act of 1832.
the middle-aged men of business, the ' soap-boilers,' as the
London world disrespectfully calls them? whom local influence
raises to Parliament, really do not seem to know any better ;
they repeat the words of the hustings as if they were parts of
their creed. And as for the more intellectual members who
know better, no one of good manners likes to press them too
closely in argument on pohtics any more than he hkes to press
a clergyman too strictly on rehgion. In both cases the status
in the "world depends on the belief in certain opinions, and
therefore it is thought rather ill-bred, except for some great
reason, to try to injure that belief. Intellectual deference
used to be paid to members of Parliament, but now, at least in
London, where the species is known, the remains of that de
ference are rare.
The other side of the same phenomenon is the increased
power of the provinces, and especially of the constituencies.
Any gust of popular excitement runs through them instantly,
grows greater and greater as it goes, till it gains such huge in
fluence that for a moment the central educated world is power
less. No doubt, if only time can be gained, the excitement1
passes away ; something new succeeds, and the ordinary au
thority of trained and practised intelligence revives. But if an
election were now to happen at an instant of popular fury, that ,
fury would have httle or nothing to withstand it. And, even
in ordinary times, the power of the constituencies is too great.
They are fast reducing the members, especially the weaker
sort of them, to delegates. There is already, in many places,
a committee which often telegraphs to London, hoping that
their member will vote this way or that, and the member is
unwilling not to do so, because at the next election, if offended,
the committee may, perchance, turn the scale against him.
And this dependence weakens the intellectual influence of
Parliament, and of that higher kind of mind of which Parlia
ment ought to be the organ.
We must remember that if now we feel these evils we must

Lord A Ithorp and the Reform Act of '1832. 317
expect ere long to feel them much more. The Reform Act
of 1867 followed in the main the precedent of 1832; and
year by year we shall feel its consequences more and more.
The two precedents which have been set will of necessity, in
the Enghsh world, which is so much guided by precedent,
determine the character of future Reform Acts. And if
they do, the supremacy of the central group of trained and
educated men which our old system of parliamentary choice
created, will be completely destroyed, for it is already half
gone. I know it is thought that we can revive this intellectual in
fluence. Many thoughtful reformers beheve that by means of
Mr. Hare's system of voting, by the cumulative suffrage, the
limited suffrage, or by some others hke them, we may be able
to replace that which the legislation of 1832 began to destroy,
and that which those who follow them are destroying. And I
do not wish to say a word against this hope. On the contrary,
I think that it is one of the most important duties of English
- politicians to frame these plans into the best form of which
they are capable, and to try to obtain the assent of the country
to them. But the difficulty is immense. The reformers ofl
1832 destroyed intellectual constituencies in great numbers!
without creating any new ones, and without saying, indeed withy
out thinking, that it was desirable to create any. They thus
by conspicuous action, which is the most influential mode of
pohtical instruction, taught mankind that an increase in the
power of numbers was the change most to be desired in England.
And of course the mass of mankind are only too ready to think
so. They are always prone to believe their own knowledge
to be ' for all practical purposes ' sufficient, and to wish to be
emancipated from the authority of the higher culture. What
we have now to do, therefore, is to induce this self-satisfied,
stupid, inert mass of men to admit its own insufficiency, which
is very hard ; to understand fine schemes for supplying that
insufficiency, which is harder ; and to exert itself to get those

318 Lord Althorp and the Reform i Act 'of '1832. .
ideas adopted, which is hardest of all. Such is the duty which
the reformers of 1832 have cast upon us.
And this is what of necessity must happen if you set men
like Lord Althorp to guide legislative changes in complex
institutions. Being without culture, they do not know how
these institutions grew ; being without insight, they only see
one half of their effect; being without foresight, they do not
know what will happen if they are enlarged ; being without
originahty, they cannot devise anything new to supply, if neces
sary, the place of what is old. Common sense no doubt they
have, but common sense without instruction can no more
wisely revise old institutions than it can write the Nautical
Almanac. Probably they will do some present palpable good,
but they will do so at a heavy cost ; years after they have
passed away, the bad effects of that whieh they did, and of the
precedents which they set, will be hard to bear and difficult to
change. Sueh men are admirably suited to early and simple -
times. English history is full of them, and England has been ;
made mainly by them ; but they fail in later times, when the
work of the past is accumulated, and no question is any longer
simple. The simplicity of their one-idead minds, which is
suited to the common arithmetic and vulgar fractions of early
societies, is not suited, indeed rather unfits them, for the in
volved analysis and complex ' problem papers ' of later ages.
There is little that in a sketch like this need be said of
Lord Althorp's life after the passing of the Reform Act. The
other acts of Lord Grey's ministry have nothing so memorable
or so characteristic of Lord Althorp that anything need be said
about them. Nor does anyone in the least care now as to
the once celebrated mistake of Mr. Littleton in dealing with
O'Connell, or Lord Althorp's connection with it. ^Parliament
ary history is only interesting when it is important constitu
tional history, or when it illustrates something in the character
of some interesting mamj But the end of Lord Althorp's public
life was very curious. In the November of 1834 his brother

i^ora /xunorp ana me nejorm Act of 1832. 319
Lord Spencer, died, and as he was then leader of the House of
Commons, a successor for him had to be found. But WiUiam
IV., whose liberal partialities had long since died away, began
by objecting to everyone proposed, and ended by turning out
the ministry — another event in his reign which our coming re
publicans will no doubt make the most of. But I have nothing
to do with the King and the constitutional question now. My
business is with Lord Althorp. He acted very characteristically
— he said that a retirement from office was to him the ' cessa
tion of acute pain,' and never afterwards would touch it again,
though he lived for many years. Nor was this an idle affecta
tion, far less indolence. ' You must be aware,' he said once
before, in a letter to Lord Brougham, ' that my being in office
is nothing less than a source of misery to me. I am perfectly
certain that no man ever disliked it to such a degree as I do ;
and, indeed, the first thing that usually comes into my head when
I wake is how to get rid of it.' He retired into the country
and occupied himself with the rural pursuits which he loved
best, attended at quarter sessions, and was active as a farmer.
c Few persons,' said an old shepherd, ' could compete with my
lord in a knowledge of sheep.' He delighted to watch a whole
flock pass, and seemed to know them as if he had lived with
them. ' Of all my former pursuits,' he wrote, just after Lady
Althorp's death, and in the midst of his grief, ' the only one in
which I now take any interest is breeding stock ; it is the only
one in which I can build castles in the air.' And as soon as he
could, among such castles in the air he hved and died. No
doubt, too, much better for himself than for many ofhis friends,
who long wanted to lure him back to politics. He was wise
with the solid wisdom of agricultural England ; popular and
useful ; sagacious in usual things ; a model in common duties ;
'well able to advise men in the daily difficulties which are the
staple of human life. But beyond this he could not go.
Having no call to decide on more inteUectual questions, he was
- distressed and pained when he had to do so. He was a naan so

320 Lord Althorp and the Reform Act of 1832.
picturesquely out of place in a great scene, that if a great
describer gets hold of him he may be long remembered ; and it
was the misfortune of his life that the simplicity of his purposes
and the trustworthiness of his character raised him at a great
conjuncture to a high place for which Nature had not meant
him, and for which he felt that she had not meant him.

ADDENDA.
THE PRINCE CONSORT.
[1861.]
So much has, ere this, been said upon the life and character of
Prince Albert, that scarcely anything now remains except to
join very simply and plainly in the regret and sympathy which
have been everywhere expressed by all classes of the nation —
the low as well as the high. A long narrative of a simple
career would now be wholly needless, for our contemporaries
have supplied many such ; and any protracted eulogy would be
unsuitable both to our business-like pages ' and to the simple
character of him whom we have lost.
If our loss is not — as has been extravagantly said — the
^greatest which the English nation could have sustained, it is
among the most irreparable. Our parliamentary constitution,
in some sense, renews itself, or tends to do so. As one old
statesman leaves the scene, a younger one comes forward, in
the vigour of hope and power, to fill his place. When one
great orator dies, another commonly succeeds him. The op
portunity of the new aspirant is the departure of his prede-
. cessor ; on every vacancy some new claimant — many claimants
probably — strive with eager emulation to win it and to retain
• it. Every loss is, in a brief period, easily and fully repaired.
Even, too, in the hereditary part of our constitution, most
calamities are soon forgotten. One monarch dies, and another
- ' The Economist of December 21, where this article first appeared.
--' y

122 The Prince Consort.

succeeds him. A new court, a new family, new hopes and new
interests, spring up and supersede those which have passed
away. What was, is forgotten ; what is, is seen. But now we
have the old Court without one of its mainstays and principal
supports, The royal family of last week is still (and without
change) the royal family of to-day; but the father of that
family is removed. For such a loss there is not, in this world,
any adequate resource or any complete compensation. In no
rank of life can any one else be to the widow and children what
the deceased husband and father would have been. In the.
Court as in the cottage, such loss must not only be grief now,
but perplexity, trouble, and perhaps mistake hereafter.
The present generation, at least the younger part of it,
have lost the idea that the Court is a serious matter. Every
thing for twenty years has seemed to go so easily and so well,
that it has seemed to go of itself. There is no such thing in
this world. Everything requires anxiety, and reflection, and
patience. And the function of the Court, though we easily
forget it when it is well performed, keeps itself much in our
remembrance when it is ill performed. Old observers say that
some Of the half-revolutionary discontent in the times preced
ing the Reform Bill was attributable to the selfish apathy
and decrepit profligacy of George the Fourth. The Crown is
of singular importance in a divided and contentious free state,
because it is the sole object of attachment which is elevated
above every contention and division. But to maintain that
importance, it must create attachment. We know that the
Crown now does so fully ; but we do not adequately bear in
mind how much rectitude of intention, how much judgment in
conduct, how much power of doing right, how much power of
doing nothing, are requisite to unite the loyalty and to retain
the confidence of a free people.
Some cynical observers have contrasted the unlimited en
comiums of the last week with the ' cold observance ' and very
measured popularity of Prince Albert during his life. ' They

The Prince Consort. 323

remember the public hisses of 1855, and perhaps recall many
hints and whispers of politics that have passed away. But the
most graphic of our contemporaries have found nothing to re
cord of Prince Albert so truly characteristic as this change.
His circumstances, and perhaps his character, forbade him
to attempt the visible achievements and the showy displays
which attract momentary popularity. Discretion is a quality
- seldom appreciated till it is lost ; and it was discretion which
Prince Albert eminently possessed.

T 2

324

WHAT LORD LYNDHURST REALLY WAS.
[1863.]
A great phenomenon has passed away from English public
hfe. Not long since, Lord Lyndhurst observed : ' My Lords,—- -
I well remember the breaking out of the French Revolution ih
1789, the death of Louis the Sixteenth, and the course of the "r
consequent events.' There is not, perhaps, a conspicuous public
man now in Europe who could say this ; certainly there is none
in England. The picturesque features of Lord Lyndhurst's
mind and character made the phenomenon still more striking.
The characteristic of his intellect was the combination of great ¦:
force and great lucidity. Every sentence from him was full of
light and energy. His face and brow were, perhaps, unrivalled
in our time for the expression of pure intellect, and he pre
served the physical aptitude for public oratory to an old age
when most men are scarcely fit for mere conversation. To the
very extremity of a protracted Ufe — and this is very rare — he
both looked, and was, a great man. The intellect was un-
dimmed, and the power of expression hardly abated. There is
no such man left.
It is very natural that such a man should have lived till
his career should be half a myth or a legend. Few, indeed, of
those who, during the last few years, gazed on that remarkable
face, had any distinct conception of the Ufe which had been
led by the person they saw. The singular vigour of his con
versation charmed those who resorted to him, and they were
led to believe that a man who talked so very well could hardly
have acted very ill. The lives which have been put forth in

What Lord Lyndhurst really was. 325
the newspapers, carefully prepared, like those of most old men,
are merely panegyrics. For once the physical vigour of a long
old age has redeemed, in public estimation, the errors and vices
of a long life. But it is not so that history should be written ;
it is in no strain of panegyric that an impartial observer can
review the career of Lord Lyndhurst.
The beginning of the public life of Lord Lyndhurst was
towards the end of the long reign of the Tory party. Sir
George Lewis justly observed ' that the Tories in 1815 had an
immense balance pf popularity arising from the successful issue
of the great war, and that they managed to spend it most
completely before 1830.' They governed, as all Conservatives
even would now admit, in precisely the wrong spirit.
They governed, not in the spirit of Mr. Pitt, but in the
spirit of Lord Eldon. They maintained not only the main in
stitutions of the country which were acceptable and popular,
but also the minutest abuses which, in the course of years, had
clung to those institutions. They connected the name pf the
Tory party with every petty abuse and misdemeanour through
out the country. They would alter nothing, and they would
let nothing be altered. When public meetings were convened
to express public opinion, the organs of the Government cried
out sedition, and talked as if a ' French Revolution ' were going
to" break out here. By this stupid — there is no milder epithet
that is fitting — and narrow-minded policy, the Tories caused
the outburst of public opinion which carried the Reform Bill.
Their best organs have admitted as much of late years. ' A
few more drops,' said the ' Quarterly Review ' not long since,
'of Eldonine, and we should have had the People's Charter.'
The Tory party kept the nation in such tight and painful fet
ters, that it was driven wild, and rose and broke them. If the
Tories will permit no improvement— so went the national idea
—we must have an end of Toryism.
AU this was excusable and natural in men like Lord Eldon.
He had been a Tory from his youth, and he had been confirmed

326 What Lord Lyndhurst really was.
in Toryism by the events of the French Revolution. When
the peace came, and a new generation sprang up, he was too
old to change his creed. He honestly believed that it was
necessary to resist every innovation, no matter of .what sort,
and to maintain everything, no matter of what kind. In Lord
Eldon such conduct was natural and excusable. But it was
not natural in a young man of great inteUigence in the next
generation. Able young men well knew that -this illiberal
Toryism was out of place, and an anachronism. It was in 1818,
when the effects of this system were beginning to be -plainly
visible, that Lord Lyndhurst chose to connect himself with it-
He did so under circumstances of great suspicion. He
had held — loosely, we apprehend — some sort of ultra-Liberal
opinions. He had been, at any rate, in the habit of talking in
that style at young men's parties and the circuit mess. He
was a Liberal, if he was anything ; and charges continued to be
made against him for many years of having deserted his prin
ciples. It is, indeed, utterly inconceivable that Lord Lynd
hurst should have believed in Toryism such as Toryism was in
1818. He would have no title to fame if he had believed in- it.
His claim is an inteUectual claim. He is said, and justly said,
to have had, when he chose to exert it, an intellect of the
highest cultivation, more fitted than almost any other in his
time for the perception of the truth ;— a first-rate judicial mind,
with culture and experience far transcending the ordinary judi
cial range.
It is inconsistent with this claim that he should really have
been on the wrong side in all the important questions of his
time. It is absurd to say that the greatest political intellect
of his time— and some such claim as this might be justly made
for Lord Lyndhurst— really believed that the Catholics should
not be emancipated; that the Corn Laws should be main
tained ; that there should be no reform in Parliament ; that
the narrow system of 1818 was a perfect or even an endurable
system. We do not mean to charge him with acting contrary to

. ' ¦¦ What. Lord Lyndhurst really was. 327
his principles — that charge. was made years ago, but was the ex
aggerated charge of political opponents, who saw that there was
- Something to blame, but who in their eagerness and haste over
did their accusation. The true charge is that he had no prin
ciples, that he did not care to have opinions. If he had apphed
his splendid judicial faculties to the arguments for Free-trade
or for Catholic emancipation, he would soon enough have dis
covered the truth. But he never did apply them. There is a
- story of a clever young official ' who said it was inconvenient to
keep opinions.' And this exactly expresses Lord Lyndhurst's
life and sentiments. They tell a story which may be true or
false, but is certainly characteristic of what he said as to the
Act whieh bears his name forbidding a man to marry a deceased
wife's sister. The real object of that Act was to please certain
particular people who had married their sisters-in-law, and as
it stands to this day it legalises all antecedent marriages. As
it was originally brought in, it legalised subsequent marriages
also. Persons conversant with the clergy, and other strict people
represented to Lord Lyndhurst that there would be an outcry
against this. He replied, ' Put it the other way, then, forbid
the future marriages ; I am sure I do not care which way it is.'
He wanted to serve a temporary purpose, and he did so always.
He regarded pohtics as a game ; to be played first for himself,
and then for his party. He did not act contrary to his opinion,
but he did not care to form a true opinion.
This was the explanation of bis joining tbe Tories. Not to
join them was poverty then ; to join them was wealth. They
were firmly fixed in office. As the satirist then sang—
Naught's constant in the hjjman race,
Except the Whigs not getting into place.
As was the pleasant habit of that time, the Government
picked out Mr. Copley, a clever young lawyer, and gave him a
seat in Parliament.
He accepted it, though he had no more formed opinion that

328 What Lord Lyndhurst realty was.

Toryism was true than he had that Mahometanism was true.
He took up the opinions of the existing Government and advo
cated them, and to the end of his life would have thought it
' nonsense and rubbish' to act otherwise.
Probably, however, he would have acted more profitably if
he had acted more conscientiously. It really was a case when
honesty was the best policy. If he had paid a fair attention to
'the subjects of his time, he would have been on what all
parties now admit to be the right side. If he had had a sincere
wish to improve and benefit mankind, he would have been for-.
ward in the ranks of the Liberal party, who were then employed
in doing so. The chances of life were various, but most likely
he would have had his reward. The Whigs wanted a first-rate
judge who was also a first-rate politician. During their long
period of power they have never possessed one. The Whigs
have been in power, roughly speaking, five-and-twenty years
out of the last thirty. If Lord Lyndhurst had been their
leader instead of the Tory leader, he would have had far more "
of what he valued, more power and influence, more wealth, and
greater station. He would have been among the foremost of
the winners instead of being among the foremost of the losers.
There was nothing which he would have liked so much. There. ^
was nothing which he appreciated so much as success in the '
game of political life ; nothing that he despised and detested
like want of success.
It is pleasant to turn to a more favourable topic. Many
duties Lord Lyndhurst may have neglected, or despised, or dis
owned ; but one duty, and a neglected one, he performed
better, perhaps, on the whole, than any man in his generation. .
He had the most disciplined intellect of his time. There is
in every one of his productions evidence not only of natural
sinewy strength, but of careful culture and intellectual gym
nastic. Lord Brougham tells a story of finding him occupied
over the integral calculus for amusement's sake, years ago.
Every line of his speeches tells how well he understood and

What Lord Lyndhurst really was. 329
how well he acted on, the manly principles of Greek oratory.
Few men led a laxer life ; few men, to the very end of their
life, were looser in their conversation ; but there was no laxity
in his intellect. Everything there was braced and knit. Great
oratory is but a transitory art ; few turn even to the best
speeches of the past, and even the best of these are so clogged
with the detail of the time that they are dull and wearisome
to a hasty ^posterity. Few wiU recur to Lord Lyndhurst's
speeches, but those who do so will find some of the best, if
not the very best, specimens in English, of the best manner in
which a man of great intellect can address and influence the
intellects of others. Their . art, we might almost say their
merit, is of the highest kind, for it is concealed. The words
seem the simplest, clearest, and most natural that a man
could use. It is only the instructed man who knows that he
could not himself have used them, and that few men could.
Such was the great man whom we have just buried ; great
in power, but not great in the use of power ; a politician, not a
statesman ; a man of small principle and few scruples. Of
him, far more truly than of Burke, it may be said that ' to
party he gave up what was meant for mankind.'
He played the game of life for low and selfish objects,
and yet, by the intellectual power with which he played it, he
redeemed that game from its intrinsic degradation.

THE TRIBUTE AT HEREFORD TO SIR G.'C. LEWIS.
[1864.]
Nothing could be in more perfect taste than the proceedings at
Hereford on the uncovering of the statue of Sir George Lewis.
These local events are local casualties. It is impossible to fore
tell whether the principal local person is not a loquacious fool
of good intentions who will say just what he should not, or
whether he is a man of feeling and judgment, who will say
what he should say with taste and propriety.
There is nothing which Sir George Lewis would so much
have disliked as an exaggerated eloge over his grave : those who
knew him would have had his quiet smile of utter contempt
present to them while they read it. Happily nothing of this
sort, was attempted. The sober and modest nature of the man
was duly honoured in the quiet and unobtrusive nature of the
remembrance. Both Mr. Clive and Lord Palmerston spoke of Sir George
Lewis with guarded care, as English gentlemen wish to be
spoken of, as one English gentleman, therefore, should speak
of another. Sir George Lewis had no enemies, but, if he had,
no enemy could have taken a just exception to the praises of
his friends. He would have exactly desired this. He cared
very little, perhaps nothing, for passing popularity ; he would
have been prepared with various classical quotations upon the
mutability of the vulgar judgment, but he would deeply value
a restrained expression of deep respect by neighbours and
friends who knew him well ; he would have believed that they

The Tribute to Sir G. C. Lewis. 331

were the legitimate ' authority,' the persons who ought to speak
on that matter.
It is very curious that Lord Palmerston, who spoke, so to
say, Sir George Lewis's epitaph, should have had the slowest, and
.that Sir George Lewis should have had the most rapid, political
rise of our time. Unquestionably Lord Palmerston is in some
sense a buoyant man, and Sir George Lewis was in some sense
a heavy man, yet the latter came to the surface far quicker.
Lord Palmerston was a quarter of a century in Parliament
before he was anything at all — before he was any more than a
subaltern official ; Sir George Lewis was only thirteen years in
Parliament altogether, and in that time he was Secretary of
the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary,
Secretary for War, and had acquired the perfect respect and
confidence of the House of Commons. He finished his whole
career as a statesman in about half the number of years that it
took Lord Palmerston to become a statesman at all.
The causes which so much delayed Lord Palmerston's rise
are not to the present purpose, but the cause which so much
accelerated that of Sir George Lewis is very simple. He had,
above every other statesman of the age, the gift of inspiring
confidence. Coleridge said of Southey that he inspired every
one with a confidence in his reliability, and this is an almost
exact description of Sir George Lewis. Pohtical opponents and
political friends both felt that he had fairly applied a strong
and unfettered mind to vast accumulated information, and
that his measures were the result of that application. People
thought twice before they opposed a grave and business-like
measure, proposed by Sir George Lewis iu that grave and
business-like manner.
In one most important respect he was like Lord Palmerston,
though in every other most unlike. His opinions were always
plain and simple opinions. People who went to him with the
notion that he was a great philosopher and scholar were "often
puzzled at his plainness. They expected something far-fetched

332 The Tribute to Sir G. C. Lewis.
and recondite, and certainly they did. not get it. He held as a
principle that difficult schemes, fine calculations, unintelligible
policies, were, as such, beyond the range of popular govern
ment. Perhaps too he hated them as if they were a kind of
mysticism. At all events a person who could not understand
Sir George Lewis's conversation on political business, must
have been unfit for every kind of business. It had exactly the
homely exactitude that English people like. We have heard
it remarked of Sir Robert Peel's speeches that he generally
made a remark which seemed to have been left by every one
on purpose for him ; it was so sensible, when made, that every
one believed he could have made it. It was much the same
with Sir George Lewis. What he said seemed so credible and
sensible that in an hour or two you were apt to believe that
you had always thought so.
Possibly this distinctness of aim has been rather deficient.
in our policy for a year past. We certainly believe that' Sir
George Lewis could have cross-examined Lord Russell on the
Danish policy rather acutely. ' What,' he would have said, ' is
the object you desire ? When we are agreed on that, we will
discuss the modus operandi; but it is a- mistake to deliberate
on expedients when there is a fundamental discrepancy respect
ing ends.' At any rate we should like to hear Lord RusseU
answer Sir George Lewis on this subject. This need of a
definite aim ran through all his speculations. To take an
example from the foreign politics now most interesting to us —
American politics : ' I have never,' said Sir George Lewis in a
letter of March 1861, now lying before us, 'been able, either
in conversation or by reading, to obtain an answer to the ques
tion, What will the North do if they beat the South ? To
restore the old Union would be an absurdity. What other state
of things does that village lawyer, Lincoln, contemplate as the
fruit of victory ? It seems to me that the men now in powe
at Washington are much such persons as in this country get
possession of a disreputable jointrstock company, There is

The Tribute to Sir G. C. Lewis: 333
almost the same amount of ability and honesty.' After nearly
three years of experience it would be difficult to describe
Washington more justly.
But we do not cite the instance to prove Sir George Lewis's
power of prediction, so much as to prove his unfailing desire for
a distinct aim.
The political precision of Sir George Lewis is peculiarly
English, but it is not at all more English than his scholarship.
Persons who do not read such books may fancy that ' scholars'
books ' are much the same in all countries. But such is not
the case. Mr. Grote's History, to take an instance, could no
more have been written in Germany than Bacon's 'Novum
Organon ' could have been written by Socrates. That history
belongs to the intellectual atmosphere of England as plainly as
our parliamentary debates. There is in it the constant sense
- of evidence, the habitual perception of tested probability, which
the atmosphere of a free country produces and must produce.
Sir George Lewis's books have this instinctive sense of the
'. real value of evidence even more than Mr. Grote's. He could
not help feehng it ; he did not wish to forget it, and he could
not have forgotten it if he had wished.
Sh George Lewis is gone, but he has left a remembrance
in many minds which will not grow cold while they are still
warm. For many years it will to many . be much to have
.¦- known one who was learned and yet wise, just but yet kind-;
K -considerate and observing, and yet never in the least severe.

334

MR. COBDEN.
[1865.]
Twenty-three years ago — and it is very strange that it should"
be so many years — when Mr. Cobden first began to hold Free-'
trade meetings in the agricultural districts, people there were
much confused. They could not believe the Mr. Cobden they
saw to be the ' Mr. Cobden that was in the papers.' They
expected a burly demagogue from the North, ignorant of rural
matters, absorbed in mauufacturing ideas, appealing to class
prejudices — hostile and exciting hostility. They saw ' a sensi
tive and almost slender man, of shrinking nerve, full of rural
ideas, who proclaimed himself the son of a farmer, who under
stood and could state the facts of agricultural life far better
than most agriculturists, who was most anxious to convince
every one of what he thought the truth, and who was almost
more anxious not to offend any one.' The tradition is dying
out, but Mr. Cobden acquired, even in those days of Free-trade
agitation, a sort of agricultural popularity. He excited a per
sonal interest, he left what may be called a sense of himself
among his professed enemies. They were surprised at finding
that he was not what they thought ; they were charmed to find
that he was not what they expected ; they were fascinated to
find what he was. The same feeling has been evident at his
sudden death — a death at least which was to the mass of occupied
men sudden. Over political Belgravia — the last part of Eng
lish society Mr. Cobden ever cultivated — there was a sadness.
Every one felt that England had lost an individuality which :yfc

Mr. Cobden. 335

could never have again, which was of the highest value, which
was in its own kind altogether unequalled.
What used to strike the agricultural mind, as different from
. what they fancied, and most opposite to a Northern agitator,
was a sort of playfulness. They coidd hardly believe that the
lurking smile, the perfectly magical humour which they were
so much struck by, could be that of a ' Manchester man.' Mr.
Cobden used to say, ' I have as much right as any man to call
myself the representative of the tenant farmer, for I am a far
mer's son, and the son of a Sussex farmer.' But agriculturists
keenly felt that this was not the explanation of the man they
saw. Perhaps they could not have thoroughly explained, but
they perfectly knew that they were hearing a man of singular
and most peculiar genius, fitted as if by ' natural selection ' for
the work he had to do, and not wasting a word on any other
- work or anything else, least of all upon himself.
Mr. Cobden was very anomalous in two respects. He was a
sensitive agitator. Generally, an agitator is a rough man of the
-O'Connell type, who says anything himself, and lets others say
anything. You ' peg into me and I will peg into you, and
let us see whieh will win,' is his motto. But Mr. Cobden's habit
„and feeling were utterly different. He never spoke ill of any one.
He arraigned principles, but not persons. We fearlessly say
that after a career of agitation of thirty years, not one single
"individual has — we do not say a valid charge, but a producible
charge — a charge which he would wish to bring forward against
Mr. Cobden. You cannot find the man who says, ' Mr. Cobden
said this of me, and it was not true.' This may seem trivial
praise, and on paper it looks easy. But to those who know the
great temptations of actual life it means very much. How
would any other great agitator, O'Connell or Hunt or Cobbett
look, if tried, by such a test ? Very rarely, if even ever in his
tory, has a man achieved so much by his words— been victor in
what was thought at the time to be a class struggle — and. yet
spoken so little evil as Mr. Cobden. There is hardly a word

336 Mr. Cobden.

to be found, perhaps, even now, which the recording angel
would wish to blot out. We may on other grounds object to
an agitator who lacerates no one, but no watchful man of the
world will deny that such an agitator has vanquished one of
life's most imperious and difficult temptations.
Perhaps some of our readers may remember as vividly as we
do a curious instance of Mr. Cobden's sensitiveness. He said
at Drury Lane Theatre, in tones of feeling, almost of passion,
curiously contrasting with the ordinary coolness of his nature, ' I
could not serve with Sir Robert Peel.' After more than twenty
years, the curiously thrilling tones of that phrase still live in
our ears. Mr. Cobden alluded to the charge which Sir Robert
Peel had made, or half made, that the Anti-Corn Law League
and Mr. Cobden had, by their action and agitation, conduced-
to the actual assassination of Mr. Drummond, his secretary, and
the intended assassination of himself— Sir Robert Peel. No
excuse or palliation could be made for such an assertion except
the most important one, that Peel's nerves were as susceptible
and sensitive as Mr. Cobden's. But the profound feeling with
which Mr. Cobden spoke of it is certain. He felt it as a man
feels an unjust calumny, an unfounded stain on his honour.
Mr. Disraeh said on Monday night (and he has made many
extraordinary assertions, but this is about the queerest), ' Mr.
Cobden had a profound reverence for tradition.' If there is any
single quality which Mr. Cobden had not, it was traditional
reverence. But probably Mr. Disraeli meant what was most true, -
that Mr. Cobden had a delicate dislike of offending other men's
i opinions. He dealt with them tenderly. He did not like to have
his own creed coarsely attacked, and he did — he could not help
doing— as he would be done by ; he never attacked any man's
creed coarsely or roughly, or in any way except by what he in
his best conscience thought the fairest and justest argument.
This sensitive nature is one marked peculiarity in Mr.
Cobden's career as an agitator, and another is, that he was an
agitator for men of business.

Mr. Cobden. 337

Generally speaking, occupied men charged with the respon
sibilities and laden with the labour of grave affairs are jealous of
agitation. They know how much may be said against any one
who is responsible for anything. They know how unanswerable
such charges nearly always are, and how false they easily may
be. A capitalist can hardly help thinking, ' Suppose a man was to
make a speech against my mode of conducting my own business,
how much he would have to say ! ' Now it is an exact descrip
tion of Mr. Cobden, that by the personal magic of a single-
minded practicability he made men of business abandon this
objection. He made them rather like the new form of agitation.
He made them say, ' How business-like, how wise, just what it
would have been right to do.'
Mr. Cobden of course was not the discoverer of the Free -
trade principle. He did not first find out that the Corn Laws
were bad laws. But he was the most effectual of those who
discovered how the Corn Laws were to be repealed, how
Freetrade was to change from a doctrine of the 'Wealth
of Nations' into a principle of tariffs and a fact of real life.
If a thing was right, to Mr. Cobden's mind it ought to
be done; and as Adam Smith's doctrines were admitted on
theory, he could not believe that they ought to lie idle, that
they ought to be ' bedridden in the dormitory of the under
standing.' Lord Houghton once said, 'In my time political economy
books used to begin, " Suppose a man on an island." ' Mr.
Cobden's speeches never began so. He was altogether a man of
business speaking to men of business. Some of us may remember
the almost arch smile with which he said 'the House of Commons
does not seem quite to understand the difference between a
cotton mill and a print work.' It was almost amusing to him
to think that the first assembly of the first mercantile nation
could be, as they were and are, very dim in their notions of the
most material divisions of their largest industry. It was this
evident and first-hand familiarity with real facts and actual
z

338 Mr. Cobden.

life which enabled Mr. Cobden to inspire a curiously diffused
confidence in all matter-of-fact men. He diffused a kind
of ' economical faith.' People in those days had only to say,
' Mr. Cobden said so,' and other people went and ' believed it.'
Mr. Cobden had nothing in the received sense classical
about his oratory, but it is quite certain that Aristotle, the
greatest teacher of the classical art of rhetoric, would very
keenly have appreciated his oratory. This sort of economical
faith is exactly what he would most have valued, what he
most prescribed. He said : ' A speaker should convince his
audience that he was a likely person to know.' This was
exactly what Mr. Cobden did. And the matter-of-fact philoso
pher would have much liked Mr. Cobden's habit of ' coming to
the point.' It would have been thoroughly agreeable to his
positive mind to see so much of clear, obvious argument. He
would not, indeed, have been able to conceive a ' League Meet
ing.' There has never, perhaps, been another time in the
history of the world when excited masses of men and women
hung on the words of one talking pohtical economy. The
excitement of these meetings was keener than any political
excitement of the last twenty years, keener infinitely than
any which there is now. It may be said, and truly, that the
interest of the subject was Mr. Cobden's fehcity, not his mind ;
but it may be said with equal truth that the excitement ,-
was much greater when he was speaking than when any one
else was speaking. By a kind of keenness of nerve, he said the
exact word most fitted to touch, not the bare abstract under
standing, but the quick individual perceptions of his hearers.
We do not wish to make this article a mere panegyric. Mr.
Cobden was far too manly to like such folly. His mind was
very peculiar, and like all peculiar minds had its sharp limits.
He had what we may call a supplementary understanding that
is, a bold, original intellect, acting on a special experience and
striking out views and principles not known to or neglected bv
ordinary men. He did not possess the traditional education of

Mr. Cobden. 339

his country, and did not understand it. The solid heritage of
transmitted knowledge has more value, we believe, than he
would have accorded to it. There was too a defect in business
faculty not identical, but perhaps not altogether without analogy.
The late Mr. James Wilson used to say, ' Cobden's administra
tive power I do not think much of, but he is most valuable in
counsel, always original, always shrewd, and not at all extreme.'
He was not altogether equal to meaner men in some beaten
tracks and pathways of life, though he was far their superior
in all matters requiring an original stress of speculation, an
innate energy of thought.
It may be said, and truly said, that he has been cut off
before his time. A youth and manhood so spent as his well
deserved a green old age. But so it was not to be. He has
left us, quite independently of his positive works, of the repeal
of the Corn Laws, of the French treaty, a rare gift— the gift of
a unique character. There has been nothing before Richard
Cobden like him in English history, and perhaps there will
not be anything like him. And his character is of the simple,
emphatic, picturesque sort which most easUy, when opportuni
ties are given as they- were to him, goes down to posterity. May
posterity learn from him ! Only last week we hoped to have
learned something ourselves.
' But what is before us we know not,
And we know not what shall succeed.'

z 2

34Q

LORD PALMERSTON.
[1865.]
Lord Palmerston only died on Wednesday, and already the
world is full of sketches and biographies of him. It is very
natural that it should be so, for he counted for much in English
politics : his personality was a power, and it is natural that
every one should, at his death, seek to analyse what we used to
have, and what we have now lost. We will do so, but, remem
bering how often the tale has been told, we will be as brief as
possible. Lord Derby happily said that he was born in the ' pre-
scientific ' period, and Lord Palmerston was so born, or even more.
He was, it is true, a boarder at Dugald Stewart's, and we beheve
transcribed at least a part of the lectures on political economy
of that philosopher, lately published. But the combined in
fluence of interior nature and the surrounding situation was too
strong. His real culture was that of living languages and the
actual world. He was the best French scholar among his con
temporaries — so much so that when he went to Paris in 1859
the whole society, which fancied he was an imperious and igno
rant Englishman, was charmed by the grace of his expression.
His English in all his speeches was sound and pure and in his
greater efforts almost fastidiously correct. The feeling for
language, which is one characteristic of a great man of the
world, was very nice in Lord Palmerston, and very charac
teristic. It was from the actual knowledge of men — from close
specific contact — that Lord Palmerston derived his data. We

Lord Palmerston. 34 1

have heard grave men say with surprise, ' He always has an
anecdote to cap his argument. He begins, •' I knew a man
once," ' and the anecdotes had no trace of the garrulity of age :
they were real illustrations of the matter in hand. They were
the chosen instances of a man who thought in instances. Some
think, as the philosophers say, by ' definition,' others by ' type.'
Lord Palmerston, like an animated man used to the animated
world, thought in examples, and hardly realised abstract words.
It was because of this that in international matters — the
only ones for which in youth he cared — he was a great prac
tical lawyer. He knew what hardly any one knows, the
subject-matter. He knew the cases with which during a long
life he had to deal. To most men international law is a matter
of precedent and words; to him it was a matter of personal
adventure and reality. Some people not unqualified to judge
have said that his opinion on such matters was as good as any
law officer's. He might not have studied Vattel or Wheaton
so closely as some, but he had, what is far better, followed with
a keen interest the actual and necessary practice of present
nations. It was this sort of worldly sympathy and worldly education
which gave Lord Palmerston his intelligibility. He was not a
common man, but a common man might have been cut out of
him. He had in him all that a common man has, and something
more. And he did not at all despise, as some philosophers
teach people to do, the common part of his mind. He was
profoundly aware that the common mass of plain sense is the
great administrative agency of the world ; and that if you keep
yourself in sympathy with this you win, and if not you fail.
Sir George Lewis used to say that just as Demosthenes
declared action to be the first, second, and third thing in a
statesman, so intelligibility is the first, second, and third
thing in a constitutional statesman. It is to us certainly the
first, second, and third thing in Lord Palmerston. This is
not absolutely eulogistic. No one resembled less than Lord

342 L ord Palmerston.

Palmerston the fancied portrait of an ideal statesman lay
ing down in his closet plans to be worked out twenty years
hence. He was a statesman for the m°ment. Whatever was
not wanted now, whatever was not practicable now, whatever
would not take now, he drove quite out of his mind. The
pre-requisites of a constitutional statesman have been defined as
the ' powers of a first-rate man, and the creed of a second-rate
man.' The saying is harsh, but it is expressive. Lord Palmer-
ston's creed was never the creed of the far-seeing philosopher ;
it was the creed of a sensible and sagacious but still common
place man. His objects were common objects : what was un
common was the will with which he pursued them.
No man was better in action, but no man was more free
from the pedantry of business. People, he has been heard to
say, have different minds. 'When I was a young man, the
Duke of Wellington made an appointment with me at half-
past seven in the morning, and some one asked me, Why,
Palmerston, how will you keep that engagement ? Oh, I said,
of course, the easiest thing in the world. I shall keep it the
last thing before I go to bed.' He knew that the real essence
of work is concentrated energy, and that people who really have
that in a superior degree by nature, are independent of the
forms and habits and artifices by which less able and active
people are kept up to their labours.
Lord Palmerston prided himself on his foreign policy on
which we cannot now pronounce a judgment. But it is not
upon this that his fame will rest. He had a great difficulty as
a Foreign Minister. He had no real conception of any mode of
life except that with which he was familiar. His idea his
fixed idea, was that the Turks were a highly improving and
civilised race, and it was impossible to beat into him their
essentially barbaric and unindustrial character. He would
hear anything patiently, but no corresponding ideas were
raised in his mind. A man of the world is not an imaginative
animal, and Lord Palmerston was by incurable nature a man of

L*ora raimcrswn. 343

the world : keenly detective in what he could realise by expe
rience — utterly blind, dark, and impervious to what he could
not so realise. Even the best part of his foreign policy was
alloyed with this defect. The mantle of Canning had descended
on him, and the creed and interests of Canning. He was most
eager to use the strong influence of England to support free
institutions — to aid ' the Liberal party ' was the phrase in tho: e
days everywhere on the Continent. And no aim could be just er
and better — it was the best way in which Enghsh strength
could be used. But he failed in the instructed imagination
and delicate perception necessary to its best attainment. He
supported the Liberal party when it was bad, and the country
unfit for it, as much as when it was good and the nation eager
for it. He did not define the degree of his sympathy, or ap
portion its amount to the comparative merits of the different
claims made on it. According to the notions of the present age,
too, foreign policy should be regulated by abstract, or at least
comprehensive, principles, but Lord Palmerston had no such
principles. He prided himself on his exploits in Europe, but
it is by his instincts in England that he will be remembered.
It was made a matter of wonder that Lord Palmerston
should begin to rule the House of Commons at seventy, and
there is no doubt that he was very awkward at first in so ruhng
it. Sir James Graham, and other judges of business manage
ment, predicted that 'the fhipg would fail,' and that a new
Government would have to be formed. But the truth is, that
though he had been fifty years in the House of Commons, Lord
Palmerston had never regularly attended it, and even still less
attended to it. His person had not been there very much, and
his mind had been there very little. He answered a question
on his own pohcy, or jna.de a speech, and then went away.
Debate was not to him, as to Mr. Pitt or Mr. Gladstone, a
matter of life and pleasure. Mr. Canning used to complain, ' I
can't get that three-decker Palmerston to bear down.' And
when he was made leader of the House, it came out that he

344 Lord Palmerston.

hardly knew, if he did know, the forms of the House. But it
was a defect of past interest, not a defect of present capacity,
He soon mastered the necessary knowledge, and as soon as
he had done so the sure sagacity of his masculine instincts
secured him an unconquerable strength.
Something we wished to say more on these great gifts, and
something, too, might be said as to the defects by which they
were alloyed. But it is needless. Brevity is as necessary in a
memorial article as in an epitaph. So much is certain, we
shall never look upon his like again. We may look on others
of newer race, but his race is departed. The merits of the new
race were not his merits ; their defects are not his. England
will never want statesmen, but she will never see in our time
such a statesman as Viscount Palmerston.

345

THE EARL OF CLARENDON.
[1870]
The late Lord Clarendon' belonged to a very small and very
remarkable class of peers. There are many peers, as the
lawyers, who have no birth, but who worked hard in their
youth ; and there are also many who have the highest birth,
and have never worked the least. There are many who have
earned rank, and many who have inherited rank. But it is
rare to find a peer who inherits his rank, and yet who has
known what it is to earn his bread. Of eminent peers there is
perhaps hardly more than one now living of whom this is true.
Lord Salisbury has indeed a right to feel that circumstances
cannot ruin him, that a revolution may come, that the House
of Lords may perish, that estates may be confiscated, but that
his abilities as a popular writer will earn him his living as they
did before. Though in a different way Lord Clarendon was of
this class also. When he was in the Excise office in Dublin, and
all through his younger life, there was but a distant probability
of his coming to the title ; and he had to work really for his
bread. And the training of his youth was probably of use to
him always. To the last week of his death he was a curiously
unremitting worker. With somewhat peculiar hours and times,
he got through more work probably in the twenty-four hours
,than most administrators of his time, and finished it all with
care and accuracy. . There were none of the gratuitous blunders
and hurried errors which mostly characterise the work of one
who is much praised for great activity ; everthing was carefully
considered and carefully executed.

346, The Earl of Clarendon.
Perhaps it is not unconnected with this praise, that there
was an indescribable repose about Lord Clarendon's manner and
appearance. No one who saw him, in his later years at least,
would ' have ever thought him a specially active man. He
seemed a very calm, sensible, and singularly courteous old
gentleman ; and it would scarcely have occurred to a casual
observer that he was an exceedingly indefatigable worker.
But those who have watched the habits of men of business in
politics and out of it will have seen many cases in which a still
and quiet man who does not seem to be doing much, and pro
bably is talking of something quite different, has in matter of
fact and at the week's end accomplished much more than the
' rushing mighty wind ; ' — the very energetic man who is never
idle or at rest and who has no thought but his office business.
A still man like Lord Clarendon has time to think what he will
do, and most incessant men are apt to act before they have
thought, and therefore land where they should not, or else lose
half their time in sailing back again.
It was, perhaps, the result of Lord Clarendon's early training
that he always took great interest in commerce, and whenever
he had the power, steadily used the agency of the Foreign
Office for its advantage. He was much too thoroughly on a
level with his time to do this by an aggressive foreign policy.
The old notion of fighting for foreign markets, or of intriguing
for their exclusive use, had so completely died out that he
cannot be praised for being exempt from it. Lord Clarendon
used only the legitimate functions for trade purposes. He was
especially eager for the collection of actual statistical informa
tion by our foreign consuls and embassies. The commencement
of their reports on these subjects, and the establishment of the
statistical department of the Board of Trade, were largely owing
to his great interest in these objects.
That Lord Clarendon showed great originality as a Foreign
Minister will hardly be contended, and some, among whom the
present writer is to be counted, have grave doubts whether ex-

The Earl of Clarendon. 347
treme originality in such an office is either possible or desirable.
Examples of great inventiveness are rare in all business, but they
are particularly rare in those kinds of business which require
the constant consent of many persons — and of these the Eng
lish foreign policy is one. Not, indeed, that at the moment of
taking his decision, the Foreign Minister is particularly tram
melled. In great cases he must consult the Prime Minister
and perhaps the Cabinet. But if these stood by themselves,
having the power of peculiar information, he could probably
mostly carry with him the minds of men occupied with near
and pressing questions, and not in general ready to master
disagreeable and uncertain detafl as to remote topics and
strange events. But the great obstacle to originality is the
English nation. In a free country a minister can only do that
which the nation is prepared for, and if he tries to do more the
nation will disown him. Within special limits, and on minor
questions, he can give an effectual guidance and control the
decision, but beyond those limits, and on vital matters, he has
no power at all. The subtle power which we call ' opinion,'
which is the product of so long a history and the offspring of so
many causes, hems him in, and he cannot do as he would ; but
if he stays, he must act as he would not. An irritable, far-seeing
originality is commonly a vice in business, and in a Foreign
Minister it would be an intolerable nuisance. It was exactly
because Lord Clarendon had a delicate instinct of the limits of
his power, that he was so truly useful and so really influential.
In one respect we are not inclined to join in the universal
praise which within the last few days Lord Clarendon has re
ceived. He has been greatly praised as a writer, and no doubt
he wrote not only with great facility but with much elegance.
But there is one great difficulty about almost all his despatches.
Ijfach sentence is clear, and no word brings you to a stop ; but
yet after a few paragraphs a careful reader suddenly pauses to
think where he is and what he has assented to. And even
when he reads the paragraphs over again he will not always

348 The Earl of Clarendon.
find it easy to be sure that he sees the limits of what was
meant and the limits of what was not meant. The limpid
flow of delicate words takes him steadily On; but where at any
precise instant he is, he cannot be very confident. For the
former intercourse of foreign Courts this sort of style had im
mense advantages ; it gave no offence, and, having no marked
sentences, left no barbed words for after irritation. And in
Lord Russell we had a warning of the evils of the opposite
style. He wrote as he used to speak in the House of Commons.
With a certain cold acumen he ' pitched ' (there is no less
familiar word adequate) ' into ' the foreign Courts, as he used
to ' pitch into ' Sir Robert Peel ; and not being used to Parlia
mentary plainness, the foreign Courts did not like it. Lord
Russell hardly conducted a foreign controversy in which the
extreme intelligibility of his words did not leave a sting
behind them. Of Lord Clarendon the very contrary may be
said — he scarcely ever left a sting, never an unnecessary one.
But, on the other hand, Lord Russell's despatches, hard and
unpleasant as they often are, never left anyone in doubt as
to their precise meaning. If they did mislead some foreign
Courts it was because they could not understand that a Minister
would blurt out all his meaning in that gauche manner ; but
to a common reader they are as plain as words can make them.
And, as in the present day, great despatches, being published,
are really addressed to whole nations of common readers as well
as to small Courts of special training, they ought to be so
written as to combine the gentle suavity that suits the one
with the unmistakeable plainness which is essential to the other.
It was exactly the gliding urbanity of Lord Clarendon's style
which pleased the Courts while it perplexed the common
people. But we do not need now to dwell at length on a point so
subordinate. It is much for a man of Lord Clarendon's
standing to have written nearly perfectly in the old style ; it
is no ground for serious blame to him that he did not invent a

The Earl of Clarendon. 349
new style. He will be remembered by posterity as a Minister
singularly suited to the transition age in which he lived, and,
as possessing both the courtly manners which are going out
and also the commercial tastes and the business knowledge
which are coming in. Some critics will, as we have said, find
fault with his want of special designs and of a far-reaching
policy. But to this generation of Englishmen this was no
fault at aU. We wish that foreign nations should, as far as
may be, solve their own problems ; we wish them to gain all
the good they can by their own exertions, and to remove all
the evil. But we do not wish to take part in their struggles.
We fear that we might mistake as to what was best ; we fear
that in so shifting a scene we might find, years hence, when the
truth is known, that we had in fact done exactly the reverse of
what we meant, and had really injured what we meant to aid.
We fear that, amid the confusion, our good might turn to evil,
and that our help would be a calamity and not a blessing.
And for an age like this Lord Clarendon was a fitting Minister,
for he had a wise sagacity which taught him to interfere as
httle, and to refrain from acting as much, as prudence rendered
possible.

35o

MR. LOWE AS CHANCELLOR OF THE
EXCHEQUER.
[1871]
' An oak,' said a great Irish orator, who did not succeed so well
as he expected in England, ' an oak should not be transplanted
at fifty.' And we believe that to be the reason why Mr. Lowe
— though in many respects he has shown great ability as
Finance Minister — upon the whole has not, as yet, succeeded
better than many much stupider men, nor as well as his genius
deserved. Mr. Lowe, before he began his finance studies, had
already ' invested ' so much mind that most men would have
had no more left. His career at Oxford was unusually long ;
he was not a mere student who took high honours. After that
he stayed several years as a working tutor, and has described
to a Royal Commission how steadily he worked for ten hours a
day as a ' coach,' and how little in consequence he accepts the
' romance ' of tuition. And the inevitable result has been that
Mr. Lowe has become a scholar, not only as young students
become such, but as men of maturer years, who mean to earn
money by it, become scholars. A certain part of the substance
of his mind is embarked in that pursuit, and cannot now be
transferred to any other. After leaving Oxford, Mr. Lowe made
himself not only an excellent English lawyer, but an admirable
general jurist. He is acquainted not only with the techni
calities of English law, but with the structure of other systems
of law, and with the principles of scientific jurisprudence. He
has studied what Bentham said law ' ought ' to be, and what

Mr. Lowe as Chancellor of the Exchequer. 351

Austin said law ' must ' be. And this too is a very exhausting
study, requiring, if the knowledge is really to be acquired as
Mr. Lowe has acquired it, and retained as he retains it, a great
'capital' of mind. No one can wonder that, when on the
verge of threescore, he was suddenly made Finance Minister, he
should not possess or display so much free and applicable mind
as some younger men. Great mind he must always display.
But he has not displayed proportionate mind — proportioned,
we mean, to the immense abilities which everyone knows he
has. After all, there is only room in even the largest head for
a certain number of thoughts, and Mr. Lowe had crowded his,
long before he had tried finance, with many dissimilar and
occupying ideas.
It is true that under our Parliamentary system, Ministers of
as mature an age as Mr. Lowe are not unfrequently transferred
from post to post, and are placed in charge of offices with whose
subjects they have no knowledge. ' No one supposes that Mr.
Cardwell knew much of military business before he was made
Secretary for War ; and yet unquestionably he has pulled the
Army Regulation Bill' better through Parliament than the
planners who contrived it, or the soldiers who will act on it.
But these transferable statesmen commonly belong to a different
class from Mr. Lowe. Like Mr. Cardwell, they are trained
Parliamentary advocates. They have learned to know the
House of Commons, and the way of putting an argument so as
to suit the House of Commons, as a long-practised advocate
knows the sort of arguments which suit a jury, and the most
telling way in which to state them to a jury. Sir Robert Peel
was once said to know how to ' dress up a case for Parliament '
better than anyone else. And in this art there are two secrets,
of which Mr. CardweU is an eminent master. The first is
always to content yourself with the minimum of general maxims
which will suit your purpose and prove what you want. By so
doing, you offend as few people as possible, you startle as few
people as possible, and you expose yourself to as few retorts as

352 Mr. Lowe as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
possible. And the second secret is to make the wohle discus
sion very uninteresting — to leave an impression that the sub
ject is very dry, that it is very difficult, that the department
had attended to the dreary detail of it, and that on the whole
it is safer to leave it to the department, and a dangerous
responsibihty to interfere with the department. The faculty of
disheartening adversaries by diffusing on occasion an oppres
sive atmosphere of business-like dulness is invaluable to a
Parliamentary statesman.
But these arts Mr. Lowe does not possess. He cannot
help being brilliant. The quality of his mind is to put every
thing in the most lively, most exciting, and most starthng
form. He cannot talk that monotonous humdrum which men
scarcely hsten to, which lulls them to sleep, but which seems
to them the ' sort of thing you would expect,' which they
suppose is ' all right.' And Mr. Lowe's mode of using general
principles not only is not that which a Parliamentary tactician
would recommend, but is the very reverse of what he would
advise. Mr. Lowe always ascends to the widest generahties.
The axiomata media, as logicians have called them — the
middle principles, in which most minds feel most reality and
on which they find it most easy to rest — have no charms for
him. He likes to go back to the bone, to the abstract, to the
attenuated, and if he left these remote principles in their
remote unintelligibihty, he would not suffer so much. But he
makes the dry bones live. He wraps them in illustrations
which Macaulay might envy. And he is all the more effective,
because he uses our vernacular tongue. The phrases that ' the
money market must take care of itself,' and that ' it was not
the business of the Treasury to cocker up the Bank of England,'
will long be remembered, and will longer impair his influence
with grave, quiet, and influential persons. Mr. Lowe startles
those who do not like to be startled, and does not compose
those who wish to be composed— those who need a little com
monplace to assure them that they are acting on safe principles

Mr. Lowe as Chancellor of the Exchequer. 353

— that they are not, according to the saying, 'lighting the
streets with fireworks.'
These defects would be felt in any new office ; but besides
these, Mr. Lowe has one — a physical one — to which he has
often himself alluded, and which hampers him beyond expres
sion. In our younger days he would have been cited in books
of ' entertaining knowledge ' as a conspicuous instance of the
' pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.' Being almost unable
to read books with his own eyes, he knows more about books than
almost anyone who has eyes. A wonderful memory, and an
intense wish to know the truth, have filled his head with know
ledge ; but though great powers may compensate for inherent
defects, none, not even the greatest, can annihilate those
defects. They are ineradicable, and the consequences of them
will come back again to lessen every victory, and to enhance
every disaster. It is so with Mr. Lowe in this case. A man
who cannot easily read figures for himself, who cannot manipu
late them for himself, who cannot throw them into various
shapes, as it were, on trial for himself, cannot be a great
financier. Our greatest financiers, Pitt, Peel, and Gladstone,
have all of them been men who did not take their figures from
others, but who spent a great — almost an excessive — labour on
the minutios of them for themselves. It is from no lack of
labour, and no lack of mind, that Mr. Lowe does not do this.
By physical constitution he is incapable of it.
Something of this is at the bottom of Mr. Lowe's occasion
ally defective dealing with small financial forms, which was the
only point that Mr. Disraeli made against him in criticising his
Budget. It is hardly possible that a man with such immense
disadvantages for business can have his tackle quite as ready
and quite as perfect as those who are more fortunate. And
Mr. Disraeli is scarcely the man who ought to have made the
taunt. No one regards these legal forms with more sublime
indifference than he does when it suits his object. ' Gentlemen
of the long robe,' he used to say when in office, ' wiU attend to
A A

354 Mr. Loive as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
these details;1 and he would have deemed it absurd that a
Minister, charged with the fate of Cabinets and the pohcy of
measures, should even consider them. And perhaps he was
right ; perhaps it would have been absurd. But what is un
necessary for one Minister cannot be incumbent on another
similar Minister. It was not for Mr. Disraeli, who has scarcely
seemed to be able to see details and technicalities (so exclu
sively did he look on them from the most elevated heights of
policy), to reproach Mr. Lowe with a few trivial, innocuous, and
excusable deficiencies in them.
The result of all this is very plain. It is that Mr. Lowe is
under peculiar difficulties in finance — that it is not a region in
which his great powers can ever show to the best advantage —
that, on the contrary, it is a region in which they will frequently
be seen to the greatest disadvantage. But there is a profound
truth in the saying that 'men of pre-eminent ability are
always safe ; ' not of course that so wide a phrase is to be taken
exactly to the letter, but that there is a ' reserve fund ' in the
highest ability which will enable it to pull through scrapes, to
remedy errors, to surmount disasters, which would ruin and
bury common men. Mr. Lowe will certainly not have an un-
chequered reign at the Exchequer; but he may reign long,.
he may do much good, and notwithstanding many failures and
defects, may leave the special stamp and impress' of his mind
on many great Budgets and important measures.

355

MONSIEUR GUIZOT.
[1874]
The announcement of the death of M. Guizot will take the
minds of many back to the cold February evenings in 1848,
when London, long used to political calm, was convulsed by
a new excitement, when we heard cried in rapid succession,
' Resignation of Guizot,' ' Flight of Louis Philippe,' ' Pro
clamation of the Republic,' and when the present chapter
of European politics began. M. Guizot lived to see many
events and many changes, but none which restored him to
pre-eminence, or which made him once more a European
personage. His name was never cried in the London streets
again. M. Guizot was in most respects exactly the opposite of
the common English notion of a Frenchman. There floats
in this country an idea that a Frenchman is alight, changeable,
sceptical being, who is fond of amusement, who is taken with
childish shows, who always wants some new thing, who is in
capable of fixed belief on any subject, and on religion especially.
But Guizot was, on the contrary, a man of fixed and intense
belief in religion, who was wholly devoted to serious study,
who probably cared as little for the frivolous side of life as any
human being who ever lived, who was stiff in manner and sedate
in politics to a fault. A Puritan born in France by mistake, is
the description which will most nearly describe him to an ordin
ary Englishman, for he had all the solidity, the solemnity, and
the energy of Puritanism, as well as some of its shortcomings.
And it is very natural that such should be his character, for he
came of a Huguenot family, who really were French Puritans.
A A2

356 Monsieur Guizot.

The French national character is much more various than it is
supposed to be according to common English ideas, and the
stern variety which M. Guizot represents is one of the most
remarkable. Indeed, in the special peculiarity which coloured his
political life, he was a most characteristic Frenchman. He
represented their excessive propensity to pohtical fear. As we
all know, a principal obstacle to good Government in France
is a deficiency in political courage. At the present moment
a very considerable part of the nation are inclined to return
to the Empire— not that they are attached to the Empire,
not that they do not see its defects, not that they are not
ashamed of its end, but because they are so impressed by the
difficulties of making any other strong Government that their
heart fails them. They want something which will save
them from the Commune, and they are disposed to run
back to what saved them from the Commune before, without
any sufficient inquiry whether a better safeguard cannot be
found, or whether this one will be effectual. The excess of
their apprehension dims their eyes and distorts their judg
ment. Guizot had no partiality for the Empire, or for anything
like the Empire, but nevertheless his whole political life rested on
a similar feeling and aimed at a similar end. He, too, was fright
ened at revolutionary excess ; his father perished in the first
revolution. He was born in 1787, and consequently began his
intellectual life about 1800, just when the reaction against the
revolution was the strongest, when its evil was most exaggerated,
and when its good was most depreciated. A strong, serious un
original mind— and such was M. Guizot's— which receives such
penetrating impressions early in life generaUy holds them on, in
one shape or another, till the end. And so it was in this case.
Guizot was devoted through life to what he called the ' Con
servative ' policy ; he was always endeavouring to avert revolu
tion ; he was incessantlv in dread of tumult ; he saw attack and
commotion everywhere. But he had no notion what was the
real counterforce in France to the revolutionary force. We

Monsieur Guizot. 357
 — —  i  __^
now know from experience that that force, though it calls itself
the' force of numbers, can be controlled by appealing to
numbers ; that the peasant proprietors, who are the majority
in France, hate nothing so much and fear nothing so much ;
that they think revolution may take from them their property,
their speck of land, their ' all ; ' and, therefore, they will resist
revolution at any time and on any pretence, and wiU support
any power which they think can prevail against it. But
Guizot did not perceive this great force. His great recipe for
preventing revolution was not by extending the suffrage, but
by restricting it. He did not see that the masses in France,
having property of their own, were only too likely to be timid
about property. His scheme was to resist revolution by keep
ing the suffrage so high that it included only a few in the towns,
that it scarcely included any of the masses in the country.
He proposed to found the throne of constitutional liberty
on a select bourgeoisie — few in number, moderate in disposi
tion, easily conciliated by their interests. The revolution of
1848 might have been avoided if he had been willing a httle
to extend the suffrage, but he would not extend it. The
proposals then made for so doing seem now trivial and un
important, but Guizot sincerely believed that they would ruin
the country ; sooner than grant them he incurred a revolution.
He was so perturbed by the excessive dread of revolution that
he could not see what was the true power with which to oppose
it — that he threw away a mighty power — that he relied solely
on a weak one — that he caused the calamity he was always
fearing. It is this great misfortune which will always colour any re
trospect of M. Guizot's career, and render it a melancholy one.
In many minor ways he accomplished much good. As a
minister of pubhc instruction he did much — much, perhaps,
which no other man at that time could have done- — for educa
tion in France. When ambassador in England he did much
-to prevent a war wbich was then imminent, and which M,
Thiers would have hurried on ; through his whole career, by

358 Monsieur Guizot.

a lofty scrupulosity, he did much to raise the low level of
morality in French public life. As an orator he had great
triumphs at the tribune, though his eloquence is too little
business-like and too academical for our English taste. But
notwithstanding these triumphs and these services, his political
career must ever be held to be a complete failure, for he failed
in the work of his life — in the aim he had specially chosen as
his own. His mission — he would have accepted the word — was
to avert revolution, and he caused revolution. Nor is the
failure one which was slight in its effects, or which history can
forget. On the contrary, every page of present French poli
tics bears witness to its importance. No French Republic and
no French Monarchy can now have nearly as much strength or
nearly as much chance of hving as the Monarchy of July which
Guizot destroyed.
Of his literary productions, this is not the place to speak.
Nothing can be more unlike ordinary Parisian literature than
they are. That literature generally reminds its readers of the
old saying, ' That the French would be the best cooks in Europe
if they had got any butcher's meat.' Of French cookery nothing
can be more libellous ; but of much French literature it would
be quite true to say that the writers would be the first in Europe
if they only knew anything about, their subject. The power of
expression has been cultivated to an extreme perfection, but
unfortunately the writers have neglected the further task of
finding anything true and important to say. But M. Guizot's
works are the reverse of all this. A work of more solid erudition
than the ' History of French Civilisation ' was never written by
a German professor, and few Germans have ever written any
thing so accurately matured, and so perfectly mastered. In
this respect he contrasts admirably with his great rival. There
used to be a story— a just story in the main we beheve— of a
critic who betted that he would find five errors in any five pages
of Thiers' great history of the Revolution. Even his warmest
admirers indeed have never contended that M. Thiers had a

Monsieur Guizot. 359

scrupulous love of truth, was a careful collector of evidence, or
a fine judge of it when collected. But M. Guizot was all three.
The labour expended on his books must have been very great,
and much more than it would be now, for he has himself
helped his successors — certainly to arrive at his own conclu
sions with greater ease, and perhaps also to arrive at improved
conclusions. From our peculiar view, as an economical statesman, M.
Guizot has, we are sorry to say, no title to respect. He and
his fellow-ministers under Louis Philippe left it to the Empire
to improve the material condition of the French people. He
did little to promote railways, and he objected to the English
treaty of 1860 because it was an approach to Free-trade, because
it would enable ' the English manufacturers, after an English
commercial crisis, to export their goods to France and to swamp
the French manufacturers.' The real principles of Free-trade
had never penetrated into his mind, any more than into the
minds of Louis Philippe's other ministers, and partly on that
account France now looks back to the time of the Empir as to
the ' golden age ' of wealth and industry, and not to the time
of the free Monarchy.
We are sorry to have to write so much of blame of one
whose character all Europe respected, and some of whose virtues
were so valuable to France. But it is one perhaps painful con
sequence of prolonged old age that a man's character at death is
estimated with perfect partiality. Those who most hated him
and those who most loved him are mostly passed away or super
seded in the scene of affairs. And if, as in M- Guizot's case,
the good which he did was mostly one of temporary moral im
pression, and the evil which he caused one of lasting political
result, there will be always more blame than praise to say.
The impalpable virtues can hardly be described and are mostly
forgotten, but the indelible consequences of the political errors
are fixed on the face of the world ; they cannot be overlooked,
and they must be spoken of.

360

PROFESSOR CAIRNES.
[1875]
We cannot attempt at this moment to give anything like a full
estimate of Mr. Cairnes's character, either as a political econo
mist or a political writer. The first few days after the death of
one so eminent and so peculiar, are never favourable to such a
task ; and the difficulty is always greater when, as in this case,
he wrote much on topics on which public opinion is still divided.
We can only attempt a few descriptive words.
The characteristic of Mr. Cairnes's mind was a tenacious
grasp of abstract principle. He applied to the subjects ofhis
life exactly the, sort of mind with which a great judge applies
the principles of law to the facts before him ; and he applied
it under more difficult circumstances, for, in the principles of
positive law, a judge can absolutely be guided by previous
precedent, whereas a thinker in the moral sciences has to make
his principles, as well as to apply them — 'to find,' at least
often, ' the dream as well as the interpretation.' This quality
is not common in any age, but it is particularly uncommon
now. The habit of popular writing — a habit which is apt to
grow on all who deal with political and moral subjects, for it is
only by being in some degree popular that you will be read or
can be influential-^-has a contrary influence. It generates a
habit of leaving out difficulties, of saying that which is easy
rather than that which is true, that which is clear rather than
that which is exact. There are a great many parts of political
and economical truth which are in their nature very complex
just as many parts of science are so, and, in these cases, extreme

Professor Cairnes. 36 i

easiness of comprehension in a writer is a quahty to be sus
pected ; for, probably, it arises from his leaving out a part-
frequently the most difficult part— of the subject. Mr. Cairnes
never does this; he takes his readers through the subject,
just as it seemed to him to be. He did not make it, artificially
easy, or attempt to please them by lessening its intricacies.
And he showed himself even more careless of popularity in
another way. The curiosity on such subjects is now far greater
than the capacity for gratifying it ; severe and abstract reason
ing is necessary before they can be mastered, and there are
many who dislike severe and abstract reasoning. Accordingly,
something else is often put forward, as if it would do as well.
' Figures ' are used instead of reasoning. But, as Mr. Cairnes
always contended, the figures of an instance do not of them
selves prove anything beyond that instance. They are most
valuable in illustrating a distinct argument, but that argument
must accompany them. But, as the argument is often more
difficult than the illustration, it is apt not to be used, and
' political economy 7 is in danger of dissolving into ' statistics,'
which is much as if anecdotes of animals were substituted for
the science of biology.
' The constant rigour with which Mr. Cairnes withstood these
temptations, has given his writings a very peculiar character.
There is a Euclidian precision about them which fits them for
a tonic for the mind, and which makes much other writing
seem but ' soft stuff' after we have been reading them ; — at any
rate, you feel that you have seen, in all hkelihood, the worst
of the subject. You have been in company with one who did
not spare himself anything, and who despised readers that
wished to be spared anything. Reading his works is like
Jjving on high ground ; the ' thin air of abstract truth ' which
they give you, braces the mind just as fine material air does the
body. The wonder that this incessant intellectual vigour was
displayed for years by a wasting invalid, hardly able to move,

362 Professor Cairnes.

and often in the most intense pain, has long been familiar to
his friends, and has now been published to the world. Much
as those who read his writings valued his life, they felt almost
forbidden to grieve when they heard of his death'; for it
seemed selfish to wish that their instruction should be pur
chased at the cost of such pain as his. Why a mind like his
should have been created, and then the power to use it at all
fully withheld, is one of the mysteries of which in this world
we have no solution.
By far the most remarkable of Mr. Cairnes's writings, in
our judgment, are his ' Logic of Pohtical Economy ' and his
essays on some of the ' Unsettled Questions,' recently pub
lished. In the first he defines better, as we think, than
any previous writer, the exact sort of science which political
economy is, the kind of reasoning which it uses, and the nature
of the relation which it, as an abstract science, bears to the
concrete world. Those who know how many different opinions
have been held on this, and how difficult a part of the subject
it is as a rule, prize, we think, most highly what Mr. Cairnes
has said on it. In his recent essays on ' Unsettled Questions '
in pohtical economy, Mr. Cairnes takes up the hardest parts
of the subject and discusses them with a consistent power — it
might almost be said with an enjoyment — which is scarcely
given to any one who now remains to us. As the questions
with which he deals are ' unsettled,' it would be premature to
assume the truth of his conclusions ; but this may be said, that
all who hereafter write on these problems, not only ought to
study what he has said, but also to reply to it, if they do not
agree with it, a process which— if we may speak from some
experience — they will not find at all easy.
We do not mean that Mr. Cairnes has conclusively solved
these problems ; there are several on which our opinions are
not his. And all will agree that the recluse life which his
health compelled him to lead, deprived him of information,
and especially of a sort of easy familiarity with the course of

Professor Cairnes. 363
business, which the greatest ability could not wholly make up
for. But under such circumstances the wonder is, not that
what he did was sometimes imperfect, but that he was able to
do anything. We have spoken of Mr. Cairnes principally as an economist,
partly because that is more especially our own province, but
partly also because we think that was the capacity in which
his powers were best fitted to work, and by which he will be
most remembered. But his other writings have much and
characteristic merit, though this is not the time to attempt an
estimate of them. In the presence of great difficulties, silence
is ' better than many words ; ' and there are few greater diffi
culties than that a mind so strong and pure should have been
so thrust aside from life and subjected to so much pain.

364

MR. DISRAELI AS A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS.
[1876]
Nothing could be more out of place or premature than to
review as yet Mr. Disraeli's career. That career is not yet
ended. But some remarks may be made on him as a member
of the House of Commons, in which he has sat for forty years,
and where he obtained his political eminence and power. That
part of his career is certainly over, for he has chosen to leave
its peculiar scene.
During this long period Mr. Disraeli has filled four parts.
First — that of a pplitical free-lance or outsider. And it was
in this that he first obtained fame. The best opportunity for
such a man is, when parties are breaking up ; when secret
feelings are in many minds ; when cautious men do not know
what to say. The latter part of Sir Robert Peel's ministry-
was such a period. From the time when he became con
spicuously and obviously a Free-trader, there was always a
secret anger in the Conservative ranks which craved for an
outlet, but which no ' regular man ' could express. This Mr.
Disraeli spoke out. From the time of Mr. Milne's sugar
amendment, in 1844, till the completion of the disruption of
the Tories, in 1846, Mr. Disraeli poured epigram upon epigram
aDd innuendo on innuendo on the ' organised hypocrisy ' of his
professed leader ; and there is no doubt that Sir Robert Peel
suffered exceedingly under the smart. He was, in every way,
a most sensitive man, and he was especially sensitive in all
that related to the House of Commons, which was the scene

Mr. Disraeli as a»Member of 'the House oj 'Commons. 365
of his life, and to his position there. But now he was, for
the first time in his hfe, exposed to a style of attack to which
he had not the sort of power to reply, but which was for the
moment the most effective .style of any ; and he was pained
accordingly. No 'free-lance,' perhaps, has ever achieved so
much and so suddenly as Mr. Disraeli then did. Upon this
part of his career an historical examiner would give him
first-rate marks — much greater than he would give to any
competitor. The next, and far the longest, of Mr. Disraeli's Parlia
mentary parts is that of Leader of Opposition. And in this he
showed eminent mind — not equal to that of his free-lance
period, but still very great. His powers of epigram and
amusing nonsense gave infinite aid, year after year, to a party
that was to be beaten. And, after his fashion, he showed a
high magnanimity and conscience in not opposing or hamper
ing the Ministry on great questions — say of foreign policy,
when his so doing would hurt the country. But this praise
must end here. On all minor Parliamentary questions, Mr.
Disraeli has simply no conscience at all. He regards them as
a game — as an old special pleader regarded litigation, to be
played so as to show your skill, and so as to win, but with
out any regard to the consequences. Indeed, Mr. Disraeli, at
bottom, beheves that they have no consequences — that all is
settled by questions of race, ' Caucasian or Semitic,' and that it
is simple pedantry in such things to be scrupulous. And still
worse than this, which is an amusing defect after all, and
excusable — (for there are many deeper issues and causes than
are dreamed of in Parliamentary philosophy) — Mr. Disraeli
often showed in Opposition a turn for nonsense, which was not
amusing. He has many gifts, but he has not the gift of think
ing out a subject, and when he tries to produce grave thought
he only makes platitudes. And some of his ' mares' nests,'
like his difficulty in the Franco-German War, arising out of
our guarantee to the Saxon provinces of Prussia, have been

366 Mr. Disraeli as a Member of the House of Commons.
almost incredible, and could only have been discovered by a mind
which, with many elements of genius, has also an element of
hare-brained recklessness. Drearier hearing, or drearier read
ing, than Mr. Disraeli's Opposition harangues, when they were
philosophical, can hardly anywhere be found. But still, though
with these and other defects, he did lead the Tory Opposition
through long melancholy years, when one did not know who
else could have or who would have led it.
The next of Mr. Disraeli's Parliamentary parts was that of
Leader of a Ministry in a minority, where again he was first-
rate. He showed sometimes — in 1852, in 1858, and in 1866
— a nimbleness, a tact, and dexterity far surpassing, probably,
anything that Parliament has ever seen of a similar kind. He
' hit the House ' — to use a phrase which Burke used of a like
but very inferior person — he ' hit the House between the wind
and the water,' and cut with a light witticism knots insoluble
by solemn argument. If, by a series of ' selections,' nature had
made a man so fit for this kind of work, it would have been a
marvel. But Mr. Disraeli drifted into it, as if by chance, from
quite another calling and another sphere.
Lastly, Mr. Disraeli has been lately, and was but yester
day, Leader of a Ministry in a majority. And here there was a
wonderful contrast. So far from being first-rate, he was ninth-
rate. He seemed to resemble those guerilla commanders who,
having achieved great exploits with scanty and ill-trained
troops, nevertheless are utterly at a loss and fail when they are
placed at the head of a first-rate army. In 1867 he made a
minority achieve wonderful things, but in 1876, when he had
the best majority— the most numerous and obedient— since
Mr. Pitt, he did nothing with it. So far from being able to
pass great enactments, he could not even despatch ordinary
business at decent hours. The gravest and sincerest of Tory
members— men who hardly murmur at anything— have been
heard to complain that it was hard that, after voting so well
and doing so little, they should be kept up so very late. The

Mr. Disraeli as a Member ofthe House of Commons. 367
Session just closed will be known in Parliamentary annals as
one of the least effective or memorable on record, and yet one
of the most fatiguing. And this collapse is no accident in Mr.
Disraeli's career, but a thing essentially characteristic of the
man, and which might have been predicted by any one who had
analysed the traits which he had shown before. If we may be ,'
pardoned the metaphor — though his chaff is exquisite, his \
wheat is poor stuff. The solid part of his mind — the part fit
for regulating bills and clauses — is as inferior to that of an
ordinary man of decent ability, as the light and imaginative
part is superior. An incessant and almost avowed inaccuracy
pervades him. And if you ask such a man to regulate the
stupendous business of Parliament — to arrange, and if possible
effect, the most complex agenda that ever was in the world —
failure is inevitable. It is like entering a light hack for a
ploughing- match. In the last Parliamentary situation, Mr.
Disraeli has scarcely seemed to be what he used to be, and this
because that situation was the one for which he was the least
suited, and the last in which he should have been placed.
As so often happens, having obtained the ambition of his life
— to be a Minister with power — he found he had only got
where he ought not to be — he found that he could not wield
the power.
And two things have been common to Mr. Disraeli all
through these positions. In them all he has charmed the
House, and has given debates in which he took part a kind
of nice literary flavour which other debates had not, and which
there is no one left to give to them. He was the best representa
tive whom the ' Republic of Letters ' ever had in Parliament,
for he made his way by talents — especially by a fascina
tion of words — essentially literary. And on the other hand,
thpugh he charmed Parliament, he never did anything more.
He had no influence with the country. Such a vast power
over Englishmen as has been possessed by Lord Palmerston
and by Mr. Gladstone was out of his way altogether. Between

368 Mr. Disraeli as a Member of the House of Commons.
Mr. Disraeli and common Englishmen there was too broad a
gulf — too great a difference. He was simply unintelligible to
them. ' Ten miles from London,' to use the old phrase, there
is scarcely any real conception of him. His mode of regarding
Parliamentary proceedings as a play and a game, is incompre
hensible to the simple and earnest English nature. Perhaps he
has gained more than he has lost by the English not underr
standing him. At any rate, the fact remains that the special
influence of this great gladiator never passed the walls of the
amphitheatre : he has ruled the country by ruling Parliament,
but has never had any influence in Parliament reverberating
from the nation itself.

the end.

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